Mother/son camp out.

Wednesday morning at about 2:30 a.m....

Clark woke up at that hour for some reason that I'm still trying to troubleshoot. I have determined it to either have been a bad dream or he woke up unable to breathe easily because of a nasty cold we are all passing back and forth to each other. He was terribly snotty so I'm sure he just couldn't breathe out of his nose and that freaked him out. Either way, he woke up screaming and it seemed impossible to console him.

I rocked him for about five minutes until he had fallen back asleep in my arms, and let me just tell you this, I loved it. I soaked it in. It was so sweet. When I stood up to put him back in his bed, he started screaming again. So we rocked for another few minutes and was yet again unsuccessful at putting him back in bed without screaming. It was when we did this song and dance a third time that I realized there was little hope in me getting to spend the rest of the night in my bed. So I succumbed to the almost three year old and folded up my body into his tiny bed and tried to sleep with him there. For obvious reasons, that didn't work. I'm way too big. Clark still sleeps in his original crib but without the front railing, so you can imagine how ridiculous I looked with my knees up to my chin. But at least he wasn't crying, so I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep thinking I could attempt a graceful return to my bed once he fell asleep.

NOPE. Didn't happen. He wouldn't fall back asleep.

At this point, it was 3:15. And by the good grace of God, I wasn't mad or cranky or frustrated even the slightest bit. I guess because recently there are very few moments in the day where Clark desperately wants me around, so I had to soak in this rare opportunity that I now believe God gave me. But anyway, I started getting cricks and aches and my body was hurting something awful from being curled up into an extreme version of the fetal position for almost 45 minutes.

I unfolded myself out of the mini-bed and, as expected, the Shark started crying again. So being a genius, I pulled his little Lightning McQueen sleeping bag out of his closet and attempted to rationalize with him by offering to sleep on the floor next his bed and not leave him by himself in his room. This actually worked for about three minutes until he decided to join me in this tiny Lightning "Baqueen" sleeping bag. This was fun. Not really. When I put myself in the sleeping bag, it came up to my belly button, but I scooted over as much as possible and let him in with me and he fell asleep instantly. I tried, I really did, to just fall asleep with my makeshift pillow of a wadded up damp towel I found on the floor. We stayed in the sleeping bag until Clark woke up again trying to find a comfortable position, imagine that. By now, the clock read 4:twenty something.

Note: Even though this would have solved the entire problem, I didn't bring Clark into mine and Aaron's bed because Clark had a bad cold, I had an annoying cough/stuffy nose situation, and I didn't want to risk Aaron catching anything. I'm so good to Aaron. 

It was at this point that the proverbial light bulb dinged above my head and I remembered that we have a guest room. With a queen sized bed and the most comfortable mattress (besides my own) that I have ever slept on. So I picked up a sobbing little 35 pound Clark and we both fell right asleep the second our heads hit the pillows. Gaaahh I was so mad at myself for not realizing our should have been second option before I attempted to share a crib mattress and then mini-sleeping bag with a wild Shark. And even though I only slept for about 90 minutes before sweet old man Grif woke up, and I had only gotten about three hours before the whole Clark attack began, I wouldn't have changed a thing. It was wonderful being that close to my little boy for a little while. Having said that, if he would have pulled a stunt like that the next night, things would have been different. He's just such a sweet little man and I know that one day in the not too distant future he wouldn't be caught dead sharing a tiny sleeping bag with me. So I'll take these opportunities as they come and be grateful for them.

In the meantime, I might buy an adult sleeping bag in the event we have another camp out. Just in case.