day two, part two: six days left

The night started out amazingly. I was feeling like parent of the year (in my own mind obviously). The kids were fed, bathed, in clean pajamas and in bed by 8pm. Maxie didn't try to get out of bed ONCE before he fell to sleep. I was in bed reading and after 45 minutes I thought I would venture downstairs to watch the season premiere of Survivor. As I walked past the bedroom where I THOUGHT the boys were sleeping, Ceejer piped up "Mamma!" I went in and decided to take him downstairs with me, sit him on my lap and snuggle with him in the dark, watching survivor. He is normally a very good snuggle pal.
Well he snuggled for about a millionth of a second and then got up to play with his trucks. I kept the lights off thinking it would keep him in "sleepy" mode, but it didn't. When Shel called me she heard him squealing before I even said hello and she greeted me with "Uh oh" and not "Hi"!
It actually is NOT that big of a deal that he was up, because he is really good, and he plays without any problems. When I went to bed at 11, I took him up and laid him down and he just rolled and went to sleep. I got into bed, read my book for another 20 minutes and turned out the light. Well the turning off of the bedroom light somehow woke Max in the other room. I swear he has a sixth sense for electrical current - and he was wide awake, out of bed, and told me he was finished sleeping for the night. For some reason he was very weepy. I let him get into the bed with me, thinking all along about how Shel predicted I would be sleeping with one or the other of them before her side of the bed had even cooled but I was determined he was NOT staying the night with me.
He started to cry, saying over and over "mamma gone, mamma gone". By this time it was well after 1am and although I was tempted to call Shel and have her talk to him there was no way I was disrupting the whole household to have her say goodnight (which we had already done earlier anyway). I tried to balance between reassuring him she was returning and showing my version of sleep deprived compassion and putting him back in his bed. From that point on the night was a complete write off. He didn't stay in bed more than 15 minutes at a time and I was up and down the stairs getting bottles and other things for him trying to find what he needed to settle for the night. FINALLY around 4 am he seemed to fall asleep IN his bed and it took me all of a millisecond to fall asleep right after he did. THEN the little cherub was up again sometime around 5 and we were all up for the day. Day three away from mom had a rocky start. I hope tonight goes better - I hope he collapses from sheer exhaustion and sleeps the night through. Now I just have to keep Ceejer in bed. There will be no attempts from me to sneak downstairs tonight. I just hope I don't need the bathroom!