Sunday, July 09, 2006

To Sleep, Perchance to...

...wake up in the middle of the night at oh, say, 3 AM because you're hungry because you fell asleep 5 minutes before dinner was served and wouldn't wake up?

It's a distinct possibility for Little Brother. We were out late last night celebrating a relative's birthday at a minor league baseball game, and he was up early to say goodbye to Daddy and Big Brother as they left for a week at Boy Scout Camp.

Sometime after I sent him out of the kitchen with a cup of apple juice and without the pepperoni pizza he was asking for, he fell asleep on the couch. When dinner was ready I couldn't wake him up.

Not that I tried very hard. I have learned, during the 4 and 1/3 years that Little Brother's been around, that the precious little sleep he gets is not to be trifled with. If he's woken up before he's ready, it's like Jekyll and Hyde around here. The boy who was voted "Most Affectionate" by the high-school students who run the Play School in town turns into Evil Crabby Monster Boy. It's not pretty.

At this point, I can only hope that he wakes up in an hour or so, enough to eat a frozen waffle or two, get changed and stop in the bathroom--or he'll wake me up at 3 AM to let me know that his bed is wet. And he's hungry. And he won't be ready to go back to sleep then, that's for sure.

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