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I admit, James and I had it fairly easy in the beginning. By week three or four, the Bug was sleeping 5-6 hours at a time. We, of course, were high-fiving our awesome parenting skills and reveling in being so well rested (a relative term in the lives of new parents) thanks to our angel of a newborn.We should have known such a delightful thing could never last.

Everyone gets their due.

Well, around week ten, when Addison had outgrown her bassinet and we made the dramatic shift to the crib, we began to see a change in her sleeping patterns. The wee one that would typically slumber from 11pm to 5am, was now waking at 2am, 4:30am, etc. Not so much fun to have one’s sleep interrupted every 2.5 hours, especially when each wakeful moment required an additional 45 minutes of wakeful moments to facilitate diaper changes, feeding, and rocking back to sleep. We’ve tried everything folks. Swaddling, unswaddling, sleep sack, nightgown, onesie, windows open, windows closed, fan on, fan off, noise machine, back sleeping, side sleeping and yes, even tummy sleeping. That’s how desperate we are. WE ARE RISKING HAVING OUR CHILD MEET HER FATE WITH SIDS! And we all know how well I’ve been handling that potential scare.

Nothing works. And last night was a DOOZY! I would rather dangle from a broken rollercoaster 8 billion feet in the air for the rest of my LIFE, or play with Teletubbies in an enclosed space (my ultimate phobia) than go through another night like last night. Sadly, I don’t get to choose my evils.

I thought I had done such a bang up job as a mother because I had her in bed, asleep, by 8:30pm. James was out with coworkers for drinks, and he didn’t even get to see her awake. I was SO on top of my shit.

This is clearly what I get for depriving a daughter of her father.

She wakes up screaming at 11pm, and howls for an hour straight while James sings every Billy Joel song in the book, aggressively pacing the house, as this is a child that needs MOTION to fall asleep. Midnight, she goes down, to awake at 2:45am. After a failed attempt at putting her back down in her crib at 3:30am, James is kicked out of our bed by the crank pot (as we’ve taken to calling her when she’s ornery for no good reason at all) and she passes out next to me with nipple in mouth. 5:00am, she awakes again, with absolutely no intention of going back to sleep, but also no intention of shutting that little mouth of hers. After stumbling around and trading off holding Oscar the Grouch, James leaves for work, and she finally passes out at 8am and sleeps until 10am. The rest of today has revolved around her wailing WHENEVER I put her down, to ya know, do quick, simple, and NECESSARY tasks like relieve my bladder, or fill my rumbling belly. After many failed attempts at rocking, nursing, riding around in the car, the stroller, the SLEEPY wrap (I want my money back) and her beloved swing, we are still up and ‘attum at 2:30pm. When she begins fussing even in my arms, I decide she might as well fuss in her swing, and after a brutal five minutes of sounding like I’m forcing her to repeatedly put on sleeves (i.e. the sound of a pig being slaughtered) she passes out mid-cry, arms stuck up in the air, looking like a beetle trapped on its back.

I’ve been tip-toeing around the house ever since, and funneling an IV of coffee into my veins. Parents of more than one child are super-heroes, I tell ya. SUPER. HEROES.

In the midst of all the sleep-deprived chaos, I snapped this picture of her that’s so sweet and innocent that my heartaches and I’m reminded of why I love her so much it hurts. Some days just more than others.

Who me? Deprive you of sleep so fiercely that you’re driven to the loony bin? Never!