When he doesn't sleep, no one sleeps

Otter has been having some restless nights. We can't quite figure out if it's illness (coughing, pain, tummy discomfort being some of the choices?) waking him, or bad dreams, or what. Not every night, but two out of three, he wakes at 2 or 3 or (as today) 4 am. If we're blessed, some shh-shh-snuggling puts him to sleep; if we're just lucky some randomly chosen meds and rocking and back-rubbing helps him go back down.

If we're not so lucky, he doesn't go back down quickly. Like last night.

From 4 to 4:45 we tried all of the above--no luck. Then from 4:45 -5:15 we tried nursing (which I as a pregnant tired woman try to avoid when it's "ni-night' time, as it wakes me up even if it helps him go back down), and achieved nothing but the revelation that whenever Otter unlatched he'd go straight back to wailing. Clearly no long-term soothing effect was being achieved.

So my glorious husband groggily took wailing child into the living room. I cuddled up under a warm blanket and listened for ten minutes of faint wailing from the other half of the apartment. I dozed off after it seemed to have stopped.

When I woke at 7, Otter had fallen asleep on the sofa on G while watching the Zoe's Dance Moves DVD. According to G, every time he'd been sure Otter was asleep, he'd tried to turn off the DVD, only to have the child's eyes pop open and a voice wail "Zoe! Zoe's Dance Moves!", either weakly or loudly, depending on how far asleep he'd been. Eventually G gave up hope of sleep without a Sesame Street soundtrack, and left the thing on.

So when I came in at 7, G had to get up to go to work, and quickly, and I wanted to make G a good lunch. So we tried to transfer Otter back to bed--no luck. He woke up.

In hopes of smoothing over the morning rockiness of having to take off his PJs when he wanted to wear them to show his whole daycare, I let Otter pick his own clothes. He kept on the bright pink socks he'd worn to bed, but accessorized them with a light (but bright, not pastel) pink shirt and bright pink pants. The overall effect was that of a toddler who'd been dressed by a lawn flamingo.

So my all pink boy went fairly cheerily off to daycare, where I suspect he had a rocky morning from not enough sleep. I crawled home to bed for a quick nap and then to work, feeling as if I have rocks and fuzz in my head and sand in my eyes.

It says a lot for how much I love Otter and how charming and joyful a child he actually is (and how much co-parenting G does!) that I still loved talking to Otter while I took him in to daycare, and that even now I miss him and want to hug him.

Not enough to pick him up two and a half hours early though. (If we could win the lottery and hire a house-cleaning service and a personal assistant, maybe that'd be different.)

Maybe a half an hour early... but I do need to get more done first.