yule tide musings

Ahhhh…..A few minutes to slooooow down.  Since I’ve gone back to work, I have been busily adapting to a whole new phase of parenting- the working mother. And then Christmas, which is always a craze. But now I am in Winnipeg, and the Dandenau’s – Lydia included – are all gone indoor rock climbing, but I am stuck at home because little Justin has the chicken pox, which I haven’t had, and I don’t feel like getting anytime soon. So, although I wish I could be scaling a wall with the Dandeneau’s, it is nice to get a few minutes to chillax

So, let’s rewind a couple months and reflect. Going back to work. Oh, boy. I had been mentally preparing for months leading up to the big day, so I was prepared. As much as that is possible. The first week, was actually not that bad. Except for one small crying scenario. Me, not Lydia.

Lydia wasn’t happy about the change at first either. She cried a lot as I left. But I am told she quickly forgot all about old mamitra, and played all day until around 2 or 3 when she would get a little fussy and make the milk sign a lot (opening and closing her fist). But around 3 weeks in, she really began to adapt. She now just fusses a little bit. A half-assed prostest really. Sometimes she doesn’t even muster up that. I always say good-bye and she knows I’ll come back. And she loves her babysitter, Diane. It feels so good to know that she feels confident and safe with Diane. But, I can’t deny, that it also feels good to know that even though she spends a lot of time away from me now, there is no replacing momma. I come home at the end of the day, between 4 or 5 and walk (or more accurately, run) in the door. As soon as she sees me she drops whatever she is doing and starts running towards me, giggling with her arms out. We hug and then after around 15 seconds she starts pulling at my shirt. She is ready for her ‘re-connect to mommy’ nursing session. While we nurse, I normally catch up on Lydia’s day with Diane. Once Lydia is done, she normally giggles again. Then she looks up at Diane with a grin and waves bye-bye. As if to say, ‘okay, Diane that was fun, but now it’s mommy-time…so…catch you later’. Evenings have never been so sweet. We normally play for a while, then Steph comes home, we make and eat supper, have a bath together and then into bed. We read a couple stories and then she nurses to sleep. Sweet indeed. It is hard not to see Lydia all day, but with my reduced work hours, I still get plenty of quality-time with Lydia each day. I am adapting.

At the office, I actually found subsequent weeks harder as I found myself needing to adapt more than I thought. After 12 months away, not only did I change, but the office changed. Our small team grew by three lawyers, including a new boss. Many of my files have been taken over by other lawyers. Relations with the client also seem different – more controlled. It was weird. It was my old job, but different. And at first everything seemed just so boring to me. I was like, god being a lawyer is awful. Reading laws? Drafting contacts? Blurk! For the first time, it also hit home what the reality of a big law firm job means for family life. I am not there yet. I am on reduced work hours (a whole other kettle of fish…being the only one to have ever done that in the Montreal office). But I have been talking a lot with my colleagues, most of whom are fathers with babies or young children at home. Not one…not ONE of them eats supper with their families. They see their children a few minutes a day. During a busy week, they sometimes don’t see their children at all. It seems so sick and disgusting to me. How can we, as a society, say that that’s okay? How can you, as a parent, say that your kids are the most important thing and then, on a daily basis, make the decision to choose work over them? I guess people convince themselves that they do it to make lots of money so they can give everything to their children. If they looked deeper, however, I am convinced the reality is that it is pure personal ambition, material greed and an intense need for societal recognition that makes them choose their work over family. After all, how much material wealth do children need to be happy? Very little.

And this is why folks, not unsurprisingly, that there are very few women who stay at big firms during those early parenting years. When I got back to work, I sought out young moms to see how they manage to balance their job with their role as a mom. Guess how many women I had to talk to? None. Yup. None. There were a few before I left, but they have since all left. All of them. Crap.

As for me, I have one year of reduced hours and then I have important decisions to make. It is a tough realisation that I can’t do it all. I can’t work and compete in a big law firm and still be a present mother. The reality is that I would be competing (and let’s face it, there is an aspect of competition in the lawyerly world) against people who are willing to put in a lot more hours, spend a lot more time on the road. It means I have to step back and redefine success in a very serious way. Being a mom is to0 important to just jump in the big corportate river and start swimming as hard as I can to get ahead. I am not sure what my own river will be. But I am looking. Mostly inside for now. It is a bit scary, to be frank. Taking the road well-travelled may be a lot of hours, but it’s safe and seemingly predicable. But I guess motherhood, and working-motherhood is not for the faint hearted.

