I can think of nothing else to talk about yet, so y’all are going to get the story of my last evening.

Okay, so let’s set the stage. Xoe (she’s 4, almost 5 for those of you who don’t know), fell asleep on the couch yesterday afternoon. This inevitably means she has trouble falling asleep at bedtime, but I was hopeful–she kept saying she was tired all evening.

But as expected, she was up at 8:30 or so asking to go to the bathroom (ah, stall tactics). In the bathroom, she spotted a teensy tiny little spider. The kind so small it barely even freaked her out, and she’s the master of over-reacting to any bug. (I say that with all love, LOL.) Then I tucked her back in, thankful Rowyn (who’s 2 1/2) didn’t wake up.

Half an hour later, shrieking. “Spider! Mommy, there’s a spider on my pilloooooooooooowwwwwwww!”

Riiiiiiiight. I’m thinking, “Okay, so she fell asleep, dreamed about the spider, woke up freaked out.” Something I would have done. So I calm her down, hold her for a few in the living room, make a show of checking her pillow and bed, and then tuck her in–for half a second before pulling her out of bed, barely containing a shriek of my own as a HUGE, thick spider (as opposed to our usual granddaddy-long-leg) scurries over the toy box right beside her pillow. (Rather than sleeping on her top bunk bed, she’s been on a mattress on the floor since July. Which I will not go into right now.)

So I hustle Xoe back to the living room, grab a flashlight (Rowyn’s still sleeping in the bedroom, so no overhead lights) and a shoe, and go spider hunting. But the thing must have gone into the toy box. (Can you see me shudder?) I can’t find it and squish it, which means no body to show Xoe.

We move her little bed to the other side of the bedroom, but of course that doesn’t work. A few minutes and she’s freaking out again, insisting she saw one on Rowyn’s dresser now (at her head), and trying to convince me that she’ll be fine if I just let her stay up until I go to bed. Which, at this point, is only a few minutes away anyway. So I let her help me make my coffee and watch me wash my face, then go back in with the flashlight. We check everything, and I leave the light with her so she can Shine it if she thinks she sees something.

A little bit later, I go to bed. Three minutes after settling in . . . wanna take a guess? That’s right, Xoe’s flying up the stairs. Obviously she’s not going to be able to sleep on the floor in there. So first we try the top bunk. No go–she hasn’t mastered the ladder yet, so . . . Our other option is what we try next–pulling her little mattress on the floor into the schoolroom.

Thankfully, that worked. She settled down and went to sleep. At 11:00. Three hours after bedtime. Argh!

After that the night was peaceful (though I was dreaming of bugs–go figure). Unfortunately, when I snuck down at 6 in search of some quiet time before the kids woke up, the kids woke up. So Mommy’s a little grumpy, and while Rowyn (who got a solid 10 hours, miraculously) is his usual chipper self, Xoe’s also grumpy–not surprising. Seven hours of sleep is not enough for a 4-year-old. And grumpy me is thinking, “She’s going to fall asleep again this afternoon and then repeat the whole can’t-sleep-at-night-thing . . .”

Here’s hoping for a smoothing evening tonight though, eh? Sigh.