Forty winks torture

My encephalon (thank you Thesaurus) is refusing to make any consistent effort today so I'm just gonna launch straight into it.

Mr. Sandman, can you please ensure you have our address on your list tonight. The kids need you. Though if you could keep well clear of myself that would be much appreciated. I don't need any help falling asleep. In fact quite the opposite after last nights efforts from the younger four minions. Most nights see us catching a few decent hours of shut eye & it has been a while, maybe three weeks, since the minions have chosen involuntary insomnia as their weapon of choice. The day following an all nighter when you are thirty is nothing close to the perky bounce back when you are twenty. Today I am hurting.

Last night was a shocker. Within the first hour of crawling my weary derriere in to bed the little beasts had me up six times. I didn't bother keeping score after that. I also didn't keep count of the times that my head remained glued to my pillow & Doug got up in my place. It's a well known fact keeping someone awake for extraordinary lengths of time is a form of torture. I thoroughly concur with this statement. Waking someone within minutes of them falling into a decent state of slumber is inhumane. Based on personal experience, three minutes is the peak time to wake the sleeping person to reach optimum levels of brutal,cold blooded torment. 

Blake kicked it off with a nightmare. Then Jack woke up & needed a drink. Then Blake was cold. Jack got me out of bed again because he tripped over his blanket going to the toilet. Will was next with his headbanging. In the middle of the night to lull himself back to sleep he will rock on all fours hitting his head repeatedly against the wall or the bed head while humming to himself. It is noisy, & a little disturbing. After waking Will enough to settle back to sleep normally without bashing his head against the wall, I dared to hope that this was the end of the night waking & could now try to achieve a state of REM very very soon. Nope. Blake was up again & wanting to sleep in our bed. Knowing, based on previous nights, that if this were to occur my quality of sleep would be right down there with the quantity I was (not) getting. With Blake tucked back into bed & on my way back down the long cold hallway I stopped to check all the other minions - with the hope of preempting any further wake ups.

Crawling back in bed, finally warming up & beginning to drift into a state of blissful oblivion, Clay wakes. Kill me now. I lay there for what felt like ten minutes, but was likely only one minute, listening to his grunts & whinges before giving up all pretense of hope & got out of bed to feed the ravenous little cherub.

Now 2am & I'm positive I can now get four solid hours Z time in before the alarms start their invasive racket.

Negative. Blake comes running down the hallway & into our room. By this stage I'm a desperate woman & regretting those extra hours of reading time back at 10pm. I throw in the towel & open up the bed covers for Blake to crawl into. At this point I'll take even just the illusion of sleep, to keep my eyes closed but my level of conscious firmly in place, & be grateful for it. There's little choice with a miniature sleeping body right next to me, breathing in my face & dribbling on my hair.

The wee hours of the morning finally saw me achieve my first cycle of rapid eye movement. 

4am & I was up again to take a blissfully sleeping Blake back to his own bed.

5am kicks off with Doug's alarms.

6am greets me with the sounds of Blake & Will awake, already starting their day down in the lounge room. Somehow they have synced their internal body clock with Giggle & Hoot.

If you see me today & notice that I look exactly as I feel, do not say anything. 

I feel tired, I feel exhausted, I feel haggard. You have been warned that I am feeling a little stabby. I'm doing my best to rein it in, given I have little people surrounding me & their bedtime isn't approaching for another four hours (& counting). 

However if you wish to bless me with a super soaker size of pure caffeine you are more than welcome too.