My nose can't breathe (and other things keeping me up at night)

I thought (mistakenly) that when my kids started sleeping through the night that it might, I don't know....stick. Little did I know that the sleeping through the night thing is made up of many different stages and steps. There is the infant sleeping through the night phase (when we reached it, I thought we had arrived!). That is the only one I was aware of. But, we have hit many others since then. Currently, we are experiencing the wearing-big-boy-underwear-and-panties-(respectively)-phase.

As a side note, I considered not blogging about this for fear that it would scar my children later in life to know that their potty habits had been the subject of such a public forum. I have made peace with that possibility.

Evan decided a couple of weeks ago that he was done with the overnight pull-up. We were very excited about that development. Given his VERY sound sleeping habits, we have not pushed the issue because seriously - the child does NOT wake up for anything once he has fallen asleep. He has done great with the sleeping through the night without accidents (for the most part). However, when Evan decided it was time for him to cast aside the night-time pull-up, Miss Monkey-See-Monkey-Do decided that she would take that developmental step as well. At first I thought it was a good idea. And this week has been better than last. (I can finally speak of it without weeping.) But last week - OH the wet sheets and and the amount of laundry. We finally reached the pinnacle of my frustration last weekend when the McCarthys were here for a visit.

See, whenever we have overnight guests, they get Pressley's bed. Pressley then gets a choice between sleeping with her brother or sleeping in the playroom/office on the twin bed with trundle. She always chooses the twin with trundle. Which means Evan always decides he will also sleep in the playroom/office with her. This time, we had World War III over who got to sleep on the bottom bed (the trundle). We flipped a coin. Pressley lost. Then she lost it. Melt down city. So Corin proposed a compromise: that they would both sleep on the trundle with their heads at opposite ends. I thought it sounded like a terrible idea. Just beggin' to have 17 trips up the stairs to settle the he's-kicking-me-she's-in-my-space kind of arguments. But, they went right to sleep. Hallelujah. Will wonders never cease?

However. Pressley managed to wet the trundle bed around 2 a.m. Which meant she got moved to Evan's bed, Evan got moved to the "top bed" and I got to go back to bed without changing sheets in the middle of the night. Oh, but wait. There's more. When we woke up the next morning, Pressley had wet Evan's bed and Evan had wet the twin. For those of you who are math-challenged, like me, that's 2 kids, 3 wet beds, 1 night. Yep. Enough to drive a mommy mad.

Like I said, the wetting has slowed down significantly this week (I would say stopped, but why would I tempt fate?). But Pressley has a stuffy nose. She's not sick. And during the day, she seems fine. But at night, she likes to wake up in the middle of the night crying and shouting for "Mommy....MOMMY!" When I go to her room to check on her, she says "Mommy....my nose can't breeeeathe!" I try to get her to blow. She refuses. I get cranky. And on it goes.

Now, you would think that I would have the utmost sympathy for this condition. After all, I am a person who once asked my mom (when I was in college) if you are supposed to be able to breathe out of both nostrils at the same time. Because to that point in my life, I had not experienced such a luxury. Once my mom stopped looking like she could just cry, she set about finding the ENT who would ultimately perform the sinus surgery (during my senior year spring break) that would change my life. Who knew so many smells existed and that one can, indeed, breathe out of both nostrils at once!!

I do have sympathy. Empathy even. But can't a woman catch a break? When your kids are 3-1/2 and 5-1/2, aren't you supposed to get an uninterrupted night's sleep every once in a while??

Oh, and last night? You know what woke me in the middle of the night? "Mommy, I'm afraid of Swiper." Yes. Swiper the fox. From her favorite cartoon. Dora. Dern you, Dora.

"Sweetie, Swiper is not real. He's just on Dora. Go to sleep."
"Will you sleep with me, Mommy?"
"Of course I will." Because really. Several hours of consecutive sleep are highly over-rated. Right?

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.