The things you hear at night

My goal isn't usually to embarrass the children, but I just have to say: One of our children makes nursing sounds when sleeping at night. This child hasn't nursed in a while. Heck, none of them have.

Just saying.

Elizabeth's turn

The setting: Elizabeth is reading in the upper bunk. I'm reading to Colleen who is in the lower bunk. Colleen has a whole pile of books she wants me to read. I'm exhausted and decide that one story is all I can do. She's obviously disappointed. I have a great idea and say, "Maybe Elizabeth can read you some of her book."

The comeback from Elizabeth: "MOM! Are you insane?!? This is the Klingon Dictionary!!"

I'm sure it's pretty easy to imagine the pre-teen inflection associated with the italics and CAPS in that quote.

A developmental milestone, perhaps

Colleen still tends to wake up in the middle of the night, more often than not. Sometimes I can succeed in getting her back into her own bed without too much issue, sometimes I'm lazy at 3 a.m. and let her sleep with us. (Heck, she climbs in on Cate's side, so most of the time I don't notice her coming in.)

But lately I've been up at all hours because of D3hoops.com's March Madness, busy time of year. If the light is on in the bedroom when Colleen wakes up, she won't come in. Last night was one of those nights, and she was padding around in her feety pajamas out in the hallway. And then ... lo and behold, she goes to the bathroom!

It sounded like all was well, but after a few minutes she was back in the hallway, whimpering. I called to her to come into the room, figuring she was just looking to crawl into bed, and she sniffled and said, "It doesn't work!"

She walked in the door, with her pajamas off except wrapped around one foot. She got the PJ's off but couldn't get them back on.

I helped her get all zipped up and such. And she went back to her bed.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ...