Last night was a rough one. I had been overworked all week, getting little sleep, as usual. Friday was a day off, but we were still up pretty early and out of the house to hike up to Waimea Falls. I have 24-hour Duty today (Saturday), so the plan was to call it an early night and finally get some good sleep.

All was running according to plan; littleR had just whined herself to sleep, and bigR was on his way to lay down with me and read a story. Then, at 8:34 PM, bigR entered his little sister’s room, made some horrible noise for no reason at all, and awoke littleR. The crying fit that ensued lasted for two full hours before I stopped watching the clock, still laying awake. The ordeal concluded around … dawn?

I hopped out of bed a handful of times to offer my assistance to Exhausted Wife, but she assured me there was nothing I could do and I should really try to get some more sleep. I obliged, and after floating through some very bizarre dreams for another few hours, awoke two minutes before my alarm clock at 7:13 AM.

While I am told littleR went to sleep without incident tonight, I am still awake, eleven hours left to go on this cursed 24-hour shift. (The Army has screwed me out of a full weekend for a solid five weeks now. Fed Up Wife commented I might as well be deployed again - at least we’d be getting paid more for my prolonged absence.)