Anyhow. That’s me right now. But when I am not wallowing in internal wonderings, I am immensely enjoying Lydia’s second Christmas. It is such a joy to watch her learn and grow and get to now her family. She has become an expert at opening presents, and getting decorations off the tree. And yesterday, she learned how to call out to people. This morning, she was at the bottom of the stairs, and all I heard from my bed was ‘MAAAAMAAMAA’. When I popped around the corner, she looked very pleased that she was able to beckon me. She later beckoned her pappa too. Very cute. But it makes me realize how I need to watch myself. I have a tendency to call out for people instead of going to them. Not a great habit, and now one that I’ve passed on to my 13 month old. Haha.

Who grew more?

Time never ceases to freak me the hell out. Despite the fact that a second is a second, a minute will always be 60 seconds and so on, time is nonetheless a sneaky bugger. These perhaps not so unique reflections are spurred by my little lady, Ms. Lydia Fagan Dandeneau who just turned one. As Max says, she now has her number. Number 1. That really is a great number to have. The newness and greatness of 1. From 0 to 1. Kind of amazing, Lydia. 12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days. Too lazy to calculate minutes or seconds. But a year of them, nonetheless. In some ways it has zipped by like Christmas holidays. In other ways, it is like my world pre-Lydia, pre-motherhood, is a whole lifetime away. Some days zip by, sometimes a half hour waiting for Stéphane to come home while trying to make supper with Lydia on my hip seems to take forever.

It is also interesting how for the early weeks of Lydia’s life, each day seemed like a milestone. Especially that first week when I was battling ‘baby blues’ and trying to physically and emotionally recover from the trauma of a 22 hour birth, while dealing with the awesome transformation of becoming a mother and experiencing a level of love that almost scared me. Then every week became a milestone, while seeing my little daughter open her eyes more, begin to really see the world around her, start smiling, beginning to recognize her pappa, sleeping a little longer. Each week was such a big deal. Now at 12 months, every month is a milestone. Before I know it, I will be talking in halfs. Lydia is 1 and a half and so on. And then years. Wow. My baby. But, of course, she will always be my baby. My nanny once said with a tear in her eye on the occasion of my mom’s birthday…”my baby is sixty”. I think that says it all.

Another crazy experience of time happened on the day leading up to Lydia’s birthday. At around 12pm I said to myself “one year ago today, I was starting to get contractions”. A couple hours later I said “by now, I was sure I was in labour”.  A few hours later “I was watching epidsodes of 30 Rock, while Steph was marking my contractions on a piece of paper”. Just before going to bed – “In a couple hours, we would have been heading to the birthing centre”. When I woke up the next morning – “Getting close to 9 cm”.  Arriving at work – “Almost fully dialated”. Coffee break – “Started pushing”…….Finally, almost at lunch time I said “one year ago, I just met my daughter”. Sweet Mary mother of God. That seemed like an eternity. Yet, while in labour, it didn’t seem like a long time. In fact, time wasn’t really anything. I was in another planet for most of it. I said to Steph yesterday, it was like I was an animal. My higher brain functioning wasn’t really working. He said, you didn’t ‘go down’. You went to a higher place.  True.  It was crazy to go through my labour like that while feeling normal. It gave me perspective, and quite honestly, another reason to feel proud of myself that I did it.

So. Time. You crazy friend. In some ways I feel a little nostalgic while I think back at the last year. Lydia will never be a new born again. But those memories are so ingrained in my soul that they make up an essential part of who I now am. Me. A mother. A bigger person than before. I have experienced the most extreme of so many emotions since that fateful day one year ago. The most extreme love and joy. Of course. Beyond anything. But also fear, insecurity, and the most extreme and insane type of frustration from lack of sleep that led me to run out of the bedroom and fall down on the floor sobbing until my eyes couldn’t tear anymore, or that led me to put Lydia back in her crib screaming while I sat on the bed next to her and began to pull out my hair. Oh, yes. It isn’t always pretty. People don’t talk so much about the real dark reality that parenting can be from time to time. But I want to say it out loud. Because I got through it. And those moments are transient. And they make us stronger and show us how much we love our children. And the good is so worth it that it isn’t even worth comparing…and this is coming from a mom of a baby who still wakes up several times a night. But those hair pulling days are gone (for now at least). I adapted. And I just really realise now at the deepest part of me that life is hard work. But hard work isn’t bad. It just it. It is our attitude that turns it into something positive or negative. A one year old is work…but I love the work. A one year old and a full time job is even more work. Great. Work means I am living. Because life is work. We work, and if we’re lucky that work can be to take care of the greatest little thing the universe could create. Lydia. I love you. Happy birthday.

