No rest for the weary...

Last night was a bad night. Very, very bad. First my insomnia decided to keep me company until well into the dark hours when I finally broke down and popped a pill. Then, the baby decided to be fussy just as I was falling asleep from the pill I had popped. Somewhere around daybreak, I finally caught a brief nap before everyone else in the house decided it was time for me to wake up.

So this afternoon, when the baby went down for his nap, I thought it would be wise to take one with him. I cautioned the big kids to be quiet, told Papa I was heading for some sleep, and curled up in my bed with the wee one....

....Only to be promptly woken from my just-started-sinking-into-sleep state by the blood-curdling scream of an injured 3yr-old.

Desperate for sleep, I reminded myself that Papa was there and could handle the situation without me and tried to gently drift back into sleep. But the continued cries of my 3yr-old soon had me paddling back away from sleep because I needed to go make sure he was okay.

So I left the comfort of my bed and headed out to check on him. He was sniffling and snuffling on Papa's lap and incoherently mumbling about his back hurting and his older brother making him jump off of the bunk bed.

After a thorough exam to make sure he wasn't bleeding or broken anywhere, and some lap and snuggle time to cure the tears, I asked him to show me what had happened because I didn't understand at all what he was trying to tell me. (And I wasn't sure if it was his incoherence, my foggy sleep-deprived brain, or a combination of the two.)

So we head back to the bedroom, where I see some kind of contraption built on the floor below the bunkbeds involving a mattress, a rocking chair, and a step stool, along with some pillows and blankets.

I begin to worry....

At this point, the 3yr-old then demonstrates to me how he was standing at the top of the ladder to the top bunk, from which he decided to launch himself onto their "landing pad." Why? Well, because he was a "helicopter pilot dude" of course. Except this helicopter pilot dude needs some additional training, because there was no gentle touch-down, but rather a belly-flop that resulted in some kind of "neat" (per the older brother) "flippy trick" that is probably what hurt the 3yr-old's back.

I worry some more....

Because this one, my devilishly charming 3yr-old, is going to kill me (or at least turn me gray) in the process of trying to kill himself.