The night I almost expected
About 8 months ago my wife and I found out some unexpected news that we would be parents for the fourth time. Interestingly we were not surprised
though the child was not necessarily planned. We did plan on having more kids
but we were planning to wait one more year. I had just been accepted into a new
school and we had already made plans on where our children would be while I was
at school and my wife was at work. Adding one more child to the search for
daycare providers would be difficult mainly because infant rooms tend to have
long waitlist. But despite all the concerns we had for this child we took a
positive attitude because we wanted to not have any ill feelings to the new
child. The only selfish concern that kept coming back to me was how will I get
any sleep.
For many sleep is a mild concern and for most who have been and are
in a graduate program you already know that sleep is not very common anyway. As
apparent of three I have had many sleepless nights and have been woken with the
sounds of two or three kids being sick all at once, but my thought have been on
this for months. Already we were outnumbered and now it would be 2 on 1. Well
last night was the night of nights for us. Not just as much my wife but i would
take the credit and say 75/25 me. We already went to bed fairly late and our
newest child decided after weeks of long naps and always being tired it was
time to be awake. I took him for the first hour and then was able to hand him
to my wife when she was hungry. Shortly after I made the hand off my third youngest
came in upset and in tears, I tried to console him but found the only thing he
wanted was to sit with me subtlety moaning. Then it happened. My second oldest
came in having an asthma attack and I had to run for her inhaler. That took
about 30 min to get her settled. Meanwhile the other two were upset and my wife
much more tired than I was very out of it to even make a coherent thought.
Within a short few minutes I heard my oldest son get up. I thought oh no! But I
heard the toilet flush and he went back to bed.
Shortly after I was able to get
my daughter back to bed, and made a deal with my second youngest to sleep on my
floor, I made it to bed and collapsed to sleep while my wife was just setting
down our littlest. Interestingly when one has an experience like this you tend
to be on edge. I found myself waking up several times to check on my children
and because I was worried I could sleep through another crazed event and leave
my wife regretting every decision she made since meeting me. When the alarm
went off in the morning I was so exhausted that I snoozed it for 2 minutes to
long and left us all running late out the door. But to be honest this was still
not as the worst night I could have and as most parents know it won’t be the
last.