random sweet thoughts

It seems that every day or so something so sweet, cute, funny, touching or all of the above happens with my darling Lydia. A moment that I want to linger forever right at the forefront of my memory, making my days lighter and sweeter. But as my days fill with these little memories and the inevitable hum drum of the day to day, these memories sometimes slip. So, here are a few silly thoughts that I want to remember years from now and have a laugh to myself, or with my beautiful daughter:

For the fast few days Lydia has been lovingly carrying around a tampon (clean, of course). I guess it is a perfect size for her little hand. I keep taking it away, and even threw it in a trash bin, but she somehow found it, and it keeps turning up all over the house.

Steph, Lydia and I were skyping with my brother the other day. Lydia was watching us chatting away, and I guess she wanted to be part of it. So she stepped up front and centre and starting going prprprpprprprprpr, kind of like she was making a farting sound. Very determined and in a very back and forth chatty way with her Uncle Stephen. Very cute.

In the last week she has been practicing oh so very often to say ‘papa’. She can’t make an actual audible sound yet. But she pinches her lips very tightly toghether and while inhaling makes a silent ‘pa’ ‘pa’ ‘pa’. She looks very proud of herself.

We have been working on baby signing. She has finally mastered milk (opening and closing a fist). But in her little mind, and very understandably, she thinks that milk and mommy are the same thing. So she often looks over at me and opens and closes her fists vigourously while saying ‘MAMAMAMA’. Sometimes she does it while staring greedily at my breasts. It kind of looks like she wants to milk me like a cow.

Her love affair with my nipples continues, much to mama’s chagrin. Often during story time before bed she will listen peacefully to a story while one hand is under my shirt holding very securely onto my nipple. I try to get her to stop (it actually drives me bonkers), but she will hear nothing of it.

This is not so funny, but very sweet and very Lydia. Lydia is unabashedly social. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere we go she makes a million friends. The bus is a favorite. But the metro, grocery lines, corners. Even while I’m walking.  If we pass someone she will lean her body out of the baby carrier so she can catch the person’s eyes and inevitably make them smile. Once she gets a smile, her whole face lights up, which inevitably makes the person laugh. Which gets an even better reaction. Lydia reaches her hand out of the baby carrier as if to say ‘touch me!’. Once she rubbed a man’s big beer belly sitting next to us on a bus. He loved it. Today we spent an hour waiting at a government office to replace my lost drivers license. Not only was Lydia a good girl, she loved it. She left with dozens of new friends. Lydia teaches me the world is a friendly place if you just reach out.

So, I think that is a respectable dose of Lydia moments for a Tuesday night.

Sweet dreams.

and so the ‘training’ begins…puke

I know I have been going endlessly on and on about Lydia’s sleep in this blog for months. I guess Lydia’s sleep has become my nemesis. A dark obsession that I will either overcome, or will be the end of me. Well…kinda. Anyway, I appologize for the ranting in advance.

Lydia had her 9 month check up a few days ago (at 10 and a half months, but that’s Quebec health care). Dr. Boyer gave her full marks for size, development, health and general cuteness. But when she heard that she is still waking up 3 or 4 times a night, and that I’m back to work in a few weeks, she had some words for me. ‘She doesn’t need the milk’. ‘You are going to be exhausted when you go back to work’. Blah, blah, blah. I’ve heard it all before. I know. I hung my head. Not because of shame. No, because I realized I can no longer do what I’ve been doing for the last 8 months. Smile politely to the ranting while smugly thinking to myself ‘I will never sleep train my baby’, ‘sleep training is cruel’, ‘I am not going to force anything on my baby before she is ready’. No, not that day. I hung my head because I can no longer deny that something needs to be done. I am sinking. In the deepest darkest moments of the night, I find myself resenting Lydia. 24 hour on-call 7 days a week is slowly emptying every inner resource I have. I now have big bags under my eyes. I actually look quite old. Personal hygiene is not what it used to be. Right now I am making it though the day, but I get a nap every morning, while Steph takes Lydia. Work will take that lifesaver away from me.

