For instance, let's say it's exactly 2:37 a.m., and you're out cold. All of a sudden, you are awakened by a loud thump from the floor above. "Maybe that was just a large squirrel jumping on the roof," you tell yourself, and drift back into sleep. A short time later, your subconscious stirs you awake to find a dark (albeit short) shadow standing over you while you slumber. After you remove your heart from your throat, you realize that it is not in fact a nefarious evil spirit coming to taunt you in your sleep but just your oldest son. As it turns out, it wasn't a squirrel on the roof moments earlier after all but actually Caleb's feet hitting the floor above you, and he has now come all the way down the stairs to inform you that he can't find his blankie (which, incidentally, you discover was laying in the floor by his bed).
Now imagine that it is 3:46 a.m. (possibly of the same night), and you are once again dead to the world. All of a sudden, you hear a loud bang, similar to earlier but coming from a different location above you. The bang is quickly followed by multiple bangs in short succession. "Maybe it's a raccoon and her babies playing dodge ball in the attic?," you ponder to your sleep-dazed self. Alas, you soon learn that it is not when your bedroom door slams open to let enter a shrieking demon...or rather your frantic daughter who is distraught over her rumpled covers.
You straighten out her covers, calm her down, and settle yourself back in bed. This time, try as you may, you can't seem to fall back to sleep - what with all the excitement so far the adrenaline is pumping. So you drag yourself out of bed again to try some milk to help you get back to sleep. Once in the living room, you are startled to hear panicking and crying coming from the stairs at an ever-increasing level of anxiety. This time it's your youngest son, and he quickly tells you that there are monsters in his room. Back upstairs you go, with heavy legs and eyelids, to search for monsters. Said monsters having not been found (and only after repeatedly assuring your son that no additional monsters would be entering his room), you trudge back downstairs, have your cup of milk, and collapse on the couch (why even bother going back to the bed at this point?).
You manage to sleep this time, though with strange dreams of monsters, blankies, and raccoons in the attic, when all of a sudden, before you know that you're even awake yet, you're flying up the stairs to the screaming at the top of the stairs. It's Wren again. She's shrieking, "I don't want my alarm!" Some prankster (aka Caleb) has set her alarm to go off in the middle of the night. You turn off the alarm and assure her that it will not be going off again that night. Then you try for one more hour of sleep, which passes like the blink of an eye, and before you know it, Caleb's alarm has gone off and he's coming down the stairs ready for breakfast...So much for a good night's sleep.
I always thought that once your babies slept through the night, you were pretty much done with the middle of the night awakenings. Oh, how I was once again wrong! I'm assuming that eventually (like when they're in middle and high school) they will not want to wake Mom and Dad with whatever they're doing in the middle of the night and that maybe they will at least be a little quieter so we don't have to hear the pitter-patter of their feet from above. Until then, we're stuck with listening to (and sometimes having to deal with) the midnight escapades of our little monsters in the attic.
(Though all of the above has not (yet) happened all in one night (though we have had multiple incidents in one night), these are all real excuses for which our children have awakened Tony or me recently. Maybe we should take some advice from Wren and start wearing headphones at night.)
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