a little bit of elliott all night long

Elliott has a new game. Or skill. And this is Big Fun, I tell you.

He goes to sleep (precious little lamb). He is a finger-sucker... his own, mercifully... and he holds the shiny blanket binding, and sighs, and sometimes he talks to himself a little. It's all very cute.

And then he wakes up.

And sits up. Because, duh, he can.

And then he cries. Hard. Dude howls, wails, carries on like it's his job. Why? BECAUSE HE CAN'T LIE DOWN. He gets stuck in the sitting position and he doesn't want to be awake, but he is, but he's so tired, but he can't go back to sleep because he just. can't. lie. down.

Oh, the crying. It puts the stress in me and my heart starts pounding in my brain and my breathing goes all wonky and the meds I'm on are not for this sort of stress, they're for the other stress that's similar but without all that crazy heart pounding and I've tried to just lie there in my bed and wait it out but then my brain starts making those ridiculous fizzy-pop noises that lead me to believe that if I wait for that sweet child to just PLEASE GO BACK TO SLEEP!!!! I will have an aneurysm and die right there in my bed and that would just be catastrophic because The Mister would probably not notice I was deceased when he got up at the butt-crack of dawn to go to work but Wee Man TOTALLY WOULD NOTICE I HAD KICKED THE BUCKET when he climbed into bed with me the next morning to tell me he was starving for food, but I would be dead, and so then Wee Man would starve to death and then there we'd be, the two of us, curled up dead in the bed.

HB would be fine, for sure, except he'd never take his night-time diaper off but that'd turn out okay because eventually it would slide down his left pant-leg and would just sit in a stinking pile on the floor because HELLO, HE'S THREE, and they're a little gross. Miss O, on the other hand, would be horrified that I was sleeping so soundly in my bed whilst the baby was crying and carrying on because by this time he'd be awake again if he'd even fallen asleep in the first place. Er, second place. So she'd fetch him and come all storm-clouding-it into my bedroom where Wee man and I are TOTALLY DEAD BY UNRELATED BIZARRE EVENTS and she'd drop the baby on my carcass and then she'd be all, umm, mama, the baby's, like, crying, and you are totally ignoring him, and that's all annoying, you know, first thing in the morning. Not because she really talks like that normally, or that any of us actually talk like that, except for the short people really like to get under my skin before coffee, and by lying there dead I have given away the valuable information that NO, I HAVE NOT YET HAD MY COFFEE, thankyouverymuch, and also? You should be WAY nicer to me because I totally won you like ninety-eleven bazillion KinzCash last night on your WebK.inz account.

And then she would feel totally horrible for sassing me when I was dead, especially because I hadn't had any coffee first, and it would be one of those magical cartoon moments when the big realization happens and the French Press Fairies come to give me a hot cup of mouth-to-mouth, and the Kettle Fairies come to monitor the stove usage, since the short people aren't allowed to use the stove without an adult, and then they would instruct my people on the finer points of BRINGING THEIR MOTHER COFFEE IN BED, and then they would bring me coffee in bed, just the way I like it with brown sugar and real cream, and I'd drink it even though the French Press Fairies just had their wicked way with me, and then someone would give Wee Man a half-spoonful of anything, or wave The Mister's iPod under his nose or something, and he'd be back to normal.

And we'd all live happily ever after.

The End.