Getting to this point has been hard, and even now I am taking the least gutsy kind of sleep training possible. My plan is to start by cutting out her middle of the night feed. The idea being once she starts eating less and not expecting the breast, she will just not bother waking so much. It is still me going in, lying next to her, patting her back, cuddling her…just refusing to feed her. Well, we have now completed five nights. And she woke up for 2 hours in the middle of the night for the first 3 nights. Last 2 nights have been better, but I have been giving into the milk quicker because of exhaustion. It is a pretty gentle slow approach to sleep training, but that’s all I got right now and, frankly, I don’t feel okay with pushing her too much anyway.

Once she eats less, maybe I’ll try sending Steph in…ooohh. Big steps.

Wish us luck! We seriously need it.

xoxo

here comes fall

Can you believe it’s September already? The final long sunny days of my first summer with Lydia are slipping away. It has been amazing. Tiring, yes. But amazing. She has grown from a little infant to almost a toddler this summer. She is crawling. She is even on the verge of walking. She spends hours a day walking- holding onto mommy or daddy’s fingers, cruising along the sofa or any somewhat stable piece of furniture she can access. She also recently starting dancing along to music (picture a chubby little bum bouncing up and down while gripping onto the sofa, sometimes tapping her hands to the beat…better than Flash Dance to me). She’s discovered sand boxes, swings, splash parks and so much more. Big summer.It has been such an honour to hold her hand through these important days in my baby’s brand new life.

But now fall is coming, and the endless days of just Lydia and me are no longer endless. Starting next week, we are beginning our transition with Lydia’s babysitter Diane. I have just over a month and I’m back to work. I am so sad. Our honeymoon. I feel like once I am back to work, things will change and I will never have this again. This time where all day (and all night, frankly) it’s just me and my Lydia. So connected physically and emotionally that it is almost like we are one person. Now I know that there are just as amazing things to come. Every age is more and more amazing. And later there will be more children and more amazing moments again. But this. This time right now. Just Lydia and I. This is coming to a close. Now Diane will be sharing this time with us.

But that’s life isn’t it? Nothing to do but enjoy every moment and day for what it is. Breathe. Breathe in my baby. Breathe in the warm summer air. And soon, breathe in the cool fall air. Live and appreciate. Sometimes I complain about being tired from waking 5 times a night or a sore back from walking with Lydia for hours at a time. But even when I complain, most of  me is filled with an immense sense of love and appreciation for what life (or god..or whatever) has given me. I am lucky. But today I am also a little sad.

Catherine

p.s. by the way…when I say just Lydia and I, I don’t mean to deny the great dad and husband that Stéphane is to Lydia and I. He is here every minute he can and loving Lydia just as much as is humanly possible. But you know how it is. I am Lydia’s mommy. It still feels like she’s part of me….and I am home all day…if you are a mom…you know what I mean.

sleep update #….lost track

After coming back from almost three weeks in Manitoba, Lydia didn’t take long to get back on a sleeping routine. I was so excited. She even slept 6 hours in a row a few times. I was also finally getting control over my insomnia (thanks to some Ayerveda tips), so I was starting to feel normal again.

And then, true to form, something changed.

First, Lydia has made a huge jump in how much food she eats. Bigger amounts of a huge variety of food. Including kidney beans, sprouts, corn, pasta, quinoa, whatever. But I think her digestive track is still catching up. All of a sudden, Lydia went from an incredibly predicable ‘poo schedule’, to all hell breaking loose. In the last 4 days or so, she has been waking up with cramps, gas and then after squirming in my arms for 20 minutes she poops. At 1am, maybe again at 3am. Not fun for any of us. Even half way through nap time sometimes. I hope this is shortterm. I am not used to changing a poopy diaper. Until now, 95% of her poops go in the potty. Sorry, for my prolific discussions on bowel movements in these posts. Such is the life of a parent of a baby. In fact, twice I couldn’t tell if she pooped in the darkness. I can not figure out why I did this, but I decided to stick my finger in her diaper. I don’t think I need to explain the result. Yuck. Almost on par with eating the vomic covered apple.

Secondly, as discussed in my last post, Lydia is now crawling. I read that when this happens babies often like to practice in their sleep. Lydia is one of those babies. Two or three times a night, she wakes herself up from ‘sleep crawling’ – i.e. she hauls herself up to sitting, tries to pull herself up to standing and even crawls around the crib a bit. I hope that this, too, is short lived. Has anyone else dealt with this issue?

