“Vacationing with children”: an oxymoron.

We just got back from a week at a lake in Maine. Vacation kicked our asses, took our names, threw sand in our faces, and called us Nancy.

Sure, there were some good parts. Aitch and Dog had a fabulous time at the lake. The whole family — Dog included! — had fun riding the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad. Minor discovered a little independent streak and was content to sit for whole minutes in a restaurant high chair, mouthing a piece of bread, while the rest of us — Dog included! — ate a civilized meal.

But the sleep deprivation! I suppose we could have anticipated that sleeping in a strange place would throw Aitch and Minor off their strides, but we didn’t realize that the clock would strike ten and then eleven with us whimpering, “Aitch, please fall asleep.” We couldn’t know that Minor would suffer a bout of diarrhea just as the hot weather hit, making it nearly impossible for him to fall asleep or, once out, to stay asleep for more than two hours at a stretch. And then, the one night when we actually did get both of them down before 10, and Husband and I managed to choke down a dish of ice cream and start to unwind, Aitch had night terrors, a feat he repeated again last night.

Aitch has woken up in hysterics before, but he has always perked right up once his demands for juice and late-night infomercials were met. This time, he just let out pre-verbal shrieks whenever we talked to him or touched him. The more we tried to comfort him, the more he cried. It was awful. The internets tell you not to wake a child with night terrors, because “he is likely to become scared and agitated.” As opposed to…how scared and agitated he is while asleep? Although that sounds like nonsense to me, some old wives’ superstition about waking a sleepwalker stuck with me, and I was afraid to wake him. Both times, he seemed to wake up gradually after about half an hour and then went back to sleep.

After seeing Aitch’s performance, I’m pretty sure that all those kid-possessed-by-demon books from my childhood were inspired by children with night terrors. The Exorcist, The Omen…remember Audrey Rose? Those weren’t evil spirits, just sleep disorders.

These days, I’m pretty much living for the moment when I can check the dual video monitor and see my own little night terrors tucked into bed, asleep.