This household has not known a full night’s sleep in, roughly, 5 months 6 days 13 hours and 5 minutes. Roughly. Okay, there was that one night, where we naively believed we would be lucky enough to have 2 children that slept through the night at freakishly early ages, but we were sadly brought to the reality that it was just Porter’s sick sense of humor. He is cruel that way. We have gone through one rollercoaster ride after another with him in terms of sleep. He’ll start inching towards longer and longer stretches – giving us 4, 5, 6 then 7 hours straight, giving us hope, and rest, and the reckless abandon to go to bed after 10 without the dread of getting up within an hour – only to blindside us with freakishly inconsistent patterns all over again.

The last time he did it I took him to the doctor to see if he had an ear infection. WHY ELSE WOULD HE ALL OF A SUDDEN BE WAKING UP EVERY 2 AND A HALF HOURS? Nope. Nuthin. Unwilling to accept the reality that he would be doing this for no actual reason, we figured it HAD to be that he was teething again. So we started drugging him with regular doses of ibuprofin. Because we are good parents that way. Funny thing about that – still no new teeth.

On Fridays at work, I often get the obligatory, “Hallelujah! Aren’t you glad it’s Friday?” To which, my response is to look at them with absolutely no sense of irony and say, “I have a 6 month old and an almost three year old who never got that memo. To them, the concept of weekends and sleeping in are about as meaningful as a new pack of vacuum cleaner bags.” All weekends have become is a blinding reminder of the fact that we aren’t sleeping in.

Last night was a perfect example of why all four of us can be picked out of a line-up based solely on the dark circles under our eyes:

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8:22pm: Stella to bed.

Sidebar: Stella has gotten into the habit, lately, of coming into our room at un-Godly hours, and requesting to get into bed next to me. In my compromised, sleep-deprived state, I have actually let her do it, and immediately ended up regretting it. Not only do I have to endure her signature snuggling, but I also have carelessly thrown the door wide open to establishing precedent. They say that 2 of anything and you have a collection. Well, when it comes to Stella and routines, it only takes once and it is as though she has been doing it her whole lifetime.

It is for this reason that I take the opportunity during story time to have a lengthy conversation with her as to when is the appropriate time to come get in bed with us. Repeat after me. Middle of the night: not okay. Morning-time: okay.

8:36pm: Stella up. Stalling tactic. Sent straight back to bed.
8:42pm: Porter to bed.
9:05pm: Me to bed.
9:35pm: Steve to bed. (The first time he has been to bed before 11:00pm in weeks.)
11:37pm: Porter up (with me).
12:05am: Porter back to bed.
4:30am: Porter up (with Steve).

Sidebar: Porter’s routine, of late, has been to get up twice, usually the second time being somewhere around 4:30. This is, hands-down, one of the worst times because it brushes up so closely to the first alarm (which is 5:00). Basically, what this boils down to is, whoever gets up with him is pretty much up for the day by 4:30. Not only this, but he is unusually hard to get back to sleep – further clarifying that you are, indeed, up for the day. Eventually he will go back to sleep, but not without a bunch of racket and not usually in under an hour.

5:30am: Porter still up and yelling (not crying). Unable to sleep through it, I intervene.
5:36am: Porter back to bed.
5:37am: Stella up. Wants into bed with us. I hold firm: “Nope. It’s still night time. Back to bed.”
6:05am (still dark outside): Stella’s up again. I cave and let Stella climb into bed next to me.
6:05am – 6:40am: Stella wiggles, and kicks, and pulls hair, and plays with the cat, and eventually goes from a whisper, to a regular voice, to a shrill cackle.
6:40am: Porter’s head pops up over the side of his bassinet.

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Figuring it is unfair that Steve, Stella, Rosie and myself are all in bed together, I bring Porter over to join in the festivities. And so completes a typical night with the Walstons.

One of the biggest things that is different for me being a parent the second time around is having the benefit of perspective. Although nothing will change the fact that we have to suffer through this sleepless insanity, I at least have the ability to see it as finite. I know that, someday, it will end, and that, bizarrely enough, I will be nostalgic for the moments where all of us are piled in bed together at 6:45 on a Sunday morning.