Although this is tiring, I am so beyond getting too upset by the lack of sleep. At some point, I just accepted that this is my life right now and my body, more or less, has adapted.

what’s in a wave

This last week was quite eventful for little Lydia. It started with a little wave and ended with a crawl.

Ah, yes. Lydia can now wave bye-bye, when it so pleases her. It has been something we have been working on for a while. Whenever she leaves her daddy, aunts, friends we would take her little hand “Say, bye-bye Lydia”. It wasn’t really catching on. She just thought it was funny that we were moving her hand about. However, we practiced at other times too.

If you don’t already know, Lydia practices what is sometimes called “elimination communication”. This basically means that I put her on a potty whenever I take off her diaper and she (most of the time) does her pee and her poo thereby saving lots of diapers and diaper rash. Anyway, after she uses her potty I take the potty to the toilet to flush away the waste with Lydia on my hip. So last week, I tossed her poo in the toilet and, as per usual, Lydia leaned in to look at it being flushed down. I said “bye-bye poopy” and, wonder of all wonders, Lydia gave the poopy a beautiful wave on its way!! Lydia’s first wave was to her poo! Nobody makes me laugh like Lydia. She is awesome. She will now sometimes wave at people. But she never misses for her poo.

If hand gestures to fecal matter isn’t amazing enough, a few days later she finally figured out how to crawl. She has been working on this for a couple months, but mostly ended in frustration. But then one day last week she decided to play a game with me. While sitting on the floor she would take a bite of my apple (yes, back to the apple) and then she would lean over and go on all fours and then lean the other way to return back to sitting just a few inches away. She would then take another bite, and then lean again over to all fours. This continued for around 45 minutes and she slowly worked her way around the whole room. Somehow this little game turned on a light for her, because the next day she leaned over onto all fours but she actually took a couple steps. Later that day, the whole thing took off when we visited my sister Maria. Maria placed a cheerio a couple feet away from Lydia and, bam, she was off to the cheerio. And so started another game for around 45 minutes. This girl loves her cheerios…I am thinking of putting a sign around her neck “will crawl for food”. Now, several days later, she is really able to get around. This makes me so proud, but also terrified. Already, I have turned my head for a second only to find out Lydia crawled over to the cord on my computer and is about to give it a good yank. And so begins a whole new phase of parenting…the mobile child.

Other notable developments this week? Yes, indeed. She has really started playing with sounds…the real beginning of language! The last few days has been an exercise in the exploration of sounds that end in ‘ck. For example, sitting in the bath cooing “gack, gack, gack”. Playing with a cell phone lauging “gock, gock, gock”. Or just plain “ack ack ack!” while pushing her vegetables around her high chair. Her big grin and full body kicks indicate just how proud she is of herself.

I am also noticing a big jump in her ability to understand the idea of peole leaving and coming back. Especially those she loves. At the end of the day, when I know Stephane will be home soon, we go sit on the stoop and play. When she sees her Papa bike up to the stairs, she starts laughing and cooing and her whole body shakes and kicks with excitement. It warms her daddy’s heart. For a while she has been showing clear signs of recognizing and preferring faces she knows, but it seems she is now understanding “ok, papa has been gone for a while. but now he’s back, back, back! woo, hoo! let’s play!”

And last, but not least, Lydia has finally pushed though all those teeth she has been labouring over for the last months. Four, yes, four more teeth, seemingly all at once. She is now just over eight months with eight teeth. Go girl!

What a week All of this happened during a week when Lydia and I hosted two parties and went to the Laurentians with my sister and family for a few days. We are both exhausted, but happy.

bric à brac

Back from Winnipeg. Two and a half weeks of family, parties, weddings, cabins, picnics, more cabins, more family. Lydia loved it. All the interesting people to play with, all the attention. She is always amazing me. I thought she would get overwhelmed by it all. But as everything so far with Lydia, she showed mamma how tough she is. That girl has a smile for everyone. She can get a smile out of even the grumpiest of campers. Just 8 months old (yup 8 months now) and already making a difference in peoples’ lives.

