Chapter 3
By limiting Henry’s evening liquid intake, the Vaughn family was able to get a full night of sleep without any interrupting incidents; however, one full night did not come close to making up for months of deprivation. One solution to the overall problem would have been to stop Henry from drinking every night after dinner. While that was possible, it was not the best solution. With each night of being restricted from juice and water, Henry became increasingly more unruly. By the third night of him asking for a drink and being refused, he went into full on temper-tantrum stage. Sydney and Michael felt it was too cruel to do this continually so they gave in, handed him a small glass of water, and a few hours later they were awake again changing his bed sheets.
Months earlier, after Henry out of the blue began to wet his bed and had done so for a week straight, his parents brought him to the pediatrician, fearful that there was something physically wrong with him. The doctor checked him out thoroughly and discovered that was not the case at all; Henry’s bedwetting seemed to be psychological, though for the life of them could not figure out otherwise. At first, they thought that perhaps it stemmed from teasing or bullying Henry received at the summer camp he was attending at the time. But both Henry and the camp director insisted that no such teasing was occurring, so once again they were at a loss.
All four of Henry’s grandparents weighed in on the situation, offering suggestions and remedies. Unfortunately, none of them had experience with the situation when they were young parents, so their suggestions were merely things they had heard from other parents, or from parenting books. None of their ideas worked, though, so Sydney and Michael were right back where they started.
In the following weeks, Sydney and Michael decided to try a new plan. Since Henry’s bedwetting typically occurred between two thirty and three am, they decided to preempt the whole incident. The theory they had was that if they set and alarm for two am, got up, and took Henry to the bathroom, then he would no longer wet the bed. Amazingly, this worked perfectly. They only problem was that while they were no longer changing sheets in the middle of the night, they were still waking up in the middle of the night, interrupting their sleep.
As September faded away, yet another month was passing without sleep. From Henry, both Sydney and Michael caught colds making their situation even worse. Though their illness was just a run-of-the-mill miserable yet not life threatening cold, it caused Sydney to realize that their sleep deprivation was actually affecting their health. It was reaching a critical point where something needed to change or everything was going to break. Sadly, one evening, it did.
Due to their illness, Sydney and Michael had to stop waking themselves up at 2 am to take Henry to the bathroom. They could hardly fall asleep as it was with their congestion and stuffy noses; they just had to hope Henry would wake up on his own. He did not, and once again Sydney was stuck washing sheets in the middle of the night.
After managing to eat only a few bites of her dinner (she was not very hungry), Sydney went upstairs to put fresh sheets on Henry’s bed. While she was doing this, in her exhausted state she tripped over the air mattress still on the floor in her son’s room. This trip caused her to stumble, taking the sheet with her. Unfortunately, the sheet took out the blue lamp on the table beside Henry’s bed, sending it crashing to the floor.
Michael, who was downstairs doing dishes at the time, heard the loud noise, but did not immediately go investigate the situation, mostly because his hands were covered in soapy water. Henry, however, did go to see what his mother had done to his room. When Michael ascended the stairs a few minutes later, Henry was on his way down. “What happened? Did something break?” Michael asked his son.
“Dunno,” Henry shrugged. “Mommy’s sitting on the floor crying. I ask her what’s wrong, but she just cried.”
With this information, Michael hurried past his son and up the rest of the stairs. He hovered in the doorway of Henry’s room and saw Sydney collapsed on the floor sobbing into the balled up sheets that she clutched in her hand. As Michael neared her, he saw the lamp beside her, its shade a few feet away. “Oh Syd, it’s just a lamp,” he said softly. After running his hand across her back, he picked up the lamp and its shade. The lamp itself was not harmed at all; the shade was slightly mangled, but still functional. “See its fine; not even broken. Syd what’s wrong?” he asked, crouching down beside her and putting his arms around her waist.
“I don’t know!” she wailed. “I’m j-just s-so tired. I fell asleep at my d-desk today and I-I’m so t-tired!” she choked slightly on her tears.
“I know, I know,” Michael said, gently kissing her cheek. He held her there for a minute, rocking her gently, before trying to help her to her feet. “C’mon Syd. Why don’t you go lay down, okay? I’ll finish this.”
“No…you’re tired too I…,” she sniffed, unable to finish her thought.
“No it’s alright; I’m fine,” he lied. “Just go, okay, just go.” Sydney nodded slowly before passing over Henry’s sheets. Then she shuffled her way out of the room.
Michael finished making Henry’s bed, albeit very poorly since he was unused to making beds, only stripping them. Then, he went downstairs to make sure Henry was working on his homework still. He ended up falling asleep on the couch beside Henry for over half an hour before Henry woke him. At that point, he groggily had to argue with his son on why he was refusing to give him a drink. After a twenty minute tantrum, Henry stormed upstairs and slammed the door to his room, which woke Sydney, who had also been asleep.
“What happened?” she asked as she staggered down the stairs.
“I wouldn’t give him a drink,” Michael said softly.
“Oh,” Sydney nodded. Then she stepped forward into his open arms and tucked her head into the crook of his neck. “What are we gonna do?” she asked tearfully.
“I don’t know,” he sighed honestly into the top of her head; he really didn’t.
Hopefully they can be one big happy family sooner rather then later. I hate all the tension right now. 
