Sleep? What Do You Mean?

Can I be honest with you for a second?  When people ask me if I'm nervous about adding a 3rd baby to our family, I kind of feel like saying what's one more?  Oh yea - we'll be outnumbered children to parents.  We need a bigger vehicle and the boys will share a room. We'll need to switch from "man-to-man to zone defense", but really - what's one more?  I mean, let's be honest - our house is freakin' crazy RIGHT NOW.  I may not even notice another crying, hungry, coughing, tantrum-throwing human.  My case-in-point - last night:

I had ushered the boys (husband included) off to my in-laws house for the evening, because I had to wait on a home appraiser.  The house was spotless yesterday and in the 15 minutes my boys were in the house while we were waiting on the appraiser, a yogurt raisin was squashed into the carpet and I caught my 3 year-old trying to sneak a water gun into the house.  As I bent down to scrape a nasty looking stepped-on raisin out of the carpet, I looked at my husband with a look of total desperation and asked "What exactly are your parents doing right now?"  So they were shipped off and returned only after 8 PM with one of the two children asleep.  We put both kids to bed and settled in to watch American Idol. 

Brandon and I went to bed around 11 (which is really really late for me) and at about 11:30, after nearly three hours of sleeping peacefully in his bed, Will starts crying out in his sleep. WHY?!!  Why do they do this!?  Are my kids the only ones with telepathic mom-has-laid-down radar??!!  I send Brandon in to check (if mom goes in, mom gets suckered into sleeping in his bed for the rest of the night).  Brandon comes back and says that Will is having a bad dream - he's mumbling incoherent things and tossing around. 

12:00 (Yes, MIDNIGHT):  Will screams out again.  Having not gone to sleep yet, while my husband is snoring peacefully, I go in.  Will is still mumbling around.  I try to wake him up.  I ask him if he's okay and he nods.  I go back to bed.

We do this same routine every 20 to 30 minutes.  Will cries out and we go in.  He tells us he's fine.

At 2:30AM I am exhausted and I am determined to wake this kid up.  I go first to the kitchen and get a glass of water.  I go into his room and almost consider dumping gently splashing him with this glass of water but I came to rather quickly.  I force him to sit up and drink water.  I ask him again what's wrong and he says "I was just stirsty (thirsty) mom" and he turns over to go back to sleep. 

2:35AM:  I lay down and close my tired little eyes.  4 hours until the alarm goes off.

2:37AM:  Brooks (who's been sleeping peacefully the whole time his brother is screaming like a stabbing victim) starts coughing.  LOUDLY. 

20 minutes later, the child is still coughing in his room.  I know he's still asleep because he would have come into our room already if he were awake.  I punch tap Brandon and ask him to go in.  He checks on Brooks, puts a pillow under his head and gives him some water. 

At 4AM, after us holding him, rocking him, giving him water, Brooks finally stops coughing and we put him back to bed.  2.5 hours until the alarm goes off.

Just as my head hits the pillow (and I only wish I were exaggerating) Will screams "MOMMMMMYYYY!" I run in and it's the same thing - he's asleep but tossing, turning and mumbling incoherent words.  I pull the covers back, make him sit up and he drinks more water.  He goes back to sleep.

At 5:15AM Will screams out one last time and I stomp in, turn on the lights and consider jumping on his bed to wake him up.  Thankfully, he sits up without me asking and says "Mom.  These pajamas are hurting me.  That's why I can't sleep."  Huh?  Your pajamas?  The same ones you've slept in a hundred times?  Yes, he says, his pajamas are hurting him.  I yank his drawers open, pull out a t-shirt and change his clothes.  He asks very sweetly if he can sleep in my bed and considering that my alarm is getting ready to go off anyway, I tell him yes and carry him to our bed. 

At 6:30 our alarm goes off and I want to cry, scream and cuss because my eyelids hurt so badly, only I can't because my child who has kept me up all night is sleeping soundly tucked under his daddy's arm.  I can't help but laugh to myself as I stumble to the bathroom for a serious splash of cold water on my face. 

My husband says "Gosh - what are we going to do when there's a newborn added to that mix?"
I reply "Are you kidding?  What's feeding a newborn when you're awake anyway thanks to these two tag-team brothers?  We won't notice."
He says "Yeah.  You're right.  I can't wait to get to work and attack that pot of coffee."
Huh.  At least you get to drink coffee.  I can only have one cup and that will wear off before lunch. 

So that my friends, is why I'm not stressing over the third child.  Going from one to two rocked my world.  It was tough.  I dealt with so many emotions - stress, guilt, etc... But I am not one bit worried about what we'll do when little bit is up all night feeding or whether she'll have colic, because guess what - we'll be up anyway and more than likely, someone (and it may be me) will already be crying!