Sleep deprivation

I know it's terribly domestic, but I just have to post about our ridiculous night/morning. We've blogged a lot about our lack of sleep these last few months, but since Caleb moved into a big bed things have become insane. Unluckily/luckily for us, Elodie is starting to be able to sleep through the night (luckily- there's an end in sight/unluckily- Caleb won't let her!) Last night though, Mark and I managed to really stuff them both up. The saga starts on Wednesday evening when Caleb woke up with a full-on cold, completely inconsolable. We got him up, gave him water, medicine, cuddles etc. but when we put him back to bed I went with him, and 'slept' on the spare mattress on his floor because he was still so upset. He's usually cheerful when he has a cold, but the accumulated tiredness of the last couple of months has just done him in. Well, I spent most of that night stroking his back, catching him before he got to our bedroom door, and cuddling him on the armchair in his room. By the time Mark's alarm went off , all four of us were snuggled up in the same bed!

Despite sleeping less than I did, Caleb was unable to drop off to sleep until 3.00 yesterday afternoon- which spelt disaster at bedtime on a housegroup night. So, I went upstairs to fine-tune my plan for the evening's worship and set the alarm for 4.00 so that I wouldn't let him sleep too long. Now, you can see where this is going can't you? Unfortunately I did not! Not only did I not re-set the alarm, I went to bed at the same time as the kids so I wasn't even reminded to when Mark flicked it on before he went to bed. The twist is, when Mark got out of bed at 4am to switch off his alarm, he stepped on a sleeping Caleb- who knows how long he'd been there! So, Caleb wakes up and Mark- believing it to be 6.30- just puts him in our bed for a cuddle. When I urge Mark to get up again so that he doesn't fall back to sleep he realises it's still the 'night' and gets back in to bed where we all start to drop off. Now, though, Elodie has been disturbed and feels she needs a drink, so we're all awake for real this time! By 5.00 all hell has broken loose, as Mark is attempting to get Caleb back in his own bed, I have settled Elodie back twice but have resorted to cuddling her in bed with me while Caleb kicks off, and we're all very confused about how we got into this mess...

Which is all just a long way of saying we're all knackered!