Trenton Growing Up

Last night I woke up at 2:20am to a small, scared, but in-control voice saying "Mom?". For the first time he came to get us instead of just crying in his bed. I guess he's finally getting old enough to wake up enough to realize he can come get us when he's scared. However, he wasn't able to tell me the problem well enough so I could understand. He kept saying there was a "loud breathing sound" that he could hear in his ear and it scared him and woke him up. He said he could hear it inside his head and kept telling me to put my head closer so I could hear. What? So I pressed my head against his so our ears touched and then told him that I couldn't hear inside his head. Bummer! I asked if he wanted to climb in bed with us. He did. A few minutes later I was still awake and thought maybe the boys door was open. I thought if we all slept until Ben got up then it might get too loud for Tyler to keep sleeping. I got up to go close his door and tuck him in. He had started getting a stuffy nose the night before and I made sure he looked and sounded alright and then closed the door. I went back to bed and just kept laying there awake - and then I had my aha! moment. A few seconds later I asked Trent if he was still awake (he was) and if he could still hear the loud sound. He said, "let's go check". What? I thought it was in his head, but he had heard it in his room...and while I couldn't get back to sleep it dawned on me that Tyler had been almost snoring when I checked on him. The "loud, scary breathing sound" was Tyler! Yep - Tyler sounds scary when he has a cold! I explained it was just Tyler and Trenton immediately wanted to get back in his bed. I am so grateful that my kids LOVE their beds and hate sleeping with us. Of course I ended up not being able to get back to sleep until after 4am, but at least the mystery of the scary sound was solved!
Whew - if only my tired mommy-brain had been able to work harder and faster at that hour of the morning!
And then...It took me awhile to wake up this morning...but then I needed to go pick up a few things for Ty and so we hit the library just to exchange books, too. While checking out the books (we check out ourselves via computer) just as I scanned the last book, suddenly my power went out and the screen went blank. Trenton had unplugged the computer!! Oh, I wasn't very happy about that! He stood in the corner right where he had unplugged the computer. I checked from another computer that I had gotten all the books on my card...and then explained to him how much trouble he was in. I told him no treats the rest of the day and a chore when we got home. Of course he knew better - he had to crawl behind the computer and stick his hand in a little hole! He told me he shouldn't have done that, but really didn't cry that much, which was amazing. So, I told him let's be happy and go home and get all of the chores taken care of. After he finished doing penance he came right to me and told me in a very serious, calm voice how sorry he was about unplugging the library computer. He said he'd never do that again. I stopped right there and got down on the floor with him. I told him how happy I was that he could come tell me sorry all by himself and that he did his punishment chore happily instead of crying. He smiled really big and gave me a HUGE hug (big stuff for Trent!) and that was that.
I'm sure we'll have many more experiences like this, but he got it and he understood that I wasn't just being mean. I think that hug was my best mommy hug of the week...or 10 days from Trenton!