Bedtime

There are some things about life that seem so backwards.

Like the older a woman gets--and presumably better able to handle all that motherhood brings--her fertility wanes.

And the more you know about life--through experience and education mostly--you realize you know you don't know.

But the kicker of backwards for me these days is sleeping.

3rd trimester big pregnant is uncomfortable and leads to lack of deep, restful sleep. Agreed all around. People tell you this nature's way of preparing you for lack of sleep, of any kind, during the newborn faze.

But I'm here to tell you 1. NOTHING short of military style sleep deprivation torture can prepare you for the newborn days  2. Having been through newborn days once before I don't need nature to prepare me, I need nature to spare me. I need to sleep NOW because I'm really certain it's not coming later. Ever. Again.

Knowing what I know, I am trying to prepare myself to surrender to the glorious honor of becoming a mother again. Surrender. Give in and let go and allow God to meet each little person's needs and the big people's too.

Did I mention my dear 2 1/2 (this week) year old has decided napping is optional. An opts not to about 77% of the time now.

Mama was not prepared for this. Mama still wants her nap. Mama was banking on family nap time to help get through the newborn days.

Mama, who prior to the last two weeks had only given in and put the child in the car ONCE to get her to fall asleep, has done it at least three times this last week and doesn't regret a dime of the gas money.

Lord have mercy on my soul and give me patience that is truly miraculous given the sleep issue.

And here's one last how backwards is life? deals: bedtime or the big sleep, as we like to call it. The kid fights it, the adults crave it.

Last night bedtime brought out the ugly cry and the straight faced pout. I'll let you guess which belonged to whom. But I won.

Temporarily.

At some point in the night (I don't know when. I purposefully don't have clocks in our room that glow the time all night long because I don't really want to know. I highly recommend it. My sense of time is incredibly heightened by having learned the shades of early morning around the time to get up.) Georgia awoke and picked up where she left off.

Having not been through her regular bedtime routine, she now needed her sippee, a tuck in, and perhaps a book. Or six.

I wasn't having any of it. Her daddy had compassion and apparently they had a nice long chat about all sorts of things.

At one point, she talked him into coming into our dark room to tell me good night. She said it multiple times and I faked sleep.

She finally gave up and as she left the room I heard her say in the most surprised voice over and over, "Her didn't say anything."

I had to roll over and smother my laugh into the pillow.

Thankfully tonight she was much more cooperative and I'm feeling good about us all getting through the night. Asleep. At least the two of them. The two of us will still tumble and bumble around.