mr. baby: Mother's Day

A typical night being the mother of a four-year-old:

1. In bed at about 10:30. We fall right to sleep - totally exhausted from the birthday party in 85 degree heat at the park that we had to go to.

2. 12:30 am - woken up by Ella just to tell us that she "has to go potty." Although she is totally capable of going on her own, she feels the need to wake us up to tell us that. Also, Whit goes into Leigh's bedroom to tell him to keep the noise level down.

3. 1:00 am - Ella is crying. Whit and I wake up and rush into Ella's room expecting to find her severely injured or, at the very least, on the verge of violently vomiting. She wants to tell us that she's too hot. I reprimand her a little and tell her to stop crying and remove all blankets except for her sheet.

4. 2:30 am - Whit wakes up to tell Leigh to "GO TO BED...NOW."

5. 3:00 am - Whit gets up again to make sure that Leigh actually went to bed.

6. 5:30 am - Ella wants to know if she can get up because "the birds are already awake." In her defense, the birds are pretty noisy this morning.

7. 6:30 am - We wake up because Ella is lying in her bed singing. We can hear her over the monitor. Whit gets up with her (allowing me to "sleep in" until 7:30) and starts making breakfast. This morning I had breakfast in bed while Ella sat next to me watching TV. She also delivered hand made pictures and cards to me while Whit was cooking. She wrote "mom ilvu fo Ella" (translated as Mom, I love you. From, Ella) on one of them.

Would I trade my sleepless nights? Not for anything else in the world.

We also created a new tradition today. A Mother's Day hike. The scenery may not look like much. The winter season was so incredibly dry that the brush is pretty brown. It was still a pretty hike.

Ella at the trail head.