The princess of the house turned 5 this week. She had a great week filled with cards, gifts, privileges and a party with a giant rat named Chuck E. Cheese. Abby has been an easy child to raise thus far...except at night. For several years now, Abby has what most would call 'night terrors'. And it isn't that rare to find Abby walking around the house at 2 AM sleep walking. But mostly she just screams in her sleep. She screams in the middle of the night 2-3 times a week and then almost always screams and moans as she wakes up in the morning. It's all very odd. My good friend Google taught me that roughly 15% of kids ages 2-7 have night terrors and that it mostly is caused by lack of sleep. Which doesn't make too much sense because Abby usually takes a nap plus sleeps for nearly 11-12 hours each night, but I guess it could be the cause. Monica and I have adapted to the screaming fairly well. She usually stops after a minute or so, but if it's longer, one of us gets up to check on her. Caleb doesn't have our patience and sometimes will yell at her to "be quiet" from his own bed. There was a period of time that Abby liked to sleep in Caleb's room on an air mattress. But we found out that when Abby screamed, Caleb would toss toys, stuffed animals and books at her from his bunk bed like it was some sort of target practice. The good news is that the screeching has become less frequent and most the experts state that kids will grow out of it.
