Well, our sweet little Ethan is now 3 1/2 years old. He always amazes Tim and me with how he can get up in the middle of the night and go potty in the bathroom and then go right back to sleep. So, one night Tim and I came upstairs to get ready for bed. I saw Ethan's door wide open and he wasn't in his bed. Mmmm, I thought - where is he? I looked in our room -nope. I looked in Eli's room - nope. Then I saw the toilet seat was up in the bathroom, so I ventured in the dark bathroom. There was our sweet little tired boy fast asleep on the bathroom floor with his pants and underwear down around his ankles. What did I do? I immediatley ran for the camera of course. I snapped a picture to capture this adorable moment. He had amazed us once again. Even though he was soooo tired, he woke up, went in the bathroom, went potty, but just couldn't stay awake long enough to pull up his pants or get back to his bed. So I guess the bathroom floor was comfortable enough for Ethan to continue his slumber.
Sometimes, however, Ethan can't quite make it to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He still wakes up and knows he has to go potty, but is too tired to figure out where the bathroom is. Sometimes we hear him from downstairs just whining and crying, so we rush upstairs to find him circling around in his room trying to figure out where he can go to the bathroom. So we quickly carry him to the bathroom, he goes potty in the toilet and then he goes right back to sleep in his bed. Well, one night we weren't quite fast enough at helping him find the bathroom. We heard the moans of his disorientation and ran upstairs to his aid. But as we opened the door, we found Ethan with his pants down, peeing in the corner of his room. He was in full swing so there was no stopping him. All we could do was bunch up the bean bags he was peeing on and create a "bowl" to catch his pee. He felt better afterwards and crawled back in bed. Tim and I then began to clean up the results. But to his credit - he still amazed us by being able to wake up enough in order to not wet his bed - Good job, Ethan!!!
A few weeks ago, Ethan went through a phase of getting up at 3:30AM every morning for about a week. He didn't have a nightmare, didn't have to go potty - he was just awake and wouldn't go back to sleep. I was getting so exhausted by this, so I asked him one morning why and here is how the conversation went:
Mom- "Ethan, why have you been getting up so early the last few days? Aren't you tired in the middle of the night?"
Ethan - "I just keep having these great dreams about playing, so I just have to wake up and play!"
Oh, to have the mind of a 3 year old. Their minds truly never rest, especially Ethan - he even dreams about playing and just has to get up and play. We need to bottle his energy and sell it!!
