Bedtime Battles

Here is a little snid bit of my life as a Mom. I am awake. It is 2:30 in the morning and I can't sleep. I was literally just kicked out of bed by 2 little feet. Mary has already fallen out of bed twice tonight and so I moved to the end of the bed with Selman and where little feet can kick me. Parenting is not for the faint of heart and being a single mom can be extra hard (Chris has 4 more weeks living in Calgary going to the the University of Calgary). I have not trained my kids to be the best of sleepers. Mom fail for me. Mary wakes up most nights crying for up to an hour (she has been doing that since she was 23 months old and I weaned her - she has some good weeks but bad weeks too when she wakes up most nights), Elva and Caeleb have bad dreams and wake up at times calling for me or joining me it bed or I join them, and I have not even tried to get Selman to sleep away from me (I am dreading going back to work and being away from Selman and all the kids for that matter - but we will survive). I was painting a dresser in the girls room today so I let them sleep with me tonight and Caeleb slept on the floor by my bed just because. The kids took forever to get to sleep. Just getting them to the bedroom took about 45 minutes.  Caeleb and Elva (mostly Elva) were talking, Mary climbing all over me, Selman fussing. I often have Mary sleep on one arm and Selman on the other and then I look up to the ceiling and can't move. I sing songs and say "Shhhh!"over and over. (Pause in story as I hear a crying Selman..............he is now in my arms as I type). We put Disney piano music on every night for the kids to go to sleep with. It has become routine and I remember when we first moved into Middleton's house next door and did not have the internet, I had to call Chris and have him play the music through the phone from our Copperfield house. Oh, what we do for our kids. But as the country music says "Let them be little, because they're only that way for a while, let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle, let them be little" (I love that song), as well as the song "Your gonna miss this." And I am sure I will miss this stage someday. Don't get me wrong, I do love being a Mom! And I do chuckle at all these little experiences I have had. So for now, I will cuddle my baby Selman and let him drink, and I will soon crawl back into the foot of the bed with 3 little ones surrounding me and 1 on the floor beside me. And I will try to stay away from the wet spot on the bed from a leaky Mary diaper. I don't want to wake her up to change her and the bed sheets and I don't have the energy for that right now anyways. I am pretty good at sleeping on a little sliver of bed. Oh, change of topic before I go. Camellia put highlights in my hair today. Mom said I was getting some grays and she suggested I do that. Chris has a lot of grays and I don't see the shame in getting gray hair but whatever. Camellia says the highlights look good. And it is so good to have her and her kids come and visit for a few days. We have a blast talking! Thanks for being such a wonderful sister Camellia. Until later then.