Maggie has started having night terrors. A night terror, for those of you fortunate enough to not have to deal with them, is when a person appears awake while sleeping and is screaming bloody hell.

It sounds like all you would have to do is wake the person up to get them to shut up, but it doesn’t work that way. It’s like sleepwalking; these people are nearly impossible to wake, so the screaming can go on for literally hours.

Jonas had these when he was about twelve months old. Chris has gone to basic training and we were visiting my family for a month. Every single night he would refuse to go to sleep until he passed out at about midnight, then about an hour later he would start the screaming and thrashing. That usually lasted about forty-five minutes, and only ended after he had cried so hard that he projectile vomited all over my sister’s room a few times (how they ever sold that house is beyond me), then he would fall back to sleep and leave me shaking and numb on the edge of my bed.

I would fall back to sleep and then we’d do it all over again in about an hour. The entire month I was at my parents I averaged two hours of sleep a night. I was exhausted to the point of stupidity. I would get hungry, throw food in the oven and leave the house. I can’t even remember nintey precent of what we did while I was home I was so sleep deprived. It was like having three newborns. Jonas certainly didn’t help matters any because he wouldn’t even nap he was so shook up about going to sleep.

Until I knew what was going on, I was pretty freaked out by all of this. I mean, seriously, who screams like that for no good reason? We visited the ER, talked to friends, and finally upon consulting my mother in-law she sadly informed me that her kids had done this too. I still just figured it was a weird Jonas thing, and that he was having a lot to adjust to what with Chris being gone and staying at his grandparents, but now we have Maggie doing the same thing (minus the vomiting, thank heavens), and all she did was move to a nicer house. C’mon children! Adjust already! We’re moving up in the world!

I was up until one am last night trying to get Maggie to settle down, then Chris came home and took over. It took me several months to figure out how to win the night terror battle with Jonas. His occurred primarily when he was overtired. Jonas naps were nothing short of sacred for over a year because I knew if he missed it I would pay for it dearly later. They did get worse when Maggie was first born, so I was up a lot with him then too. I never even contemplated subsequent children doing this to me. ( I guess it was just too horrible to consider). It’s such a mean trick of nature. And I’m so tired!