The Witches

The witches are keeping me up at night. H is having a very hard time getting to sleep and a harder time staying asleep. Everything in her room is a witch. The pile of clothes on the floor that never did make it to the hamper despite my multiple pleas. The curtains, the doll house- all witches.

I go up dozens of times after I am officially down stairs after bedtime to stage light different corners of her room and rearrange things that make disagreeable shadows. She can't sleep with the light on either, so then there's that.

Last night she (eventually) went to sleep in our bed- after I rearranged our room and cleared the shadows. We've had a standing agreement that Fridays the girls (although S usually prefers to sleep in her own bed) can go to sleep in "mommy-daddy bed" and J and I transfer them back to their beds when we turn in. Our very narrow hallway is making it increasingly difficult to maneuver a sleeping H through. Last night, however, was Wednesday night. This whole Friday night agreement came to be during a period of time when H couldn't fall asleep in her own room- but the nightly transfer back to her room began to wear J and I down. Last night my justification of amending the only on Friday rule was that she'll be at her grandparents house on Friday so she may as well sleep in our bed on Wednesday. Here we go with the back slide.

Once she is asleep and back in her bed she has been inevitably boomeranging back to our bed at 3 or 4 in the morning. She calls instead of just jumping in- so that jolts me awake- and then she sleeps like a windmill causing J and I to switch into defensive sleep mode, blocking punches.

I do feel for her. I STILL get scared of shadows at times. J hangs his shirts up to dry around our bedroom and they make very imposing silhouettes- so I get it. I make the dogs come with me to the bathroom after watching a scary movie. I spent many a childhood night awake wide eyed in my room frantically thinking good thoughts until I somehow fell asleep.

I am hoping this witchy business is short lived and it is making both of us- all of us- exhausted.