The joys of doing a night shift when you have two kids

I fell asleep (if you don’t count a short nap on the sofa) shortly before midnight. Around 1:30, I woke up frantically searching for Benny who got lost. I woke Jay up by almost pulling his arm off because I was afraid he might have fallen asleep on top of the baby. “He’s in his bed”, Jay said. And this made a lot of sense because Benny’s always in his bed.

I managed to get back to sleep feeling confused after a scary dream that melted into reality until around 2:30 I heard Molly cry and scream. I ran into her room before she could wake Benny up and gave her a hug. I told her “Benny’s in his bed” because that was the most soothing thing I could think of saying to calm her down from a bad dream.

Around 4, she was awake again. This time she also woke her brother up. I gave them both their dummies, but Benny was wide awake. “Shhh…” I said, “You’re in your bed” but that was exactly where he didn’t want to be. So it was feeding time.

Around 4:30 he was almost asleep again. I put him down, excited about finally going to bed when I noticed he was taking a poo. I briefly considered pretending I didn’t see it and acting all surprised in the morning because honestly, anything sounded better than waking him up again. I am not an asshole though, so nappy change time it was. I carefully avoided eye contact but regardless of all of my efforts, Benny was smiley, happy and definitely not asleep.

Around 5:30 he finally fell asleep on the sofa and I made myself comfortable, already decided not to move until morning… Except that fifteen minutes later I heard my beloved daughter shouting for water extremely loudly and with a lot of determination. So I carried Benny back to his bed because I was scared he might fall off the sofa, I saved Molly’s life by handing her a water bottle that was right next to her bed and squeezed into her tiny bed with her, telling her a story at 6 a.m.

At 7:15 our day started again, with all the crying and screaming and trying to stay calm. I’m determined to have a pleasant morning so I just dropped Molly off at the daycare, fed Benny and we’re both about to take a nap in the car, in the parking lot. I’m just hoping all this rain will distract passers-by from looking in and calling the police.

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