The Purple Plague

Oh, the joy of sick kids. On Tuesday, Greta came down with a nasty stomach bug that left her unable to keep anything down. Actually, she did eat two mini Popsicles yesterday, but, aside from that, nothing. Even water and juice came right back up. It hasn’t been pretty.

The only good thing is that she slept a lot, which meant that I got to sleep a lot too. So, I think that almost balanced out all the sleep I lost from getting up every couple of hours to help her yak and change her nightgown and stuff. Mrs. Yeti, on the other hand, has been totally screwed sleep-wise. Sorry, honey, I owe you a few good naps!

Oh, and then, another wonderful thing happened last night. I wear a tiny mouthguard when I sleep to keep me from grinding my teeth and last night it felt out of my mouth and landed in the toilet while I was peeing in it. Nice, huh? Luckily (or unluckily, as the case may be) for me, I was so immune to cleaning up disgusting things by that point that fishing my mouthguard out of the pee-filled crapper was easy. I mean, at least it didn’t land in Greta’s barf bowl!

And on top of all that, Greta checked out her first Barney DVD from the library. Yes, that Barney. Mrs. Yeti took Greta to the library on Monday night, and, in her sleep-deprived stupor apparently forgot about our ban on the purple demon. Urgh…forget about Greta’s measly stomach flu…the purple plague has been unleashed on our home. Enter at your own risk!

The cure for troubled sleep?

OK, so, we’re only a few days into our vacation up here in Oregon and suddenly Greta is sleeping like a dream…actually, better than that. What’s better than “like a dream”? Um, like two dreams? I dunno, but, the point is, she is sleeping like crazy and it is totally awesome.

I don’t know if it’s the fresh mountain air or that hideous sleeping bag of hers, but she falls asleep and stays asleep almost the minute her tiny head hits the pillow.

Who knows, maybe she needed this vacation as much as we did? Either way, sleep has made a very welcome return to our lives…yay!

Slightly less troubled sleep…

Hooray! The good news is that Greta fell asleep in her own bed tonight after only three very calm (on my part) “back-in-the-crib” with you interactions. The bad news is that that third time was a fucking killer, man! Yikes…

The minute I chucked her back in her crib, our little angel climbed out and screamed and shook and pounded on her closed bedroom door until it sounded like she might just rip it from it’s hinges — I’d apologize to my upstairs neighbors for the noise, but their kids were way worse than Greta at her age, so I figure it’s Karmic revenge — so, what did we do while all this mayhem unfolded in the next room? You guessed it, we totally ignored her.

It wasn’t easy — her tearful pleas to sleep in “Mommy/Daddy’s bed” were the most heartbreaking — but we stuck to our guns and sat together on the couch with the Tivo on pause as she screamed and cried for almost eight minutes. And then, something amazing happened…Greta stopped banging on the door, climbed back into bed and fell asleep on her own. Just like that.

So, we are either the worst parents on earth or the savviest. Either way, we’re all sleeping much, much better tonight…