Sleepless nights

Last night was one of the worst nights in a very, very long time.

Imagine this:

10:25pm, go to sleep.

1:30am, Isabelle needs to eat.

2am, go back to sleep.

4am, Carter is crying. Soothe him, put him back to sleep.

4:20am, Carter is screaming. Change a poopy diaper, tell him I'm not coming back, put him back to sleep.

5am, Carter is crying again.

5:20am, Carter is still crying. Go get him, bring him to bed with me. Tell him firmly it's time to go nite-nite, mamma's tired, mamma is going to sleep. Turn off light. Carter cuddles, but is restless and irritated for some reason. This goes on for 10 minutes.

5:30am, put Carter back in his bed, kicking and screaming.

6am, Carter quiets down and falls to sleep and finally, so can I.

8am, good morning! It's time to wake up! Both children are awake....AGAIN!

I do have to say, this was much more frustrating than having a newborn and expecting to be awake every 3-4 hours. This nightmare was unplanned, and so frustrating in the middle of the night. What do you do with a screaming toddler at 4am? I refuse to let him get up for the day. That is a bad habit that WILL NOT start. And how do I sleep when I can hear him crying????

He was very cute before all the screaming began. I was holding him and telling him how everyone was sleeping, mee-mee, bell-bell, daddy (who was actually gone to work already, but at the time telling Carter that daddy was sleeping seemed like a powerful trick). But Carter had other things on his mind.

Like naming everything he could think of....car, mee-mee's ball, juice, hot, cold, mama, daddy, bell-bell, eyes, nose, ouch, hat (the spiderman hat from Grandma Kay that will be the death of me. He wants to take it EVERYWHERE, even to bed.)...and on and on and on.

At 4am when it's just Carter and I, and he wants to talk to me and tell me everything he knows, and I have his full undivided attention, who wouldn't want to listen to what he has to say????

Maybe this is all my fault. For entertaining him when he wanted to talk instead of sleep. Or for going back in a 3rd time after telling him I wasn't coming back, and then bringing him to bed with me (which I will never do again, but desperate times call for desperate measures...okay, maybe I wasn't desperate, but golly gee, I sure felt like I was going to die! SLEEP, SLEEP, all I wanted was my sleep!!!). And when he wails for mamma while he's crying desperately, sometimes I cave.....

Thank goodness it's my day off.

Thank goodness I can take them to daycare.

Thank goodness I can get some rest.

My co-workers will not like me one bit on Wednesday if this happens again tomorrow night.