A Time to Rest

Well, last night was a disaster of epic proportions. I don't have the strength to get into too many details, but suffice it to say, my "experiment" was no miracle-worker, and I did not end up getting much sleep at all.  It was largely my fault, I know, for allowing him the first couple of hours in my lap on the couch, because I didn't think I could handle another failure in my attempt to put him down.  After all, my first attempt got me all of five minutes, and the second, just over an hour.  I let Tom go on to sleep ahead of me, and when I finally came into the bedroom around 1:30 am, I had this crazy notion that if I let Michael stay close to me in the bed, that the night could continue to go on peacefully.  I was willing to compromise my ability to sleep deeply and peacefully for the few moments I could get in the hopes of not having to drag my tired self out of bed multiple times in the night.  That plan backfired, and after a couple of tortuous hours of intermittent fussing from Michael, and kicks and punches to the face, I gave up and had Tom take him out of the room after one last feeding (which he promptly vomited all over Tom's shirt). 

I always hate to do this prior to 6:00 am, because while Tom tries very hard to give me opportunities to make up for some amount of lost sleep, he never takes any himself.  And while he insists that he's fine, and that the caffeine that he can have and I can not is enough to get him through the day, I see it wear on him.  Like when he starts having the kinds of lapses in memory that I'm so prone to.  Just this afternoon, I went up to investigate why he had twice gotten such push-back from Abby when he tried to put her down for a nap.  He had forgotten to give her a binky, which she never sleeps without.

But despite his early morning- it's all a big blur to me now, but I think he may have gotten up as early as 3:30 or 4:00 am, Tom made it his mission to get me as much rest as possible today.

I thrashed around in bed until about 7:15 am, when I came out to feed Michael.  Then I napped in the chair downstairs until Abby woke up around 9:00.  I'm amazed to admit that I don't really remember what happened to the rest of the morning.  I think it was at that point that Tom allowed me to crawl back into the bedroom for a couple of hours. 

I did hang out with everyone at lunch time, and then sat quietly on the sofa in the living room during Abby's nap, when Tom volunteered to take Michael on an errand.  Once again, their nap times had essentially coincided, but Michael boycotted his nap about 20 minutes into being put down, and Tom hoped that he could keep him asleep in the car. 

Michael slept through the whole trip, and we now finally have a changing table for the basement, which Tom had driven out to Manassas to pick up..  Michael was in a sufficiently good mood upon waking that we had our first successful experience with the jumperoo that's recently been brought out of storage.  I wasn't timing it, but he lasted a good 10 or 15 minutes (my last three or four attempts to put him in have ended in tears after about two minutes), and I got a chance to play around with my camera and new speedlight.

Despite the tremendously low-key day I've had, I'm feeling pretty ragged, and I wonder whether tomorrow will be worse or better than today.  It's the oddest thing, but my body seems to forget how much sleep it's missing until I actually get more than usual, and then all sorts of physical ailments suddenly appear.  Like day-long headaches that increase in intensity towards evening, body aches, and stomach complaints. 

But despite all of that, I cherish this day- and my husband, for giving it to me.  Whatever tomorrow brings, I hope that I've at least reset my stress threshold a bit, and can face the day more courageously than I've been able for the past week or so.

I've learned not to hope too much, but this evening has started off  well, at least.  I tried the cereal again, which he's kept down so far (last night he vomited much of it up between his first and second waking), and he managed a two-hour shift after being put down around 8:30 pm.  Tom just joined me downstairs after putting him back to sleep from that waking with relative ease, and whatever the rest of the night may bring, I've now found the energy to finish this post (which I began at around 7:00 pm and was feeling convinced a mere 20 minutes ago that I couldn't possibly return to tonight), and I think I'll go ahead and add some pictures, too.

You've followed along with me this far, and I feel that we all deserve a happy ending (with super-cute babies) to this day.

I was struggling a bit trying to find the proper angle to get the best lighting with the speedlight.  I know that I can't depend solely on it forever, and if I really want to start to get good pictures, I need to learn how to make some manual adjustments to the camera itself.  That photography book is calling my name, if only I could get my life organized enough to start reading it and practicing in earnest.

Here are some shots with Abby joining in:

It was so funny to me, seeing him so drawn to that purple rhino.  Abby was always partial to the monkey, which you can just see peeking out behind Michael's head.

I also got a kick out of seeing Michael make this face, which Abby began to do at around his age.  It occurred to me, though, that we eventually realized Abby was doing it due to teething pain and discomfort (it started happening right before those lower teeth popped out), so I think that poor Michael is going through the same thing right now.

And if that wasn't enough cuteness for you, here's an Abby moment to picture:

Tom came upon Abby playing with his shoes this morning, and asked her what she had there.  "Shoes," she replied.

"Whose shoes?" he asked.

"My shoes," was the confident response.