In Which I Complain About Sleep Again

(Photos by Sean which I've thrown in here to give a little light-heartedness amongst my stream of complaints, but don't correlate to the text beyond the fact that both are about my children.)

Sigh. Sleeping is all messed up again. I hardly have any control over it, why do I let it affect me so?

We had been doing so well, too. For several weeks, they'd been sleeping until 7 or 7:30, making that about a 12-hour night! Even if the nap was just an hour and a half each day (I'm still waiting on the regular 2-3 hour naps everyone promised when they switched to one nap...), I'll take a nice long stretch at night. Especially since I seem physically incapable of going to bed before midnight (yes, you don't have to point out that I'm holding a complete double standard when I expect my kids to sleep well when I don't. I know it.) so that meant I got more sleep too. We had gotten into a really good rhythm and I really liked it.

Meet One-Shoed Dash, the famed boxer. Here he is displaying his amazing feinting technique.

But Sean's parents and brother came into town for a couple days (posts to come!) late last week and the schedule got all screwy. They stayed up late, were woken up too early, had an interrupted nap, and now they can't seem to get their sleep groove back on (don't worry Bradleys, I dont' blame you). Every morning starts at 6:20 or earlier (how I shudder when I see the clock face begin with a 5) and every morning I hope they go back to sleep. And every morning they don't. Instead of 12-hour nights, they get 10 to 10.5 and the difference is definitely not made up in their naps.

Meet One-Shoed Liam, the brilliant but absent-minded doctor. "Where'd I put that stethoscope again?"

This problem is certainly exacerbated by the fact that's there's two of them. In all the books, they claim that twins are going to be awesome sleepers because they learn to sleep through the noise of their twin. BZZZ, wrong. Take Monday morning, for instance. Liam wakes up at 5:50 crying, a sure sign he's still tired and wants to go back to sleep. It takes 20-30 minutes though for him to do so. 20 minutes of Liam crying off and on wakes up Dash, who is babbling, a good sign (though not certain) that he's up for good. I cross my fingers that maybe he'll still go back to sleep; maybe Liam's crying will be contagious and make Dash fall asleep, too. After an age of crying, Liam finally falls silent. Asleep, perhaps? I think. Dash is still babbling and starts talking loudly, flopping all around his crib. After ten minutes, I hear Liam give a whimper- he's back awake. The sun's up by now so I throw in the towel. After beating up my pillow first. It's frustrating business.

So that's where all the milk went.

I'm trying to restore their schedule but so far it's not taking. But even if they did, it'd just change anyway, since Sean starts his OB/GYN rotation next week, which has crazy hours. So they'll probably wake up with his alarm no matter my efforts. Not to mention that daylight savings is around they corner. What once was a blessed gift of an extra hour of sleep is now the bane of my existence. The kids don't know to sleep for an extra hour. So now they'll wake up at 5 instead of 6. [Retch] I've been wracking my brain to figure out a way to convince this nation to get rid of this silly daylight savings practice. No luck yet.

Huff. I needed to get that out of my system. Hopefully things will improve soon. They need more sleep and I need them to sleep. Maybe I'll ask them one more time, real real sweet with lots of kisses. Maybe then they'll agree. Fingers crossed.