You Play You Pay

We've known for awhile that since Claire doesn't nap she needs to be in bed at 8:00 or as close to it as possible. That doesn't mean that she curls up and falls asleep right away. No, that would be Sam. That child falls asleep almost the second his head hits the pillow. He is like me. Claire, on the other hand, is like Bill and it takes her a little while to fall asleep. She needs some time to unwind by looking through books and playing in her bed before falling asleep.

That's not really the point of this blog though. The point of this blog is to tell you that we chose to keep the kids up late this weekend, both nights, and this extra fun came at a price. Friday night we ran some errands, ate dinner out and ended the evening by meeting some friends for yogurt at Yogilicious in Allen and then went over to the wonderful play area across the street from the yogurt store. Most of our friends didn't show up for yogurt until 7:30 and since our kids are in bed at 8:00 we knew it was going to be a late night. I had prepared for this by giving them a bath in the afternoon so that they wouldn't ask for one when we got home. The kids had so much fun playing with their friends and Bill and I wondered how we were going to get them to leave. Sam answered that question for us by coming up and saying "I'm tired, I want to go home." Wow! That was even easier than we predicted. You can tell our kids aren't used to being out past 8:00 b/c whenever we are they always comment about how it's dark outside. Afterall, they normally go to bed when it's still somewhat light out. Atleast in the summer.

Friday night wasn't too terrible getting them to bed. They were in bed around 8:45 and Claire had her normal wakenings to ask for more chocolate milk and to ask us to find her bear finger puppet (more info about bear finger puppet to follow in future blog). She slept until about 8:00 on Saturday morning and eventhough I hoped that she would nap to make up for the hour of sleep that she had lost the night before she of course didn't nap.

Saturday afternoon, around 5, we headed to our friends, The Tenner's, for a get together with our Sunday School class. Once again, I bathed the kids before we left so that we wouldn't have to worry about it when we got home. For awhile, I thought we might get home in time for bed but then a competetive game of ladder golf started and we were having so much fun that we didn't leave to come home until 8:45. The kids were in bed around 9:15 or so and Sam was so exhausted that he was basically asleep before we left his room. Claire talked for about 10 minutes and then fell asleep. However, around midnight she woke up screaming. I knew she was overly tired and she tends to wake up screaming when she is exhausted. Unfortunately, she doesn't realize this and quietly roll over and goes back to sleep. No, it often takes a long time to get her back to sleep, sometimes over an hour. We changed her, gave her more milk and books but she basically had to cry it out. Okay, not too terrible. But then she woke up at 6:30. Are you kidding me! I knew it was likely that she was hungry considering that all she had eaten the night before was a hamburger bun but that didn't make it any easier to drag myself out of bed to get her up. I had hoped that she might take a nap this morning but that never happened and finally this afternoon after playing in her bed for an hour she fell asleep. I let her sleep for 2 hours and had to wake her up around 4:45. I imagine it will take her awhile to fall asleep tonight but hopefully after having a good nap today she won't be overly tired and wake up tonight.

For those feeling sorry for me and my lack of sleep don't feel too bad. Bill got up around 7:30 this morning and I went back to bed for almost 2 hours. Then I took an hour nap this afternoon. So, I'm fairly caught up but don't want to go through all of that again tonight. Oh, and yesterday I slept until almost 9:30 too. Lucky me!

So, we know the rule: keep Claire up late and pay for it later. Sometimes it's worth it and sometimes it's not. But at least we are well aware of what we are in for.