It was so nice to watch Lydia get to know and enjoy time with her cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Something we don’t get enough of here in Montreal. All those adoring family members meant that mommy also got a bit of a break during the day. Too bad all those great play mates for Lydia went to sleep at night, leaving me to deal with the nighttime havoc. Considering all the changes in her routine, I guess her sleeping held up pretty well. But still, this is Lydia we’re talking about – bad sleeper at the best of times. So…yes, mommy was tired. Ah, well. Such is life. Grandmaman Huguette did take the early morning shift, though. So, Steph and I got a little snooze in the mornings.

Now that we’re back, Lydia is slowly getting back on track. The last time I wrote here about Lydia’s sleeping, I was a little bit desperate at the hourly wakings. Since then, things got better. Then they got worse  and I was just too discouraged to put pen to paper about it (so to speak). But then Steph started doing some of the mid-night wakings, and after a few days, I guess Lydia decided it wasn’t worth waking up if she wasn’t gonna get mommy’s milky goodness. So before we left for Winnipeg she was only waking a couple times a night. So…here’s to hoping we’ll get back there soon. I refuse to believe last night’s 6 wakings is her new pattern (crossing my fingers here).

Lydia has this new habit though, which is making falling asleep more difficult at times. Indeed, her love affair with my breasts has reached a whole new level. While feeding and falling asleep she wants to have a firm grip on one of my breasts. That, or she pads at pokes and pinches my nipples, or she takes both hands and makes a boob sandwich – all while being half asleep, thus keeping her from letting the sandman get her. Sometimes she will be lying next to me seemingly fully asleep, all peaceful looking except her claw-like grip on my boob. But as soon as I try to creep away and unclaw her, she starts waving her hand frantically looking for my breast. Funny, but annoying. Hopefully it will be short lived, as were several of her other weird sleep habits, such as her midnight full leg crashes against the mattress at 4 months, her scratching at everything with her nails at 5 months, the incessant pulling out of her soother and then crying for it at 6 months. She provides endless entertainment that one.

the tale of the gross apple

Lydia loves to share my apples with me. I often grab one to munch on when we go for walks, and Lydia will suck and chew on it whenever she gets the chance. Today she was feeling a little off because of teething pain, so I decided to offer her some apple. A real treat! I ate off the skin to make it easier to munch. She sat on my knee and we shared the apple. I guess I was a little distracted and all of a sudden I took a bite and it tasted….weird…no, full out gross. What is that? Oh…sudden realisation. It tasted like vomit. Not mine, no. Lydia’s. She had thrown up on the apple. Yuck.

Because I seem to have lowered my sense of self-respect, I decided to keep eating the non-vomit infused portion of the apple. It was a good apple. I blame it on being distracted or diminished cognitive functioning, but not only did I keep eating the gross apple, but I forgot where the regurgitation was…not once, but twice! Three times I ate Lydia’s throw-up. Three times! What is wrong with me? Maybe I need some non-mommy time with adults, during which time I don’t share my food, wear high heels and, who knows, maybe even wear an underwire. A girl can dream.

the fast and the furious

Teething, trip, teething, visitors, new skill, teething, change of weather, teething, teething, teething.

Yes. This is my life. A constant plethora of reasons I tell myself as to why Lydia isn’t sleeping well this week. Maybe it sounds like delusion. Does it sound like maybe I just did a crappy job teaching my little girl to sleep? That’s a tough one. God knows I’m trying. Up again and again night after night. Keeping her on a schedule doing everything except let her cry all alone in her crib.

But tomorrow Lydia will be 7 months and she is the worse sleeper of any baby I know. God only knows how I manage to keep getting up and then function amongst the living, playing with Lydia and being the mom she deserves during the day. It is so hard. Sometimes I want to give up in the middle of the night. But Lydia deserves more. So I keep going, hoping that things will change. Sometimes it actually does change…for a few days but then it seems to get bad again. When I hear moms complaining about the fatigue caused by getting up twice a night, I feel like laughing. That sounds like a dream! I guess I should be more sympathetic.

I guess it feels a little harder right now because Steph is away again and my sister is also away. So I get no relief day or night. He’ll be back soon though. Two more sleeps

One thing for sure is that my girl is working hard growing teeth.  She has been going steady one tooth after the next. Right now she has two coming through her gums. That will make it a total of six. Six in the last two months! Poor sweetie. It hurts her. No wonder she keeps waking up. Please let us have a teething break once these are through, so we can all get some rest. Yes…that was me praying via blog. I need help.