Running on Empty

This is how my life is going:

Me: "Yay, Paxton finally finished teething and is sleeping through the night again!  And I've finally regained the ability to sleep through the night as well instead of waking up every 2-3 hours for no reason 'cuz I'm used to Paxton waking up then!  And my 80 lb Boxer has decided he'd rather sleep on the couch than at the end of MY SIDE of the bed!  Life is just lovely!"

Universe: "Well that just won't do.  We can't have you being well rested and able to get all the stuff done that you want to before returning to the work force in 3 weeks.  No that definitely will not do.  Here, Paxton, I have a gift for you."

Paxton: "Ooooo, shiny!"

Me: "UNIVERSE!!!" (yelled somewhat like Captain Kirk yelling "Kaaaaahn!" in one of the Star Trek movies.  No I have not seen all of them.  I am still quite adept at avoiding that particular joy.  That's a whole nother story.)

Confused?  Let me enlighten you.  Yesterday was a pretty decent day.  Paxton and I hung out while Jay was at work and then we all headed over to Grandpa Chicken's house for the afternoon.  We played a round of Tiger Woods 2010 (although I had to leave in the middle of the back 9 since I apparently haven't learned anything in the last 10 1/2 months and forgot to check how many wipes I had in the diaper bag before leaving the house, so I had to go home and get more), watched Paxton for a few hours as he entertained us by walking around the living room and chasing after the cat (who wants NOTHING to do with Paxton) and then had some Chinese food for supper.  Paxton fell asleep on the way home and I got him out of the car seat and into the crib without him waking up (yay me!).  Jay and I then got ready for bed and settled in to watch a bit of tv while we fell asleep.  And that's when it all started to go wrong.  Here's what happened:

1. Maggie and Mo decided for some unknown reason that they should come sleep on the bed with us.  Fine, whatever, Maggie usually leaves shortly after Jay falls asleep ('cuz he kicks her off in his sleep) and I still have the body pillow at my end of the bed from my pregnancy days as a "force field" so Mo won't climb up my side of the bed and attempt to push me out.

2. Jay decided that we should cuddle while we watched tv.  Fine, whatever, he'll move back over to his side after he falls asleep (we are not cuddlers while we sleep.  We need our own space.).

3. Paxton started crying at 9:30 pm.  This is about a half hour after we got home.  Not a good omen.  So I got up, changed his diaper and rocked him in the chair for about 5 minutes.  Still crying.  So I took him to bed with me to see if that would help.  Nope, still crying.  So I left him with Daddy while I went to get some Tylenol (Paxton's still chewing on his fingers a lot so I'm assuming another tooth is in our near future.  Also, he whacked his head pretty good while we were at Grandpa's house so maybe he had a headache.), but he fell asleep on Daddy while I was out of the room for like 30 seconds.  Fine, whatever, I waited for a few minutes to make sure Paxton was actually asleep and then moved him back to his crib.  I returned to bed, we watched some tv and I fell asleep around 10:30 pm.

4. 11:15 pm. I am awakened by a screaming Paxton.  All disoriented (since I've only been asleep for about 45 minutes) I stumbled from the bed and headed to the kitchen for a bottle.  I returned to Paxton's room, gave him the bottle, checked his diaper and rocked him in rocking chair while he finished the bottle and then put him back in his crib.  I returned to bed to find Jay sleeping soundly on my side of the bed because although Maggie has now vacated Jay's side of our KING SIZE bed, apparently it was after he fell asleep and so he's decided to conquer my side instead.  I inserted myself under the covers and carefully maneuvered Jay back to his side while not waking him up since the poor guy has to work at 5 am and needs to sleep.  I fell back to sleep around midnight.

5. 1: 45 am. I am awakened by my sleeping husband elbowing me in the arm because he's trying to conquer my side of the bed again.  I heard Paxton crying.  I again stumbled out of bed but went to his room without a bottle since he just had one less than 2 hours ago.  I cuddled my boy in the rocking chair all the while letting him know in no uncertain terms that Mommy is not impressed and needs some sleep and in order for that to happen, he needs to sleep.  Crying stopped, Paxton fell back to sleep, I put him in his crib and returned to bed.  Needless to say, Jay was on my side of the bed.  So I again reclaimed my side of the bed from my sleeping husband.  I fell back to sleep around 2:15 am.

6.  As I mentioned before, Jay has to work at 5 am, so his alarm is set for 3:20 am.  Usually he wakes up about 5 minutes early and turns off his alarm so I don't get woken up.  Well guess what?  For some reason today is special and he slept right up until his alarm went off.  So I am awakened at 3:20 am by the blaring raidio.  Thankfully I was so exhausted from this crappy night of sleep that I aws able to pass into blissful unconsciousness within about 10 minutes.

7. 5:30 am.  I am awakened by a crying Paxton.  I once again stumbled from bed, got a bottle and returned to his room.  I changed his diaper and proceed to the rocking chair.  After about 2 minutes I realize that he sounds like he's "gulping" for air.  Once this information has filtered into the sleepy fog that is my brain, I also realized that Paxton sounds really congested when he's trying to breathe.  So, back to the change table, on with the light (a fact which is not going to help me when I want to get this boy back to sleep in 5 minutes) and out with the tiny snot sucker that looks like a turkey baster (you know what I'm talking about).  After cleaning out my poor boy's nose so that some air could get through we returned to the rocking chair, he finished his bottle, I put him back in his crib, (hoping that he would go back to sleep) and I returned to bed.  I don't know if he actually went back to sleep since I passed out pretty much as soon as I got back to bed, but I was able to stay in my coma until 7:30 am when Paxton decided that enough was enough and we should get up.

So to you, Universe, I say "What did I do to deserve this?  I know that I did get some sleep, but really?  Was it absolutely necessary to present my baby boy with his first ever cold 2 days before we are getting pictures of him taken with some other babies?!? (whose Moms I am about 99.99999% sure DO NOT want their babies to get this cold)  And was it really necessary to make me exhausted the one time I'm going to have a girls' night at my place so that I have absolutely no energy or will to clean anything or go grocery shopping?  And even if I did have any energy, I have a whiney, snotty nosed little boy to deal with so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get anything done anyway!" 

You, Universe are not in my good books.  You better watch your back. 

(At least Jackie brought me a Timmie's to make my day slightly better. *sigh*)