Let’s Do 52! Exhausting
Left thumb in mouth, right thumb and pointer finger twirl earring: Allison’s unmistakable “I’m tired” cue.
A Starbucks cup in hand: Mommy’s unmistakable “I’m tired” cue.
The other day while waiting in line at the drive through at Starbucks, Andrew asked me, “Mommy, why do you need Starbucks everyday?”
[Oh come on now, I don’t need it every day… I mean I didn’t have it today for example]
“Well Andrew, coffee helps me not feel so tired.”
“But why are you tired? If you’re tired you should get more sleep.”
[The undeniable logic of a three year old.]
“I’d love to, Andrew. You should have a chat with your sister about that. She’s the one who wakes me up at night.”
“Allison, Let.Mommy.Sleep!”
“Ahhahhahhababababapfthhhhh” {giggles}
I had terrible pregnancy insomnia starting about a week before I found out I was pregnant with Allison. It lasted until the very end at which point I had a newborn and if you’d told me then that she would still not be consistently sleeping through the night at 9 1/2 months, there is a very good chance I would have slapped you in the face.
It’s not that she can’t do it. She can. She also knows how to soothe herself back to sleep most of the time. And she goes down for naps well (finally) and she goes down most nights without a fuss. This is all thanks to my wonderful friend and brilliant newborn sleep coach, Jessica of Eat-Sleep-Love. Without her I would most certainly be living in a padded room somewhere wearing a special coat that ties in the back. Jessica’s advice has been invaluable. In fact I think every new mother needs a sleep coach and I can’t recommend Jessica highly enough. Still, the elusive 12 hour stretch has eluded us until very recently when we had a major breakthrough. Thanks to our nifty new Motorola Wireless Video Baby Monitor, we discovered that her bedroom was around 86 degrees at night. (By the way, I will never ever ever buy a Summer Infant monitor again after ours broke after only a few months of light use.) This was shocking since our thermostat which is right outside her room, is set at 78. It is also shocking because none of the other rooms are like that. But because she was always cold as a baby we never used the fan. One night we forgot to turn it off and lo and behold she slept 11 hours straight. That was a week ago and every night has been the same except two nights ago when she slept until 7:20– the 12 hour stretch!!
You wrack your brain and beg and plead and cry and stomp and beg some more “PLEASE CHILD, JUST SLEEP!” I’d whisper to her each night before laying her in bed, “I love you dearly but I don’t want to see you again until the sun is shining in the morning!” And then it’s something as simple as turning the fan on. Go figure.
So now that we have overcome that obstacle we are surely due for more teeth or a Wonder Week or something of that sort. But in the meantime I’m just glad I might get a few decent nights of sleep because life lived well is exhausting. Exhausting but worth it.
By the way, this was my first real attempt at getting a picture in semi darkness with my new camera. Here’s the original unedited:
f2.8 1/25 12,800 ISO (Wow!)