Cranky Pants

Who's a big crankypants today? That's right: Me.

Last night, Steve announced that he was going to bed early so he could wake up an hour early today to write. Lovely. I stayed up for another hour or so, then settled in to blissful slumber. The next thing I knew, I was awakened from a deep sleep by Jack punching me in the neck, saying, "Mama!" Somehow in my sleep fog, I pieced together that Jack was in our bed because he'd woken up crying, probably due to the fact that he is currently cutting five or six teeth. I do not say "five or six" as an arbitrary number to show a large number of teeth. I mean the dude is literally getting five or six (it's hard to count) teeth all at the same time. Steve heard him crying and decided Jack would sleep better cuddled up between us.

Why Steve thought that would work is beyond me. Jack turned 19 months old yesterday, and in the entire 19 months of his life, not once has he successfully slept between Mommy and Daddy, contentedly feeling safe from whatever woke him up. Never. Not one time. Instead, he spends that time kicking, squirming, trying to launch himself headfirst onto the floor, and generally making sure that no one sleeps. Adding to my annoyance was the fact that Steve had already had an hour longer to sleep than I had and that he would be getting up earlier, leaving me alone to deal with Jack's attempts to get down from the bed, then up again, then play with fun sleepy mommy. I demanded, not pleasantly, that Steve put Jack back in his crib where he belongs.

As you might expect, that pissed off Jack in a big way. It was fun neck punching time! We were going to play! Now I'm ditched here in my boring crib all alone? He expressed this displeasure, of course, by screaming at the top of his lungs. After about 15 minutes of this, I decided to get up and calm him down. Still muzzy-headed, I walked into the door frame so hard that I have a bruise on my chest. I gathered up all of the binkies Jack had thrown out of his crib in angry protest, cuddled him up with Roary, told him calmly that it was still bedtime, and got out of the room just four seconds after he started to wail again.

Jack woke up three more times last night, each time needing to be bribed with Roary, Tylenol, more binkies, and backrubs and assurances that "it's still nighttime, sweetie."

When I left for work this morning, Steve, the guy who had an hour more sleep than I did, the guy who escalated the first awakening into the screaming fever pitch it became because of his absolute fantasy that Jack would sleep cuddled up between us, was still asleep, as was Jack.

Grrr.