How do you recover from a rough night? How do you work through frustration, lack of sleep, and face the day with optimism?
My plan was to cook, Ollie had another idea.
Last night was another rough night. Yes, we have a newborn at home, but that wasn’t the big issue. Yes, Lucas has to eat during the night and he needs help falling asleep. The bigger issue was Ethan. He has had a cold the last couple days, and thankfully, he is doing much better now. The cold symptoms were worse during the night so he has been up in the middle of the night for the past couple days.
I’ve been able to comfort him, and help him get back to sleep most of the nights that he was sick, but last night my efforts were not working. Ethan got up around 3am, and even though I was able to get him him to calm down at times, he didn’t fully settle and continued to fuss and cry for a good part of the next hour.
Ethan woke up the entire household. Ollie is a great sleeper and most of the time that Ethan has woken Ollie up in the middle of the night. So, I was surprised to see Ollie enter the room and ask if Ethan was okay. I told Ollie that Ethan was okay and that he should try to go back to sleep.
Diana eventually got Ethan back to sleep. There was half an hour of peace and then Lucas got up, so there wasn’t really any solid sleep for me after 3am.
Ollie was the first up, and I eventually followed him. My plan was to make tea for myself and cook. Yes, I was tired, and yes, part of me was annoyed that Ethan kept me up a lot of the night. However, I knew that Ethan wasn’t doing this on purpose and that he didn’t do anything wrong.
To work through these feelings I decided to make a really good breakfast. I wanted to do something for Ethan to show him that I loved him despite the loss of sleep that he caused. Also, I knew that the only hope I had of getting through the day was with a good breakfast.
I didn’t get a chance to ask Ollie about how he felt about Ethan waking him up in the early morning. I was too busy stuck inside of my own head. It was Ollie who showed me how through his actions how he felt about Ethan the night before.
As I was cooking breakfast, Ollie with an empty cookie tin in hand, moved around the house with a purpose. I asked him what he was doing. “I’m putting toys in here for a Christmas present for Ethan.”
Ollie spent time looking through his toys, picking out things that he wanted to give to Ethan. He carefully wrote Ethan a note, and taped it on the top of the tin. As he ate breakfast, he told me that he was excited to give Ethan his gift.
I would have understood if Ollie was annoyed with Ethan, or was cranky because of lack of sleep. Ollie was none of these things. All he wanted to do was to make sure that Ethan had a happy morning after a rough night.
Ollie reminded me how we should take care of each other in our family, and that the best way to work through our feelings is to do for others.
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