Scorpion bites are no fun, really.

I do think that most parents lie about one thing especially...

Are your kids sleeping through the night?

At least in my experience, we all shade the truth a bit or neglect to leave out crucial details. Okay, and whose big joke is it anyway to count five straight hours as "through the night??" I am ever hopeful that Nate and Savannah will sleep through the night, (defined by me as from bedtime until 7am) alone, without crying, without a midnight drink, in their own beds. The chance that all of those things will be true on even given night for both of them however is quite small. So small as to be fairly non-existent. I think in the last several months I can count on one hand the number of nights that I have slept straight through. So maybe that is a better question... Are YOU sleeping through the night?

Anyway, last night was no exception. I woke up about 2 am to hear Savannah screaming. What sounds fairly quiet to me can really echo in the little room that all four kids share so I am usually hussling to get there and make sure everything is okay before I have not one but four awake children. As usual, no visible problems, probably just a nightmare. I rub her back a bit and hear Nate start to stir. As I quietly back out of the room, she wakes up again and begins to cry. With a sigh, I pull the mosquito net back and bend down to crawl in with her. She settles down and snuggles in while I go through that random mixture of emotions (this is the sweetest thing in the world to bring such comfort to my child/I am soooo tired) and softly chant to myself, "this is just a stage, it too will pass." Hearing Joe and Louisa's heavy breathing and deep sleep does help to reassure me that in time Nate and Savannah will do likewise one day.

OUCH! Holy cow, what was that?? Did I roll onto a tack? We have a corkboard with pictures right outside the kid's room and lately the twins like to pull off the tacks. I am always a bit groggy and not always the fastest mentally in the middle of the night, so it takes awhile for me to realize that I should move as the pain continues to radiate up my arm. A stinging, electrical like throb that is growing quickly in intensity. I grab the flashlight and sit up to see a very tworked off scorpion about the length of my pointer finger, waving his tail and pinchers in the air right in the space where my arm had been. Wow, now what to do? I must have spent several seconds just staring in disbelief that this little creature had made its way under the mosquito net and into the bed with us. I though about crushing him with the flashlight, but what if I miss? As I look closely, he does look a bit worse the wear for being nearly squashed by my arm so I take the risk and dash out of bed to get the bug spray in the next room. We spend the next five minutes in a tango like dance. I spray him with DOOM, he waves his tail and comes forward. I shove him away from a now quietly sleeping Savannah towards the edge of her bed and under the guard rail. After several rounds he is on the floor and able to be thoroughly squashed and thrown in the trash. My arm is still throbbing and starting to form a good size whelp. Thank goodness for Benedryl Gel. I am still a bit shaky as I head back down to my room to sleep, when I hear Nate call out, "Mommy! Where you at? I neeeeeed you!" Sigh. "This too will pass, this too will pass...."