Just in case I was starting to feel smug or think I've got this parenting thing sorted, God threw me a curve ball the other night. After day one of being home alone with the kids went so well, day two was a different story.Hubby was working the night shift, 7pm til 7am, so was even around to help with the first part of the kids bedtime routine. It should have been a breeze. Hubby helped get little J in the bath so all I had to do was feed little miss A and get little J out of the bath.
Bath time went ok (apart from little J eating half a bath crayon when I wasn't looking) and little miss A lay in her crib patiently while I got little J dressed. I sat him down to watch Jesus Storybook Bible again, same as the night before, and then went into the bedroom to feed little miss A. She decided to have a mega long feed so soon little J's episode was done and he came to find me. He came and snuggled in bed with me and I told him stories from memory while I continued to feed little miss A in the dark (for another 45 minutes!!).
When she was finally done it was half past little J's bedtime so we headed downstairs. Once I'd tucked him in and read a quick story I went to say good night and leave the room but little J decided he needed the potty. I was tired and hungry and running out of patience so told him, "don't worry about it, you're wearing a nappy" to which he responded, "potty training, potty training". He had pulled out his trump card and I got his potty and brought it into his room. Of course by the time he was on the potty he had already peed in his nappy. I can see I'm really gonna hate this potty training thing!
By the time the kids were finally in bed it was 8pm and I went to make dinner. At 8:15pm I could hear little miss A starting to make cooing noises over the monitor. She sounded happy enough so I just assumed she would get herself back to sleep but half an hour later she was still awake and began bawling. It turned out she needed a nappy change so it took until 9pm to finally have both kids actually asleep.
Just after 10pm I began heading to bed when I heard a whole heap of coughing and some whimpering coming from little J's monitor. He's had a cough and cold for days now so I went to see if he was ok. As I walked into his room the first thing to hit me was the smell. Something very bad had just gone down here - well, come up actually, to be more precise!
I turned on the light to find little J's bear tossed on the floor and covered in sick. I could see a small amount more on little J's hand and a slight wet patch on his pillow but it looked like a relatively easy clean up job. Oh how wrong I was!!! As I picked up the pillow to put on a dry pillow case I found a HUGE puddle of sick hidden underneath. It would appear little J had tried to do his own clean up job by just turning over the pillow and trying to go back to sleep. As he saw the look on my face his bottom lip began to quiver. I told him it was all ok and that he doesn't need to hide it when he's sick, he won't get in trouble! Poor little bear.
The more I cleaned up, the more mess I discovered - down his pajamas, soaked into his pillow, on his sheets, several blankets, the floor... I stripped it all off, removed the mattress cover too and threw it all in a heap in the bath to deal with later. Then I got my tearful little boy snuggled in some new pajamas and told him he could come and sleep with me on daddy's side of the bed as daddy was at work.
Now that he had been sick, little J seemed much better and now wanted to stay up and chat. It was by now 11pm and I was very aware that his sister would wake up for a feed any time from midnight onwards so I really did not want to stay up and talk!
At some point I must have drifted off despite little J's babbling. The next thing I remember was being woken by little J suddenly sitting up, wimpering "mama" and then BLEURGH.....sick all over our bed. Thankfully I had prepared for this eventuality. I still had one disposable bed cover thingy leftover from my home birth and had put that under little J before putting him in our bed. This clean up job was much quicker with the only real casualty being the (cheap, rubbish) pillow.
I rolled up the disposable bed cover, threw it away and got little J into (his last) clean pajamas. The next problem was where to put him to bed now. I had nothing left to protect our bed so went with the logic that his mattress is cheaper to replace than ours and decided to put him back in his own bed. I covered his mattress in bin bags just to be on the safe side and settled him back into bed with what few clean blankets he had left.
Finally I crawled back into bed around 1am........only to be woken half an hour later by little miss A needing a feed. Thankfully she feeds fast and settles herself to sleep after so it wasn't too bad but she woke again to feed just before 5am. Then she woke again around 6am all snotty and wanting cuddles so I took her into bed with me.
At 7am the alarm went off - time to get little miss A her feed before little J wakes up and demands breakfast. I was exhausted and the last thing I wanted to do was be making breakfast and getting kids dressed. I couldn't wait for hubby to get home and give me a hand.
But of course, even when hubby did arrive home, he was so tired from his shift that he was next to useless. As I took the kids out to play group, hubby slept off his night shift in preparation for his next shift starting at 4pm.
What about me? When was I going to get to sleep off my 'night shift' or get chance to prepare myself for another evening of putting the kids to bed alone?
One Bible verse kept coming to mind through it all:
"I can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength I need" (Philippians 4:13)
I have certainly needed His strength these last few days and He has faithfully provided it!
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