Thou Shalt Not Sleep

There are many "parent commandments", such as:

Thou shalt not have a moment's peace.
Thou shalt not ever be finished the laundry.

However, this weekend's feature was: Thou shalt not sleep.

Scott was away on his fishing trip and Hannah knew his side of the bed was empty. And she wanted in it. Desperately. Typically, she sleeps through the night and if we have to go in to anybody, it's Jacob. A quick drink of water and he's back to sleep. Then there was Friday night. Not a peep from Jacob. But Hannah woke up at 10:00 and rather strongly suggested that she should really be in bed with me. It took a bit of convincing, but I finally got her back to sleep in her own bed. Then she woke up again at midnight. I went in 5 or 6 times, each time rehashing the same argument about why she needed to sleep in her own bed. I was wearing down, but eventually she fell asleep and stayed asleep. Then came Saturday night. All was well until 2:00 in the morning. Hannah wasn't going to be swayed and I didn't have the energy to be in and out of bed like a jack-in-the-box, so I let her climb into bed with me. And instantly regretted it. She thought it was morning and wanted to go downstairs. She wanted to have bonding, mother-daughter conversations. She wanted to play with my hair. An hour and a half later, she was still whispering to herself, tossing and turning, while I made idle threats to send her back to her own room. Finally, she fell asleep. And as I drifted off, I entertained the foolish notion that perhaps Hannah would sleep in to compensate for the missing hours of sleep in the night. Sadly, yet also somewhat predictabally, she woke up early and began the routine all over again. "Mom, let's go downstairs. Mom, why aren't you getting up? Mom, is it time for breakfast? Mom, ..."

Sleep. I miss it.