Middle of the Night

So Nick got sick and miserable two nights ago and decided he would learn how to get out of his bed. And he did. A bunch of times. The first night a child learns to get out of a crib and bedroom is a bad one for parents, who may begin to feel like they will be standing holding a door knob for the rest of eternity.

I was exhausted. It was the middle of the night. Nick had ibuprofen and water in his system. I laid down on his toddler bed (which he doesn't want to use yet) and eventually went to sleep. Nick was playing with dinosaurs in the living room. Terrible, I know. I decided I would have a better plan the next night and would brew a pot of coffee in the wee hours if that's what it took, but Nick was tuckered out after the previous night and stayed in bed sleeping for 13 hours. It would have been longer if we didn't have to take Xander to school.

Especially with our second child, I am No Good at middle-of-the-night care. I simply fall asleep. If I had a mug of coffee during that time, I'd wreck my chances to get any more sleep but I'd be cheerful and competent. Probably a worthwhile trade-off for those really bad nights. This calls to mind a time when I was about four or five years old, traveling with my parents, and they stayed up with me for quite a long while, walking me around the house, giving me coffee and juice and sympathy and other things...because I had a bad case of constipation. Thank you, Mom and Dad!

I wanted to put a picture of Nick in or near his bed at the top of this post, but after browsing my photos I realized almost all of the pictures I have of Nick are him eating or pushing the wheelbarrow. :)

We got to Skype with Erik this afternoon, which was fun and, strangely, a relief. It's been five days and will be five more before we see him in person. Nick and Erik had a game of catch via the computer: Erik would say, "Throw it, throw it!" and Nick would throw his ball, grin, run after it, look back at Erik, and bring it to the screen. They did this for a long time. Nick got a little upset later when Daddy wouldn't take the water squirter through the computer so they could play squirt gun.