Starting Over

Happy Monday, Lovelies! I hope you all had wonderful weekends! Our weekend wasn't a bad one, but it didn't involve much sleep. Lately, most nights have been consistent of night owl children-- I know I've mentioned it before, and from the looks of things, this wont be the last time-- and then they sleep all day. It's not my favorite process, but I can deal. So on Saturday night, I decided to call it a night at about 11:00 pm. Three hours later I woke up to the hubby crawling into bed. It always amazes me how he can go from zero to snoring in less than 60 seconds, but I digress. No sooner do I hear the snoring does the Prince start crying.

Not just crying, but screaming. At this point, the Princess is sleeping so I attempt to calm the Prince before that slumber is disturbed. No matter what I tried; cuddling, rocking, a new bottle or toy, nothing was working. He would just start crying again the second I tried to set him down. My last ditch effort was to feed him some graham crackers-- a personal favorite of his-- and try to get him down again. Though he is not crying anymore, he does stay up to play for another hour or so. By 4:00 am, I am exhausted. Fifteen minutes later, he is finally asleep. I crawl back into bed and try to close my eyes, but as it turns out, the soothing sound of snoring isn't so soothing after all. After tossing and turning for who knows how long, I start to feel that familiar pull of dream land.

It seems I've only slept seconds when I start to hear crying from the Princess' room. I shut my eyes tighter, hoping that somehow that will make the sound stop. It doesn't, shockingly enough. It's 4:30 am by the time I look at the clock, and my alarm is the sound of the Princess screaming. I go into her room and change her diaper, dodging kicks coming my direction. I try to get her a new movie and tell her that it's still bedtime. As the level of her crying increases, so does my frustration level. I decide quiet time in her room might do her some good, as sometimes this is the only way for her to calm down and relax.

After what seems like hours-- which was mere minutes, really-- the crying hasn't ceased. She kicks the walls and floor as she goes. Her face is beat red from all of her screaming, I know she's hungry, but she's worked herself into such a frenzy that she refuses a bite of her favorite food. All the while the crying, kicking and screaming doesn't stop. I start to yell, I'm so mad. Mostly because I just don't know what to do. I break down in tears myself. 'I just want sleep!' I think to myself. Then it dawns on me.

It isn't her fault that we're going through this cycle. Sure, she was probably woken up by the Prince, and when she found it to be dark and she had a wet diaper, she just wasn't happy. She wasn't the reason I had been up since 2:00 am. We were just feeding off of each other. I'm sure that my face reflected her beat red status. As I looked into my daughter's tear filled eyes, I resolved that I would change this. At this point I was still struggling to feed her. I took a deep breath.

"You and I, baby girl are tired. It's still dark outside. Let's end this cycle we're in and start over. Fresh. A brand new day." I don't know if the words were for her benefit or mine, but I said them anyway. While she had stopped screaming, I could tell that she was apprehensive. So I resolved to lead by my actions.
I wiped my eyes dry, slapped a smile on my face and started singing to her. I have no idea what I sang to her, I'm pretty sure I just put words randomly together to a tune. As we got through the first jar of food, her face wasn't red anymore. By the end of the second jar, she was smiling and giggling with me. The rest of the morning went really well after that, I'm happy to say.

The Princess eventually went down for a nap around 10:00 am. Shortly after, the Prince woke up. It seems that they effectively tag teamed an all nighter. So yeah, if you see a zombified woman on the streets who looks like she can't hold her head up, pay her no mind. That's just me. But pass the coffee, will you?