Sleep. Does it ever resume?

I said in a recent post that our kids had a meeting about sleep.  Moreover, I think they all went to a conference...or better yet they created a strategic plan, "How to ensure the parents don't sleep."

It's been bad around here folks.

2 nights ago we had our first family meeting with the girls. The agenda item: sleep.  We talked about how if they choose to stay in their beds then they are choosing certain privileges in the morning (TV, clothing choices, radio in the car) and how if they do not stay in their beds they are choosing to eliminate those things from their day. Shifting it from their choice to "our" enforcement seems to have helped.

There is also now a bedtime checklist. Once we go into their bedroom there is NOTHING except a quick prayer (same words every time) and hugs and kisses. Then DONE.  It has worked moderately successfully.  Except one parent forgot to put a diaper on Miriam last night (ahem) which meant that Miriam peed the bed in the middle of the night. Thomas got woken up while we were getting a diaper and I spent the next 2.5 hours NOT sleeping while various children awoke, cried, reawoke etc.


They are killing me here folks. Killing me.

They are also all sick.  They all have a hacking cough. They have all had a fever at one time or another. 1 kid is getting a tooth another has one falling out.  We have both worked evenings this week which makes us disconnected from one another.

Oh sleep. Oh blessed sleep. Oh eschatological (look that one up) sleep.