Growing Up Austin

The Bay City Rollers may think they know how to do a Saturday night, but this is my version at the Ramsey house.

7:51pm Saturday night – Sparkles and Buttercup are snuggled in their beds and Blue Eyes and I are about to say goodnight when Sparkles says her ear hurts. I am not a brand-new Mom and I know that Sparkles discovers an unusually high number of physical ailments right around bed time. I tell her what I always tell her for a bedtime ailment, “The best thing you can do is get some rest for your body.” It’s not that I ignore her complaint all together, I just wait to see if she brings it up again. Blue Eyes and I sit down on the couch to watch a Netflix movie.

8:51 – Sparkles brings it up again by crying “Mommy!!!!!! Daddy!!!!!”. Yes, her ear hurts. Given our last experience with an ear infection that started after the doctor’s office was closed, when she cried throughout the night, I told Blue Eyes that Sparkles and I would sleep in our bed and I asked him to sleep in the guest room. I give up on the movie and go to bed with Sparkles. She is comforted by my arms around her and she falls  asleep peacefully.

12:42am – Sparkles is sleeping well, but she is tossing and turning and kicking me and kicking me and kicking me. I noticed that, in my half-asleep state, I had started to stiff-arm her, like a football player, keeping one arm out long, to try to keep some distance. But it wasn’t working.

1:15 – The ear pain wasn’t waking her up and my body was suffering greatly, so I carried Sparkles upstairs to her bed.

4:35 – “Mommy!!!!” calls out from the baby monitor. I head upstairs. Sparkles woke up, not because her ear hurt, but because her pull-up leaked and wet the bed. I had accidentally bought the day-time pull-ups when Sparkles needs the night-time pull-ups and at this moment this seemed like a Very Big Shopping Mistake. I get Sparkles cleaned up and in new pajamas. We are two seconds from being done when I hear, “Mommy!!!” from Buttercup, in the other bed in the same room.

Buttercup sees that something is going on and she isn’t about to just go right back to sleep. I’m at great risk for having two completely awake toddlers at 4:35 in the morning. I have to think quick. I set Sparkles down on Buttercup’s bed and tell her I’ll be back. I pick up Buttercup and bring her downstairs to cuddle with Blue Eyes in the guest room, so she will fall back asleep. On the way to the stairs I step on something wet and I ignore it. I wake up Blue Eyes and say, “It’s a long story, can you take her?” and he does.

I head back upstairs to get Sparkles. I have a dream-like memory of stepping on something wet and I try to imagine how Sparkles’ leaky pull-up could have gotten the carpet wet by the top of the stairs.

No, that isn’t it. Oh, #$%#$%. I know what it is.

In another recent Very Big Shopping Mistake, I did an impromptu grocery shopping trip earlier that day without having my list that clearly identified cat litter as a critical item. Our cat had been protesting the messy box by no using it. How often does a house have two separate pee accidents at 4:35 in the morning? I get a towel from the bathroom and cover the spot. I’ll clean it in the morning. I don’t have the energy to change Sparkles’ sheets, so I bring her downstairs to my bed.

6:11 On most mornings, Sparkles wakes up at 7am and sometimes later, but on this morning when we both had trouble sleeping during the night, she wakes up at 6:11. We sneak into the living room without turning on lights and being super quiet, so we don’t wake up Buttercup or Blue Eyes. We pull the big easy chair in front of the TV and put on the Wizard of Oz DVD. We snuggle under a blanket and talk about the movie and her favorite parts and what Dorthy is going to do next. Well, this last part really was pretty sweet.

I felt pretty hung over on Sunday, kind of like I felt when I was younger after a late night of drinking. Now I have different reasons for staying up all night. My new reasons may not seem like as much fun, but that early morning snuggle under the blanket and the conversation about the Wizard of Oz, that is my favorite cocktail of all.