A few weeks ago I had an awful weekend with Gardner. The poor thing was teething and for Gardner, teething = an oncoming cold... usually a sinus infection, sometimes followed by an ear infection. This time, he was cutting molars. So at 4:45 a.m. on Sunday morning he began yelling in pain. 

Sometimes when Gardner wakes in the middle of the night I let him cry himself back to sleep. However, knowing that this was a pain cry and that he probably needed some Tylenol, I got up to soothe him. He was pitiful. 

I managed to get some medicine into him and we laid down on the twin bed in his room. He managed to fall asleep on my chest for awhile and we laid together quietly. Although it was early, I enjoyed this moment. It was a short-lived moment because about 20 minutes later he was restless. 

After an hour of trying to get him to sleep, I put him back in the crib to cry it out. I went back to my room, but the screams came through the baby monitor loud and clear, even on its lowest setting without being off. That lasted about 15 minutes. 

There we were... 6 a.m. I guess it was time to get him up for the day. He had made it clear that he was not going to go back to sleep. 

I made the most of my time in the somewhat quiet house, getting Gardner some breakfast and juice, cooking some potatoes for our Thanksgiving meal, and prying my eyes open with toothpicks.

At 8 a.m. I went to Jerry to ask him if he was getting up for church. He had a headache. I understood. I started getting ready and Gardner walked into our bedroom to turn off the fan. He loves to push buttons. 

Jerry thinks that I use Gardner to sabotage his sleep, but in all honesty I was just trying to get ready for church, so I could leave Jerry to fight the headache and get more sleep. Jerry was up. "You win," he said. "I'm up and clearly not going to get any additional sleep." I apologized profusely, I hadn't heard Gardner sneak into our bedroom.

Then Jerry said, "Gardner is winning." 

He was right. Gardner was winning. The battle of wills when it comes to sleep is an uphill battle that you sometimes can't win. You just have to throw up the white flag and surrender. We did. The white flag was flying high. We were defeated by our 14 month old. 

We know this will not be the last disruptive night of sleep that we'll get. It is just one of many in our long journey of raising children. We know that right now we are just up against teeth. All I know is that those painful molars better break through soon for the sake of our sanity!