A night in the life of a mom

This morning, I'm exhausted.  Which is nothing new, I've been tired for 10 years.  After nights like last night, I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

Last night started when I got all the kids in bed.  First the baby went to bed at 8.  Amazingly he didn't fight it or cry or anything.  Not that he went right to sleep or anything.  I could hear him chatting away on the monitor for quite a while.  This is when I have to decide what to do with the 4 yr old.  They share a room, and it works out well for the most part, but they can't go to bed at the same time if they are both awake.  This results in whispering, that turns into talking, that turns into laughing, jumping, yelling, and 2 wound up deliriously overtired boys.  Not my cup of tea at the end of the day.  Since baby was still awake, I decide to take his brother into my room.  I put him in my bed, turn on the lamp on the bedside table and tuck him in, telling him I'm going to put him in his own bed once his brother falls asleep.  Next it's big sister's turn.  She ends up weaseling her bedtime back to 9pm  (usually she's in bed before 8:30, this is a kid that still needs at least 11 hours of sleep to resemble a human in the morning).  Luckily she goes to bed without a fight.  I go check on 4 yr old and find him passed out width-wise across the queen size bed.  Both lamps are turned on, my book is on the floor, with the bookmark beside it, the cap is off my chapstick and it looks like a beaver has chopped it down.  Sure enough, his face is a shiny mess.   I move him to his own room, go downstairs and watch my show.  For 2 hours, it's just me, watching mindless television...  heaven!  After my show, I go upstairs to take a bath before I hit the sack.  Unfortunately the cat has decided this is the perfect time to take a trip to the litter box which is, you guessed it, in the bathroom.  I don't feel like waiting for the stink to dissipate so I call it a night and head to bed.  Only to find the 4 yr old back in my bed.  So off to his own room he goes once again.  This time I end up tripping over a train on the floor, which makes the baby stir.  I wait, like a statue, not breathing, until I'm sure he didn't really wake up.  And in to bed I go.
As I'm falling asleep, the wonderful cat decides to join me.  You know how cats do that thing when they use their paws to soften things up before they lay down?  Well, my cat does that to my pillow, only my hair is on my pillow so every step feels like she's pulling my hair out.  After tucking all my hair under my head, she stops and plops down on my head.  Her favorite place to sleep.  Luckily, I've grown used to this, or I'm too tired to care, and I actually sleep better with the cat on my head now.

Fast forward to 3:30am.  Baby cries.  I go into his room, hoping he hasn't woken his brother up.  He sees me and yells "YAY!!  MAMA!!"  It's nice to get such a warm greeting, but I'd love it a lot more if it wasn't the middle of the night.  We go to the rocking chair in my room and rock for about 15 minutes.  The whole time he tries to pick my nose, play with my teeth, anything to keep him occupied so he can't fall asleep.  We move to the bed since I can't keep my eyes open (unless they are peeled open by little fingers).  After a little while, he finally falls asleep.  I get up, take him to his crib, and step on the darn train again.  Back to the rocking chair and the whole thing repeats.  Finally at 5am, he is asleep deeply enough for me to get up and go to the bathroom, which I've needed to do since about 3:45.  I come back to bed, fall asleep.  15 minutes later, the baby yells (he's still in bed with me, I gave up on putting him back in his crib).  I open my eyes and see the cat staring at me, which is very confusing when you are only half awake and think you will see your baby.  Turns out baby is yelling because cat is standing on him.  So I shoo the cat out of the room and shut the door, get baby to fall back asleep.  At 6am, I hear a thud and crying,.  Look around and find baby has fallen off the bed.  Luckily baby is fine, not even really awake.  I had pillows next to him to prevent him from rolling off the bed, but he had pushed those off and landing on them. I just pull him back in bed with me, because even though I feel like a horrible mother for letting him fall off the bed, I'm too tired to do anything about it at his point and it's never happened before, so I figure we'll be ok.  At 6:30 the 4 yr old comes in and I tell him something unintelligible and he disappears.  A few minutes later I hear him screaming and come downstairs to find him and his sister awake and fighting already.  I go upstairs to put baby in his crib so we don't have a repeat of him falling off the bed.  But of course, this wakes him up and he's ready for the day.

And my day begins....