Who needs sleep?

Apparently Mateo doesn't, and because he doesn't, I don't. Which has lead to an impromptu day off for me.

Mateo decided 1:30 AM was the perfect time to wake up. My husband, thank goodness, or so I thought, decided to get up and deal with whatever it was that was making Mateo cry and wail. It seems he's suffering from night terrors or turning things in his room into scary objects, we're not really sure, so it's now a rare night that he sleeps all night without one time waking up full throttle, tears flowing down his cheeks.

I got up to use the bathroom, thinking how lucky I was that I didn't have to get up and take care of Mateo, and then went back to bed. An hour later (confirmed by the clock when I squinted enough to make the numbers clear) my husband came back into the room.

"You need to take over. I've been in there an hour, he's had milk, he's been changed," he told me.

I got up and listened to Mateo's mewings. I didn't want to go in and cause an unnecessary ruckus, and in hopes that he would just put himself back to sleep so I could go back to sleep, I just patiently waited. His mews got louder, louder, and then finally he was crying again.

I went in, and he lost it. Crocodile tears were streaming, he was Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyding on me (I want you to pick me up! No! Don't touch me!) and he was on the verge of really losing it.

I tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to get him back to sleep. I even went to so far as to lay on the floor next to his crib and do some intense hand holding (the only way he'd lay down and not freak out). Every so often I'd look up and see his eyes, wide as saucers, staring at something in his room that may or may not be scary to him.

I finally gave up and took him into the living room so I could sit with him on the couch while he watched the Sprout channel. Then I decided maybe he was hungry because he didn't eat dinner very well. I took him over to the fruit bowl and pointed at a banana and asked, "do you want a banana?"

He smiled in glee.

Back to the couch for some banana eating and TV show watching. When he was finished, Mateo decided he wanted to get down, so I let him down, stretched out and tried to not completely fall asleep, but get some sort of rest. I also had to figure out if I was capable of getting dressed for work, going to San Francisco, working all day, picking up Mateo, taking care of him and all that good stuff on about 4 hours of sleep.

At about 4 AM my husband came into the living room (this is our normal waking time).

"You've got to be kidding me," he said. Mateo was wandering around the living room, looking at toys and talking to Zoe.

I shook my head "no."

"Did he ever go to sleep?" he asked me.

I shook my head "no."

"Are you going to work?"

I shook my head "no."

That was pretty much the extent of my communication abilities at the time.

I decided to try getting Mateo down again, this time with some more milk. I told him to go to his room, so off he went with this woobie enveloping him (blanket around shoulders, capping head), and after drinking most of the milk, he passed out with his eyes and mouth open.

I was back to sleep at 5 AM to be woken at 7:20 AM by a very grumpy little boy.

And it makes me wonder: How did I do it when I was getting up every two hours, three hours, four hours, etc. to feed him? I know the simple answer is: Because you just do it. But why is it harder now, when I am getting a good 6 hours of sleep straight most nights (although every night I am woken up by a certain fuzzy cat who wants some company, and her one way of ensuring this happens is by trying to run off with my glasses), to run on barely any steam? Not even the thought of caffeine being pumped into my body all day seems a feasible solution.

All I know is I love my little grumpasaurus, clingy as he may be. And I hope tonight is better for him because it's barely noon and my brain has fuzzed over again.