This past weekend, Jon and I re-lived our sleep-deprived nights when the kids were babies.  The nights weren’t quite as awful as years ago when we lived on two hours of sleep a night, but bad enough that we were awakened several times in the night by moaning kids with coughs and fevers and runny noses.  We were exhausted when the sun arose.  But, that being said, over the last month, the weekends have gotten increasingly better for us because of Maria’s ability to work the tv remote.  Yes, she has mastered the great art, and we are quite happy about it (at least until she becomes interested in shows she should not be watching).   She is able to locate Ben Ten or Batman for Mario to watch, fix them bowls of cereal, and play mother hen.  A win-win for everyone in the family, especially Jon and me because we can finally “sleep in” until 8 am. 

I remember years ago waking up with Maria or Mario through the night and dreaming about the day that they would sleep for more than 2 hours at a time.  Some of Jon and I’s worst spats were at 3 am when we were both sawing logs and Maria or Mario would wake us up with their wails from the crib. 

“It’s your turn.”

“Are you crazy? I was just up.”

“No way!  I just climbed back to bed!”

The expletives were scattered throughout our words.  One of us would stomp out of the room and back into the room after having rocked Maria or Mario for a half of an hour in the rocking chair.  The next morning, we would apologize and laugh at how crazy we were becoming from the massive sleep deprivation, and we would swear that we were going to let the bugger cry it out that night.  But that night came, and there was one of us always rockin’ the babe to sleep (they better be taking good care of us when we are old and grey). 

Eventually, they made it up to three hours, then four, then five until finally at 18 months, yes, 18 months old, each of them decided to sleep through the night.  However, as soon as they started sleeping through the night, they began waking up at the crack of dawn (Maria at 5:30 am; Mario at 6 am) ready to rock-n-roll.  Jon always teases them that when they become teenagers and want to sleep in until noon, he will be at their bedside with the blowhorn waking them up at 7 am. 

I can’t wait.