Are you kidding me? (with a ! as well)

I cannot remember (except for this week, which I will talk about in a few minutes) the last time I was able to sleep in my own bed for the entire night without being awakened by the girls. Either my brain is a bit a dead (which it is) or this sleep deprivation has lasted for a really long time (which it has.)

So we tried the sticker chart thing awhile ago and Emily really didn't care whether or not she earned any stickers for sleeping in her bed all night. She was extremely indifferent to the whole process. Allie and Anna were doing okay but we ended up dumping the whole thing. I was a reading a post last week over at Three Times the Giggles about how Helen's boys are doing a fantastic job earning their stickers so I decided to start up the program again.

Sunday night we made an extremely non-fancy sticker chart, which also includes lines for Elmo, Little Lion and Anna's Buddy. The sole purpose of the sticker chart is to track who sleeps in her bed all night. Baby steps, folks. Baby steps. I also wanted to incorporate going to sleep without Mommy or Daddy or Grammy sitting next to or in the bed but I figured we would wait on that. There are some nights that I spend an hour sitting around waiting for kids to fall asleep. I usually start off in Emily's bed with Emily and Allie. I then have to move Allie to her bed, which sometimes causes her to wake up and so I have to sit there with her waiting for her to fall back asleep.

Sunday night was one of those long nights in terms in getting everyone asleep in bed. We reiterated the whole sticker chart for staying in your bed all night a few times. By the time they were all asleep, my patience level was running just above empty.

I won't go into details because it would be painful to relive but let's just say that I was awake from midnight until after 2:00AM. I freaking lost it. LOST IT. There was screaming. There was crying. I was finished. FINISHED. The best part of it was that Anna and Emily never got out of their beds. They fussed - Anna was having issues - but they never got out of their beds. Allie did get out of her bed originally but stayed put after I went psycho.

The irony of it all is that we told them that they had to sleep in their own beds and not get up. That was it. Stay in your bed. I suppose it is our fault for not being specific about fussing or having Mommy sleeping in the bed. Surprisingly, Emily was the best behaved during The Incident. She just wanted her door wide open.

I had to work a little bit later than normal on Monday night. Grammy picked me up at the train station and we arrived home around 7:50. I was expecting the girls to be in full out meltdown mode. But they weren't. Rich was downstairs picking up the playroom. There was silence. An absolute miracle in our house.

I fell asleep that night in my own bed and didn't regain consciousness until the alarm clock went off the next morning. This never happens in our house. NEVER.

I wrote it off as a fluke because to believe that we had reached a turning point and then have it all fail would be a major disappointment. I arrived home from work around 7:50 Tuesday night and, again, I was met with silence. Rich said that Allie had been a bit difficult at first but did eventually climb into her bed and stay there.

Night Number Two went something like this - Anna woke up around 2:00 AM. I found her whimpering in the hall in front of the stairwell gate. I picked her up, hugged her, brought her back to her bed, told her she was being a big girl and doing an awesome job of staying in bed. I helped her crawl back up to her pillow. Did she want to get tucked in? No. Okay, see you in the morning.

AND IT WORKED! I went back to bed and didn't hear a peep until Em came in around 6:10.

Please, PLEASE tell me that we have turned a corner. PLEASE.

I'll let you know how Night Number Three goes.....