Sleep: A poor substitute for caffeine.

Sticking with the general theme of posts lately- I have a newborn. She is amazing. I don't think it has really sunk in yet that I have two kids. Really, it seems a bit surreal that Nolan and I are even married (if you know our dating story you'll understand why) let alone that we have children. But I am married to my high school sweetheart and we do have two beautiful daughters.

And in the grand tradition of having a newborn in the house, sleep is extremely elusive. If you talked to me during the first couple weeks of her life you'll be surprised I am saying this because all I did those first couple of weeks while awake was nurse her and gush about how much she loved to sleep. Seriously, I was getting almost 12 hours of sleep a night, with a good 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep in there. It was such a blessing. As is typical though, that season of sleepiness is over and we are in the stage that vaguely resembles a POW camp. You know: no sleep, no showers, no unaccompanied trips to the bathroom, sporadic meals, and various physical tortures that would be inappropriate to discuss here.

Like most people, I don't do well on no sleep. Actually, I get desperate to be brutally honest. I take to tearfully pleading with a small child who has no capacity to understand, let alone comply, to "please sleep. please. please. please. please sleep." I tend to forget, after just one night, that sleep does return to vaguely normal patterns in just a few short months. That it won't be long before she only needs to eat once, maybe twice a night, and then not at all. Then she'll leave our room and go and have an endless slumberparty with her big sister.

The trade off though isn't half bad I must say. I am sitting here getting to be on the computer, drinking a really good cup of coffee, with the perfect little girl asleep on my chest. Yes, asleep. The
pouch has magical powers. Get one. Anyway, this is a season that is filled with so much joy and peace and feelings of wanting it to never end, and yet at the same time it's season that is exhausting and even occasionally makes you think that this is the last baby that I'll ever consider having. I love it, all of it. When I'm 80 I'm not going to remember the nights I got a good sleep. I will remember though what my precious angel looked like at 2am as I rocked her and she nursed peacefully at my breast.