Weathering the storm (the one in the sky and the one that comes each night)

Nights have been "exciting" in our house for the last year (11 months, actually), and to be honest, I'm over it.  Last night was no exception, but with an extra twist.

Jackson has been waking up 2-3 times each night.  I've tried to let him "cry it out" about 8 times in the past 11 months, but either I'm terrible at it, or it just doesn't work on Jackson...maybe both.  In the past month, I've basically conceited defeat, knowing that at SOME point, he'll get better, but after a tough night two nights ago, tough mommy came out and after getting up and feeding Jackson at midnight last night, I vowed to let him cry himself to sleep the next time he woke up.  He woke at 4 am and after 30 minutes of crying and no signs of stopping, this tired mommy caved in.  I went into his bed, tried to just rock him and give him a paci (vs nursing him) and his screams rose to a new level, which I knew they would.  But at least I tried.

I fed him and the rain began to fall outside.  I experienced a rare moment when I actually looked down at him and got sort of nostalgic knowing that these days are (hopefully) nearing an end, and I actually enjoyed the quiet moment.  It could have had something to do with the fact that I'd been awake for 30 minutes, was wide awake, so was not in my usual sleepy stupor.  It was short-lived, and I wanted back in my bed, so put Jackson back in his crib.  He'd gotten so worked up, though, that he wasn't happy and was crying as I shut his door and (our door) and tried not to hear him (I knew he'd give in pretty quickly).

A few minutes later, at 4:45 am, I was startled by the blasting of "ALERT CAROLINA" coming from Eric and my phones.  Not as startled as Eric who literally jumped out of the bed (but whose snores will not be impacted when Jackson is screaming in the room down the hall).  It's an alarm that's about 12 decibels higher than necessary alerting us to a tornado warning in our area and telling us to seek shelter.  The good news is that I didn't have to disrupt Jackson from his slumber, the bad news was I'd been up since 4 and it looked like the next 30 minutes or so would be spent in our (quite small) bathroom downstairs with two children.

I grabbed Jackson and Eric lined the bathroom floor with pillows and blankets before waking up Brady.  We spent 20 or 30 minutes in the bathroom and shockingly, both boys managed to fall asleep.  Jackson had finally got what he wanted (sleeping next to me) so he was quite content.  Brady was out of it, but asked about 3 times, "What bed is this?"  When I answered "the bathroom bed," that seemed to satisfy him, like that made perfectly good sense.

Here are our cozy quarters.  I'm thankful for the blurry picture.

 

At 5:30, when I was putting Brady back in his bed, he told me that he wanted to tell grandma about his bathroom bed and was slightly upset when I told him yes, but not right at this moment.  And tonight, when he was heading up to bed, he asked if he could sleep in the potty again tonight.

 

Most people who sleep by the toilet either drank too much or are sick, so I guess I should be thankful for my reason, and that ultimately, it proved to be unnecessary.

 

Brady lasted 30 minutes in his bed, Jackson lasted zero minutes in his crib, and we all woke up in our bed as one big happy, sleepy family.