OK, maybe revolution is too strong a word.

Today I was going to post a blog about my first chemo treatment.  Seriously, it's already written.  Check back tomorrow, cause it'd be a waste not to post it this week :)

But instead, I'm going to take a second to vent/blog about my darling children. 

No, you didn't misread.  I said children.

My FIRST "child" is my dog Bruiser.  For all of you who haven't "met" my dog yet, meet Bruiser:
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Bruiser is a 160 lb Bullmastiff that we've had for 4 years now.  He is a pretty well trained dog that sleeps alot, loves snow and occasionally thinks he's a lap dog. 

My second child is, of course, Caleb, my almost 2 year old son.
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Yes, he's wearing a box on his head. What? That's not normal?
Last night, my two "children" must've had some clandestine meeting when I wasn't looking and decided that I didn't need sleep.  Either that or they have a very elaborate system of hand/paw gestures that I haven't yet deciphered.

Maybe baby sign language wasn't such a good idea...

But somehow, they decided that they were going to stage a sleep revolution.  Mama, regardless of how much she NEEDS sleep, was not going to be permitted more than an hour or two.

First, let me describe my sleep schedule since I had chemo last Thursday.  I go to bed between 9 and 10.  I wake up at 12:30 for NO reason and then doze off (because I can't really call the freaky dreams I have sleeping).  Then Caleb will wake me up at 2:30 with wild, frantic screaming.  20 minutes of rocking and soothing later, he's back in bed and around 3:30 I finally fall asleep until 6:30 or 7.  That's our "routine".  This hasn't bothered me because I get to go back to sleep.  And to be honest, the chemo drugs make sleep sporadic at best.

Last night, I was beat.  I finally felt like I was gonna get a GOOD nights sleep.  Like the steriods they gave me with chemo had worn off and there was nothing but awesome, sleep induced oblivion ahead of me for at least 8 hours.

That was until I woke up at about 1:30 to the sound of my son talking.  Not screaming.  Not "come rescue me from the boogey man" or "my leg is caught between the crib rails and I think it's a monster dragging me from my bed" screaming, which is what it has been for the last few nights. 

Just talking.

In parent speech, this means you lay there quietly, not even daring to breathe even though you're a whole room away, in hopes that they just go back to sleep on their own.

Well, after listening to him talk on and off for 45 minutes or so, I'm pretty sure that he was actually just babbling in his sleep.  But it was like presidential address kind of babbling.  Like "let me talk for 3 hours about nothing and convince you that I actually said something" kind of babbling.  There was even inflection! 

Anywho, I'm kind of a light sleeper, so there was no going to sleep while listening to him chatter.  And after the last few nights of screaming, I didn't feel comfortable turning off the monitor in case I needed to revive my "mom to the rescue" superhero routine (but I did turn it down to the lowest volume setting).

During this 45 minutes, my dog woke up.

This is an amazing feat on all its own.  My dog sleeps approximately 20 hours a day.

But apparently his 3 hours of today's awake time had to be from about 2 am until about 5 am this morning.

Why?  My fear was that he had to go potty.  Sometimes he wakes me up in the middle of the night because he forgot to take a dump before bed.  Seriously, I feel like he's a toddler.  "Are you sure you don't need to go poo poo before bed time?"

But last night, I didn't want to get out of bed.  I wanted Caleb to stop babbling and Bruiser to go back to sleep.  So I whisper-yelled at him to GO BACK TO BED.

But once Bruiser decides that he is up, he then just lays there.  And makes noise.  Like yawning.  And licking.  And moving positions once every 3 minutes combined with a full body shake (which is really loud).

Again, I'm a pretty light sleeper.  I can sleep through Bruiser's house shaking snores, but for some reason I CANNOT deal with him making other noise.

So Caleb was chattering, Bruiser was making every imaginable noise and I'm worrying that he'll either crap or puke all over everything, and I'm just laying there thinking I might lose my mind.

Caleb finally quiets down.  And I kick Bruiser out of the bedroom in hopes of getting some sleep.

But then Bruiser has long toenails, and we have laminate flooring, so he proceeded to pace around our living space for a solid 10 minutes and it sounded like a horde of tapdancing leprechauns. 

And I was laying there just waiting to hear him start puking (because that's what happened the last time I kicked him out of the bedroom) so I wasn't doing a very good job of relaxing.  I finally gave in once he came and sniffed at the bottom of my door and I was afraid he might wake Caleb up and we'd be back to Mr. Presidential Address.

So I got my hiney out of bed and put him outside.

You wanna know WHY he had to go outside? 

BECAUSE HE WANTED TO EAT SNOW!!!!!!!!! 

&%^&*$&%*$()()$&%*$&%!!!!!!  (That's code for lots of curse words I said last night.)

Anyone want a really nice Bullmastiff?  No seriously... for free!

So at this point, it's 5 am.

And Caleb for real wakes up.  I can tell because now the chatter sounds closer to real words and he keeps saying that sound suspiciously like "mama come play".

And then there was the fact then when I went to lay him back down and sternly tell him to go back to sleep, he was sitting up and actually clapped when I walked in and said "Blues Clues" (his favorite TV show that we watch in the mornings before breakfast).

And I fell on my knees, looked towards the sky and screamed "WHY GOD?!?!  WHYYYYYYYYYY????"

OK, maybe not.  That's a little overly dramatic for me to actually DO, but I totally thought it.

I laid in bed for another 45 minutes praying some miracle would come to pass that would set the clocks back 4 hours, get both of the kiddos asleep and allow me another 4 hours to snooze.

Unfortunately, today was not my day for a miracle.

So Caleb got up at 6, in a GREAT mood (shockingly) and made me just want to snuggle with him all day becuase he was being so sweet.  He is effectively forgiven for his chatterbox ways.

Bruiser, on the other hand... seriously, does anyone want a nice dog?