A gift...

For anyone who has ever read my blog at all, I know what you're expecting from the title of this post. Something sappy, something emotional about how blessed I feel to be Mommy by these two amazing children, something probably influenced by the surging hormones that had me in tears over a good rendition of The Star Spangled Banner last night on a You Tube video. But no...not today. Tomorrow maybe, but not today.

Today, the title of my post is influenced by the fact that I am rested. And feeling good. Ever since bringing Lauren home from the hospital, we've discovered that she has a little bit of an issue with sleeping. Instead of doing that, she prefers to scream her brains out....for hours on end....at ungodly hours of the night. The first two nights we were home, I spent the nights pacing the floors downstairs with her, praying that her screeching would not wake Joshua. It did. Jason would tend to Joshua and keep him settled down and I was on duty with Lauren, since we thought she needed to eat and I'm the only one who can handle that job. It wasn't pretty. On night one we were up from 1 until 3:30 and 4:30-6:00. Night two wasn't much better from 1:30 until about 4:45.

We had our post partum check up at the hospital yesterday and I had a lot of questions. I've never had a breastfed baby before, so it's all new to me. Is she not eating enough? Is she eating too much? Does she have reflux? What can we do? The nurse explained that her "energy" just might be showing itself at odd hours of the night. I told her that I was looking for a better answer and that her "energy" was killing mine. She suggested that we work with her on the pacifier (which she has hated with a passion) to see if she can use up that energy without crying. I wasn't optimistic.

However, I had a brainstorm at supper time. Maybe we didn't have the right kind of bink. Darla had offered so graciously to pick up anything we needed and I swore she told me she had a Walmart run planned for last evening. So I called and asked if she'd pick up one of those Soothie pacifiers for us to try. As it turned out, she wasn't planning a Walmart run, but went for us anyway. What a great friend.

The gift I referred to is that last night was decidedly better. Lauren worked the daylights out of that bink to fall asleep and ate well. She didn't get herself so worked up that she threw it all back up again, which was an improvement. She was asleep at 10:30, slept until 2:20, ate until 3:00 (then I fell asleep in her rocker with a perfectly happy, snuggly baby until 5:00, but that was my fault) and then was up again to eat at 6:20. She is sleeping happily now. I have showered, eaten breakfast and am getting ready to feed her again when she "calls" for me.

Jason had to head to the office this morning, so Joshua and I have been playing and doing some jobs around the house together. Playing with him is something I haven't been able to do much of, and I've missed it so much. Joshua has been a trooper, but it's me that feels bad for not being able to be as involved as I've been. My pain is all but gone now, so things are looking up considerably in that department and I should be back to full speed with him soon.

And here are a few pictures of the little lady. The first is last night just before bed when we found success with the bink. I thought I might cry. The second was a few minutes ago as she dreamed away in her seat.