"My Toenails Hurt"

I believe the Stork made a mistake. He surely must've dropped off the wrong baby. How can he give a baby that DOES NOT like to sleep to a mother who cherishes her sleep as much as the air she breathes? It must be some kind of sick joke.

Well, wrong baby or not, she is MY baby now. Yes, I'm talking about Kathryn. You know, the child who does not sleep. 

Ever since she was a little bitty baby, she hasn't slept well. The other moms on the playground used to brag about their precious ones, who were sleeping through the night by 3 months of age... my little angel didn't sleep through the night until she was 18 months old, and the first time she did it scared me so bad (cause I was SURE she was dead!) that I sat up the whole next night, watching her sleep to make sure she was still breathing. 

Well, not much has changed. She still requires very little sleep. Much like her father. 

My children have both been warned, on numerous occasions, NOT to wake me up unless they're bleeding from both of their eyeballs. So it's surprising to me how often Kathryn will tempt fate by coming into my room, almost nightly, after I have fallen asleep to tell me:

"My throat hurts" or "my stomach hurts" or "my mouth tastes funny" or "I heard something" or "I'm hot" or "I'm cold" or even, yes, it's true, "my toenails hurt" (apparently I'd trimmed them to short once and the pain was keeping her awake). Ohhhhhhhhhhh Kathryn. 

And when my children are coughing or urping in the middle of the night, I am not like Mary Poppins, gliding in to serve them up some medicine with a spoon full of sugar. I try. I really do try (remember I'm trying to be more like Caroline Ingalls here people!) to have sympathy and be Sweet Mommy, but it's so hard for me at 3 a.m. I'm really MUCH nicer during daylight hours.

So last night Kathryn came into my room at 11 p.m. and woke me up but then got too scared to actually ask her question and so she went back to her room. Uh-unh! I got up and felt a bit like Joan Crawford when she found that wire hangar in Christina's closet. Yeah, it wasn't pretty. I really hate my Mommy Dearest moments. 

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CHILD, LET YOUR MOTHER SLEEP!

I went back to bed and spent the next two hours lying there, WIDE AWAKE, trying to slow my heart rate enough to go back to Dream Land. Wasn't working. Then I was mad that I wasn't sleeping, so that kept me up even longer. Not sure what time I finally drifted back off to sleep.

I *do* love Kathryn. Deeply. More than the moon and stars. Even at 3 a.m. when I'm foaming at the mouth, trying to take care of her. But I wish the child would sleep. Or at least let me sleep. 

Sigh. 

Where's the coffee?