Four in the morning: Alex stirs. Stirs again, grunts. Grunt, squeak. Squeak, squawk. Squawk, squall. Matt and I heave a collective sigh and get up.

"At least he made it past three," I offer. It probably comes out as "Mrfmrrrgle."

I make a bottle while Matt changes Alex. For a switch, Alex is not screaming his head off on the changing table -- Matt has managed to jolly him into some semblance of calm. I hide the bottle from his view until Matt has him ready to take it.

I debate not bothering to test Penny's sugars -- she'd been at a nice, comfortable 135 at 10. But some sense of duty sends me back into our room for her test kit. She half-wakes as I test her, then subsides into sleep again.

The glucose monitor beeps its result: 335.

Crap.

Maybe her hands are dirty. It happened once that Matt tested her when she had some honey on her fingers, and the monitor got so upset it just said, "HI". I go into the bathroom and get a damp washcloth. When I come back, Penny has curled into her blanket. I try to extract an arm and find that she's actively fighting me.

"Come on, sweetie, I need to do a stick." She shoves her hands between her knees and turns her face into her pillow.

I wrestle with her for a moment and finally get out a hand to re-do the test. Beep. 315. Her hands weren't dirty.

I poke my head into Alex's room to let Matt know what's going on. "Stupid pasta," he says.

Downstairs to load up the syringe, and I remember to bring not only the shotblocker but her squishy star back up. She's buried herself in her blanket. "Okay, sweetie, shot time. Where do you want it?"

"Where's my pink ball?"

"Downstairs. Here's your star. Where do you want your shot?"

"Well, you could go get it."

"No, I'm not going back downstairs now. Tell me where you want the shot, or I'll pick for you." Four-year-olds are prone to boundary testing anyway, but Penny gets downright belligerent when she's running high. Grudgingly, she exposes an arm.

I give her the shot and tuck her back in with a hug and a kiss. She tries to convince me to go back downstairs to get her pink squishy-ball. "You can get it in the morning," I tell her.

"No, you get it now."

Matt comes in -- Alex is back to bed -- and we give her a last hug and a kiss, and go back to bed ourselves.

I've been up long enough that my brain has finished its reboot and wants to start working. I lay still and listen to my heart beating.

I'm just dozing off when Penny says, "Mommy!"

It's 4:37. "What?" I call, without sitting up.

"I had a bad dream."

"Okay." Usually, she comes into our room to tell us this. I get up and go into her room, where her bed is empty. "...Where are you?"

"In here."

She's in the bathroom -- I walked right by her. Usually, she turns on the bathroom light at night. I approve of the change. I go into the bathroom and sit on the stool.

"I had a bad dream," she repeats. "There weren't any superheroes. There was nothing. Just me."

"I'm sorry, sweetie."

"I want someone to sleep with me," she says.

"No, but I'll tuck you in again and blow a good dream in your ear, okay?"

"I want one with superheroes. And me. And you. And Alex and Daddy."

"That sounds like a fun dream. Okay." We go back into her room and I tuck her in. She reminds me that she wants a dream with everyone in our family and some superheroes, and I blow gently across her ear, pretending to load her up with the tailor-made dream. (She has never complained about this not working. Maybe making the request sets up her subconcious with it.)

I go back to bed. Over the monitor, I hear a cough from Alex, and then a softer, sort of hacky noise.

I wrestle with the worrybrain for a moment, then get up to hold the monitor close to my ear and reassure myself that he's breathing. I go back to bed. It's 4:50. I wonder if I should just get up and be done with it.

"Daddy!" Penny is in our room, climbing up on Matt's side of the bed. I groan and look at the clock: 6:37. We've overslept, and it's time to start the day.

I finally made it to my doctor yesterday to have my knee looked at.

I expected him to send me for x-rays, or tell me that it was the inevitable result of being overweight, or make impossible suggestions like "stay off it."

Instead, he poked and prodded and twisted my leg and noted my responses. He asked if I'd tried wrapping it and nodded when I said I couldn't find a wrap big enough for my leg. He asked if I'd changed my routines lately, and I said "Not really, unless you count taking care of the baby," and he said, "Ah-ha! Doing the Mommy Squat? Spending more time on the floor?"

He told me to use Aspercreme and Advil for the pain, and to find a wrap that fit my leg -- he thought the Sports Authority down in Hampton would have it, if no one else did -- and that I've got tennis elbow (well, bursitis) in my knee, and if the wrap hadn't improved things in a few weeks, then I should come back for a shot.

So there we go. There's a specialty drugstore around the corner from my office, and they had a wrap that fit, and I was already seeing improvement last night after just a few hours of wearing it, so hopefully it will clear up soon.