Notes from the Nights

I fully intended to write more last night, but the cries of my younger son from his bed put an end to my blogging. It seems the cold that Josiah and then I picked up has now hit David full force, and last night was a--shall we say?--miserable night. I had utmost sympathy for him because my throat was so sore during the night that if I was a two year-old, I know I would have cried as much as David did...but the fact that I was literally feeling his pain didn't make it easier to relieve it. Poor boy. He was so tired but kept waking up and crying because of his throat, and the medicine I gave him didn't seem to help much. The only thing that comforted him was snuggling next to me (and next to Jeff when my wonderful husband took a turn on David duty) which demanded that I lie on my right side with David against me. Being pregnant and forced to lie on one side all night is less than desirable; but every time I tried to shift in the bed, David woke up and cried. I actually felt fairly calm and patient and compassionate during the night; but this morning has been harder: having a headache, being exhausted, and dealing with two boys who are tired, don't feel well, and are just plain grumpy. I take comfort in the old saying: this too shall pass!

Remember the childhood game musical chairs? It seems that we've been playing a lot of that in our home these days, except instead of chairs that we're switching, it's beds. We're a pretty traditional family. The boys each have a bed which they normally sleep in, and Jeff and I sleep in ours...we're not much into the family bed thing. However, it's been different recently. Two nights ago when I went upstairs, I looked for Josiah and found him in our bed, which is actually not too unusual at this stage of life because as the boys have gotten used to sharing a room, we told Josiah that if David was being too noisy as he falls asleep, Josiah could go to our room and we would take him back to his bed later. So Josiah was in our bed on this particular night, and I looked for David in his bed but couldn't find him. Hmm, where could he be? Oh, there he is...in Josiah's bed...hanging precariously off the edge (David's bed has side rails, but Josiah's doesn't) and looking like he might fall into a big basket of train pieces any minute!

Earlier in the day, Jeff had taken a nap in the boys' room with them so all three were in there...until Josiah woke up crying from his sore throat and I brought him down to the living room couch where he laid for a while, then weakly asked if I could snuggle with him there. Well, what mother can resist that invitation? :)

Then last night, for a while Jeff and Josiah slept in our room, and David and I "slept" (using that term loosely!) in his bed...then Jeff put Josiah back in his own bed, and Jeff took a turn in David's bed (because when Jeff woke up in the night, discovered I wasn't in our bed, and found me in David's bed, he said, "This is not good for your back. Why don't you let me stay with David?" That's true love!) while I slept in my own bed...then I went back to David's bed while Jeff slept in our bed and Josiah stayed in his own bed (and somehow slept through all David's painful whimpers). I'm not sure when we're going to have a night of everybody sleeping in their own bed the whole night through! Well, in any case, I'm grateful for so many comfortable places to lie down and rest! :)

Two nights ago, Josiah got out of bed to get a drink in the bathroom; and as he looked out the bathroom window, he found the Big Dipper in the sky! That was the first time he had ever found it by himself. Know where he learned the most about the Big Dipper? From a Jay Jay the Jet Plane movie we borrowed from the library. I can't even take credit that my excellent homeschooling skills are teaching him the constellations at this young age! :)

Going through the whole bedtime routine of getting the boys in bed and asleep has been a little difficult recently. I am so grateful that on nights when I'm about to lose it, I can say, "Jeff, help!" And he takes over for me. One thing that I realized recently is that I need to find the joy in going through the bedtime routine with the boys. Instead of it being one more task on my to-do list that I need to accomplish so I can cross it off and then get busy with "me time," I need to delight in the moments of reading stories, hearing prayers, singing lullabies, helping David change his clothes, helping them brush their teeth, watching them be silly, etc. Sometimes my fatigue by the end of the day makes me want to rush through it all so I can then collapse, but it seems that the more I push them to go faster, the slower they actually go! If I can change my attitude and approach the going-to-bed routine as a happy part of my day (rather than "well, the boys love these stories, but reading this is the last thing I'd like to be doing now!"), I think things will go much smoother for all of us.

I have the nagging thought in the back of my head that there was more that I wanted to say about nights around here, but I'm so tired I can't think straight right now. Probably as soon as I press "publish post," the thoughts will tumble back into my head and I'll wish I had written about them! :)