or, "Shower the people you love with.... - how we spent our Christmas eve after Santa came and went"
happier moments
The last time you saw us, we were congratulating ourselves on having hosted Santa Claus, and contemplating just how long we were going to be able to keep the magic of Christmas alive.
Shortly after that post was published, Miss L cried out and M went to see what was up.
She'd already told L that if she woke in the middle of the night, she shouldn't call for us "because Santa might be here and what if he heard her?!?" to which L said, shocked, "Oh, gosh! I didn't think of that!!", so we knew it was serious. The two of them returned to our room to announce that L was going to be sleeping with us since "my tummy hurts."
Sad to admit, my first thought was that this was either 1) a ploy to get into our bed, and/or 2) a result of too much excitement about Santa and presents and candy and presents.
L settled down between us and over the course of the next hour or so, managed to establish enough of a beachhead with the covers that my back half was hanging out in the breeze. So around midnight I got up and moved into her bed.
Now with K, we bought a pretty darn good mattress when she moved into a big-girl bed, and I don't mind sleeping on it. With L, on the other hand, who at 35 pounds (back then) was a little tike, it seemed hardly necessary to really pay big bucks for a mattress she barely needed. So, sadly, we scrimped and got one a IKEA, and I pay for it every time a "bed shift" takes place. Anyway, I managed to rearrange pillows and blankets enough so that I could fall asleep between conversations with K who lay awake across the room, pondering the mysteries of time stopping on nights like Christmas.
When what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a bright light, and M looking for new pajamas for L, who'd thrown up in our bed and on M. I struggled awake to ask if she needed help, while K dry-heaved at the thought of throw up, and next thing I knew, I was helping wipe up vomit. M changed the bed while I gathered the soiled things, we exchanged glances, and started to giggle. "Merry Christmas!" Then I took the laundry down to the basement while M tucked L back into her own bed, and by the time I came back upstairs L had attempted sleeping with K, who gave it a try and then rejected her as being too stinky with throw up, and was miraculously back in her own bed.
M and I managed to fall asleep, though I lay with one ear open, and was rewarded an hour later with sounds that took me back to the days when Lucy used to get up and toss her cookies after eating too much of something nasty out in the yard. My first thought back then and last night was "Is she on a rug?!?" I leapt out of bed, grabbing some towels and calling out "She's throwing up again" and she was, though this time she'd gotten out of bed and was standing in the middle of her room. Ok, so maybe it wasn't a ploy after all....
Another wipe down, another round of teeth brushing, and it was bed-roulette again, this time with K insisting she couldn't sleep with L in the same room, so M shifted to K's bed and K came into ours. We also putt a bucket from the basement next to L, in case of third "episode." Can't nobody say we don't learn from our experiences! L picked it up with a laugh and asked, "Can I hold it while I sleep?" Uh, no, you can't!
K tossed and turned for an hour or so, and had just fallen asleep when I heard the sound of liquid hitting the bottom of a bucket. Number 3!
I hopped out of bed, grabbed a fresh towel, and then realized that M already had L downstairs and was rinsing the bucket in the tub, and K was finally asleep, so I crawled back into bed and lay there, pretending everything was right with the world until K and L came in so L could brush again, at which point I motioned to the sleeping body next to mine and said in a loud whisper, "She only just fell asleep!" as though this somehow exempted me from dealing with anything else. But M was in a giving mood and nodded as if she understood, and they headed back out to their twin beds while K and I settled into the queen.
And that was the last episode of the night, though oddly, L complained off and on about a "sore tummy" today, between eating the head off her solid chocolate Santa, eating 2 packages of PEZ, eating a cookie and multiple Life Savers. And at the moment, both she and her sister are asleep upstairs, bucket between their beds (parental instructions: "If either one of you needs to throw up, use the bucket." L: "But if K does, then what am I supposed to do?" us: "We'll clean it." K: "Ugh!").
We've got our fingers crossed for a relatively silent night. Here's hoping you have the same.
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