The Sleepover or Sleepless over

Last night my older two children, their dad, along with their delicious cousins and Uncle, were treated to their first ever Islanders game.  Remi made it on to the Jumbotron.  All the kids got to high-five the players.  No one caught a shirt and Remi lost a tooth.  All the children arrived home at 11:00 p.m. for a cousins sleepover.  Great idea in concept.  Horrible idea in practice.

The boys, Chad and Cousin Ethan, easy and nonsense free, tripped their way into Chad's bed by 11:15 p.m. and were sleeping by 11:15 and 1/2.  Not early enough but certainly easy enough.  Gotta love boys.

Remi and her cousin Jordyn were another story entirely.  They didn't want to sleep in Remi's room.  They opted for our guest room with the cushy queen size bed, en-suite bathroom and jumbo TV.  Fine.  Except earlier in the day, Remi pushed the door lock button from the inside and I inadvertently shut the door.  So at 11:30 p.m., Todd and I were breaking and entering.  11:45 p.m. Remi couldn't decide what to sleep in.  Long pants and a tee?  Fuzzy shorts and a tank?  Undies?  Birthday suit?  Only Remi has an outfit crisis at midnight.  Finally lights out.  Except it wasn't.

Remi needed her noise machine.  Go get it we told her.  Remi needed to refill her water bottle.  Go fill it.  Remi needed to change her outfit.  Go change it.  Jordyn had a foot procedure earlier in the day and it was bothering her.  She needed medicine.  A band aid.  Remi came back because she was hot.  Jordyn came back because she wanted to know where Remi was.  Remi returned unsure if her lost tooth would be found by the tooth fairy in the guest room.  12:45 a.m. we threatened their lives and shackled them to the bed.

1:00 a.m. Todd and I were finally horizontal under the covers -- the tooth.  Out of bed.  Quick exchange of tooth for treat and finally finally lights officially out.

Good thing we signed up for the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot at 8:00 a.m. Thanksgiving morning.  Four miles for Todd and his brother Jon.  1k for my kids and their cousins.  Based on our motley, under slept crew yesterday morning, a more appropriate race name would have been The Thanksgiving Turkey crawl.    My kids barely function on twelve hours of sleep.  For every hour under twelve they miss, they exponentially race towards savage beasts.  Easy requests become gigantic battles.  Brush your teeth.  Not happening.  Make your beds.  Ha.  Be nice to each other.  Not possible.  Listen to what I''m telling you to do.  Impossible.  And it was only 7:45 a.m.

Children without enough sleep are a parent's worst nightmare.  Sharing a house with them and painfully navigating through a day is like the L.I.E during rush hour -- incredibly frustrating, totally stop-and-go.  It often involves profanities -- several long strings of them.  Being an effective parent with poorly rested children is harder than qualifying for MENSA.  Add to the challenge, Todd and I are cumulatively exhausted and barely able to think logically -- potentially a Darwinian survival skill.  If we really thought about what lay ahead of us, extinction might be our leading option.

All was not lost.  We were having Thanksgiving dinner with three well rested, relatively youthful grandparents at 1:30 p.m.  Kids, whatever, you need, ask a grandparent.  Our plan?  We were going the route of turkey overdosing and then claiming the tryptophan defense.  Lights out!