Friday night follies

I don't know what it is, but my children always have trouble sleeping on Friday nights. Usually every other night of the week is fine. Maybe it is the transition to the weekend, or maybe it is just a coincidence, but it seems that everyone has trouble staying in their beds on Friday nights. Routinely the scene goes like this:

1. My three year old son comes into our bed around 1am.
2. After being sandwiched for a couple of hours and realizing I can't sleep like this, I try to carry him to his own bed. He wakes up and says, "Where are you taking me Mommy?" So I put him on the couch in the hopes that he will fall back asleep right away.
3. He does not go back to sleep and comes back into our bed.
4. We all finally fall back asleep just in time for my six year old daughter to come in the room around 4 or 5am and she is upset that there is no room for all four of us in the bed.
5. I manage to wiggle out of the bed and go with her back to her room to spend the rest of the night in her double bed and set her alarm so I can wake up to get ready for work at the library in the morning.

I have realized long ago that being a parent means giving up your right to a full night's sleep. As such, I can function pretty well on very few hours of sleep, but every now and then it catches up with me and I just crash in the afternoons. I am always saying I need to get to bed earlier, but when I do I feel like I am cutting into quality time with my husband. Parenting is a juggling act, that's for sure!