Nighttime Ella Strikes Again

I believe the only thing I actually did right in the middle of last night was to get out of bed to help Ella the fifth time I heard the words, “Mommy, I’m wet.”  Coming off of keeping myself calm, cool and collected as Ella loudly challenged my taking her Mickey bed away because she didn’t actually stay in it at bedtime, I was still feeling pretty good about myself.  I was particularly pleased with my choosing to take the time to hold her and talk her into a calm instead of leaving her upset and having to figure out how to calm herself down and go to bed on her own, which really only ends with her giving in out of sheer exhaustion.

With that success fresh in my mind, one would think that I would have handled what she was about to throw at me in the middle of the night much better than I did.  Even half as good as I did actually may have salvaged some shut eye for Cal and Dan… or at least Cal since I think he’s completely innocent in the madness, not that Dan did anything wrong other than not be specifically named in the “I’m wet” declaration. Why do I have to be the chosen one?  Why isn’t it, “Daddy, I’m wet”?  Why doesn’t he tell me he’ll take it even though I’m the one being called?  But I digress.

I approached her, standing in the hallway between our rooms, sympathetically and immediately offered my help.  I must have missed the horns sticking out of her head and pitchfork in her hand.  I innocently guided her to the bathroom where I sat on the toilet to pee first and then calmly told her I’d help her get out of her jammies and proceeded to do so starting with the top.  That’s when it started, “it” being the madness I am nicely calling “Nighttime Ella.”

“NOOOOO!!!  I’m cold!” she yelled at me.

What?!  I hadn’t expected this reaction and tried to reason with her.

“Ella, I just need to get you out of your wet jammies, wipe you down and put new jammies on,” I told her, fully expecting she’d understand.  It’s part of the drill.  When I’ve had to do this for Cal, we are automatic – he follows my lead: I pull everything off, wipe everything down and put everything on and then send him to my bed to warm up while I change his bedding.  No complaints and done in a couple of minutes.

Everything that I did from that point forward was unacceptable to Ella, and she let me know it.  As I pulled her bottoms off, she screamed again that she was cold.  As I wiped her, she let her body go limp and screamed more.  She battled me on the way to her bedroom – I don’t know where she thought we should go.  I picked a princess nightgown to throw on her and she screamed, “not that one!”  I tried to help her put the jammies she picked on, and she told me loudly that she didn’t want my help.  When I left her to do it herself while I grabbed a sheet from the hallway closet, she yelled at me for leaving and not helping.  I pulled the bedding off of her mattress and wiped it down, and she disapproved of that.  The replacement blankets weren’t the ones she wanted.  When I finally had her in her bed, I didn’t put the blankets on right. “I don’t want my babies.  I do want my babies.  I want Sheep.  I don’t want Sheep.”  And when I tried leaving the room, wet bedding in my arms, without waiting for an “I love you” followed by blown kisses from her, she yelled at me that she wanted to tell me that.

No kidding.  It was brutal.  And it wasn’t just Ella yelling this whole time.  Sure, I started calm with a loud whisper, “SSHHH… you’re going to wake up Cal and Daddy.”  But with every yell and uncooperative struggle she presented me, I got louder myself, dropping swear words and spewing genuinely angry words as I did so.  Together, we did wake up Cal and Daddy and quite possibly the neighbors on either side of our house.

Finally free from Ella and wide awake, I checked on Cal to make sure he was okay, and I think I apologized to him and told him to try to go back to sleep.  I gathered up his dirty clothes and grabbed some of mine and Dan’s (I am nothing if not practical) and went downstairs to start a load of laundry and, really, to calm down.  I was so angry… so frustrated… so sad.

Once again, I failed to keep my cool and felt no better about myself having yelled back at her.  I’m not a yeller.  I hate that I yell.  The fact that I’m human just doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to do so.

I eventually made my way back upstairs.  Dan did have to get up and deal with Nighttime Ella after I left her, and she had calmed down by the time I was back upstairs.  Cal was still wide awake.  I climbed into his bed with him where we cuddled a bit and listened to a few rounds of the Frozen soundtrack (he starts it over after the trolls’ song) until he finally fell asleep.  I went back to mine and Dan’s room where Dan was still awake and flipping through channels on the TV.  Eventually, we too fell asleep, I don’t really even know at what time.

I love Ella.  Of course I do.  She's a lot of fun and cute as the proverbial button.  I just wish she'd put Nighttime Ella to bed once and for all because I can't figure out how to do it for even one night.