The Apple Juice Story

I was thinking to myself this morning, after last night's fiasco, that I believe William alone has caused me more sleepless nights than the other 3 kids combined. It began when, at 2 weeks old, he wanted to eat every hour and a half for 2 weeks straight. It continued when he was 4 months old and would nap fine, going to sleep on his own, during the day but then night would come and he'd be completely unable to settle in his crib. I can't count the nights I'd go in, calm him down and rock him, lay him down, and have him wake up crying 20 minutes later. Putting him down awake DID NOT WORK in the middle of the night. Believe me, I tried. It didn't help that he was one who would spit up if you didn't get that burp out, even if it took 10 minutes of back-patting; who wants to change a wet sheet in the middle of the night? I'd try so hard not to wake up Matt because he had to drive an hour to work, but there would come a point when I would be near tears and just couldn't take it anymore, and I'd have to ask for help.

Sweet William

William at 5 months

Two months after William's second birthday, he started climbing out of his crib & coming out of his room repeatedly. We bought a toddler bed, hoping to entice him to sleep in IT instead of on the floor by the door. I was SO excited when, after 3 weeks, I found him SLEEPING in it the next morning! There was a door-knob lock on the inside of his room for months, because otherwise you'd spend all night putting him back to bed.

William finally napping after tearing apart his room

William at 2 years old

Which brings us to the Apple Juice Story. I was still nursing Sarah at night, so William had to have been a little over 3 years old, 2-1/2 years ago. Sarah woke up to nurse in the middle of the night and as I was leaving our room to feed her, I kicked something on the floor of our room that made a clanking sound; it didn't really register with me what it might be, but when I got to the hallway I noticed the lights were on downstairs so I sent Matt down to investigate.

I got Sarah all settled back to sleep & I went downstairs to discover Matt in the kitchen cleaning up a giant puddle of apple juice on the floor. Next to the puddle was the bottle of juice, with the lid lying on the floor beside it. There was a trail of apple juice from the kitchen, through the dining room, up the stairs and across the hall into our bedroom. The trail ended at the foot of our bed with the empty glass. Which is what I had kicked. William, at this point, was sleeping soundly in his own bed, after apparently quenching the enormous thirst that drove him on such a quest in the middle of the night. Mind you, we had already taken him back to his own bed at least once before this all occurred.

William at 3 years old

So there we were, poor sleep-deprived parents of 3 month old infant, cleaning up sticky apple juice from ALL OVER THE HOUSE at 2 am. This is but one example of why nothing he does really surprises me anymore, and there are keyed deadbolts on every exterior door of our house with the keys out of reach. Otherwise I'd never get any sleep at night. God help me when he's a teenager.