No sleep...ever.

     For some reason, Jake is anti-sleep. He hasn't ever been a big napper, even when a baby. He doesn't sleep peacefully. He tosses, turns, wiggles, kicks, moans, groans and then there are the night terrors. If you haven't ever seen one of these in action, you'll think, "Oh a nightmare, that isn't so bad." NO. These are NOT your run-of-the-mill nightmare. Night terrors are insane. He looks like he is awake, firstly. It took us a while to realize he is still asleep. He will sit up, eyes open and start screaming random things, or just crying hysterically. There are usually random requests in the babbling. For the longest time he would scream for Mommy. I would go in there and he would freak out if I touched him and say, "NO! THE OTHER MOMMY!" At which point I would tell him that I am the only Mommy, but no, he didn't want me. He will scream to the point that he is coughing because he has asthma. Then, he throws up. If we are lucky we can usher him into the bathroom before this happens, but not always. I have cleaned up more vomit in Jake's lifetime than most janitors in a preschool. I'm over it now, it is just another thing he does. Doesn't even bother me at this point. But anyway, he kicks, screams, hits if you try to calm him. So you just run in there when he starts the hysteria, check to make sure a monster is not gnawing on his appendages, and then watch him to make sure he doesn't hurt himself. You'll be tempted to try to comfort him, but as he is asleep, it will either have no effect or upset him more. So, you just stand or sit and supervise the insanity. Then it stops. Just as suddenly as it starts, it stops and he crawls back under his covers and goes back to normal sleep. Until another one hits an hour later! Some nights it doesn't happen, sometimes just once, or sometimes it happens 4-5 times a night. It is horrid. I feel for anyone who has a child with these. They say kids grow out of them, I'm hoping for that day!
      Lately, Jake has decided that he just doesn't need sleep. Wednesday night, I am pretty sure I learned what a nervous breakdown almost feels like. This came after HOURS of begging him to go to sleep. I snuggled him, I sat with him, I made him stand in time out. We gave him his Melatonin ( it is a natural sleep-causing medication for people like Jake who can't fall asleep. Totally safe and normally a life-saver!) but it did nothing. I might as well have given him a green M&M. He stood in time out. He screamed at me, laughed at me, kicked me. HE WOULD NOT SLEEP. He was up for about 36 hours without any sleep when he finally went to sleep. I don't understand how a child can just stop sleeping. At about 2:30 Thursday morning I was beyond exhausted. You might wonder why I was still up too? Well, you can't just let him stay up unattended. He has a habit of scavenging. He just looks for things to get into for no other reason than he can. He likes to get canned food and try to open it with knives. REAL, sharp, pointy knives. So, I stayed up with him because I'm afraid of what he might do otherwise.  At 2:30 I started crying, because, well, that's what you do. Hysterically crying. Not that cute, tv cry that girls do. REAL, snot running, blotchy face crying. I couldn't breathe and ended up working myself into a fit until I threw up myself! It was not one of my best moments. What was Jakey doing while I did this? Watching me. He offered to go get Allen, my husband, but I told him that probably wasn't smart since it was 3 am and he was still up! His reasoning skills aren't the sharpest at this point. We went and stood in time out. He told me, "My feet hurt, I don't want to stand in this corner, it is the middle of the night! When is the sun coming up? Daddy should be going to work. Should I let the dogs out of their room? Harper just barked, maybe he needs time out..." He talks, a lot. I told him, "If your feet hurt, GO TO SLEEP!" Timeout didn't do much. Finally he wanted to lie on the couch, so he did and accidentally held still long enough to pass out.  I say he was up for 36 hours, that is not entirely true. At about 4:30, he fell asleep and he slept for a bit. But it wasn't deep, healing sleep. It was wiggley, moany, restless sleep. I slept an hour at this point. He functions much better on no sleep than I do. 
      Thursday night...."I'm not tired. I don't want to go to sleep..." SERIOUSLY?! How can a child just NOT sleep? Luckily, Allen stayed up with him since he didn't have to work Friday, so I slept. He went to sleep easier for Allen, but it took a while and wasn't without a fight. Last night, different story. He finally fell asleep after 2. I again went to bed because my body doesn't function it turns out. I get crabby without some sleep. He will almost be asleep and then he will jerk his leg, poke himself in the eye, bite his fingers, rub his face, drop his woobie (dish towel that he has carried since he was a baby), fall out of bed, need to pee (12,000 times adds my husband). Then he talks, a lot. "I need cough medicine, I just coughed. Do we have cough medicine? NO? Are you sure we don't have any cough medicine? I need to pee. If you'll just turn my cartoons back on I'll go to sleep. I can't sleep with you watching me. Go to sleep and then I'll go to sleep. Get out of my bed, I can't stretch out. I need a new pull-up, this one hurts. I have a boo-boo on my leg and it hurts, do we have any Tylenol? My nose hurts. My eye itches. I have something in my hair. Can you go get Harper so I have someone to snuggle? Hold me. DON'T TOUCH ME! Hold me again. Get out of my space! Can I watch Gold Rush? I like when they pan for gold. Do you think we can go to Alaska and find gold? You know you can sell that stuff for a lot of money, right? How far away is Alaska? Can we drive the Jeep there? I think it's far, we would need lots of DVDs. Do you know Bigfoot has really big feet? I think that's why they call him that. Are you sure they don't make that beef jerky out of bigfoots? (Jack Links jerky has a picture of the tv commercial sasquatch on the label. He has decided that's what it's made of.) " He can babble about everything and nothing all at the same time for HOURS! Anything to stay awake. 
    So...apparently our new norm is no sleep. He has figured out a way to convince his body that sleep is optional so why waste valuable time doing it?!