This post brought to you by sheer exhaustion.

I know that you all must be as tired as I am (well, not really, unless you've not had more than 2 hours of consecutive sleep strung together over the past 8 weeks) of hearing how tired I am, and the woes of my children who seem to be trying to kill me by not sleeping.  As I recall, Joshua's worst sleeping time period was the one I am now so fortunate to be experiencing with Lauren (from 15-24 months).  And all hopes I may have had about Lauren being different from her brother have been dashed officially.  There is one difference, however.  The four and a half years of interrupted sleep (or just plain no sleep at all) have had an impact on my parenting style.  On Monday evening, after a bad string of nights over the weekend and three attempts to get Lauren to sleep, I put her in her crib, kissed her making-me-lose-my-mind adorable little head, walked out the door and shut it.  Jason and I spent the next 40 minutes turning up the television downstairs to drown out the heartbreaking screams.  She eventually went to sleep.  Over the monitor for the next hour, I heard her whimpering.  The classic Jason quote was, "Honey, you're breaking her little heart on Valentine's Day!"  My comment, perhaps just slightly jaded by the fact that I was at the end of my rope was, "Valentine's Day or not, she MUST LEARN!"  She woke up once through the night, had a little bit of milk and then went back to sleep.  When she woke to scream for me 45 minutes later, like clockwork, I turned off the monitor, covered my head with  my pillow and tried to go back to sleep.  I did not sleep, but I also did not go to her and rock her.  We're on day 3 of this little experiment and I have higher hopes now than I did with any of my other ridiculous, sleep deprived strategies to find a way to be able to keep Lauren.  Because as things were going, I wasn't so sure that was going to work.  I love her dearly, but we have to find a way to make these nighttime hours work for both of us.

I always said that I didn't think I had it in me to let her (or Josh) cry it out.  Apparently it just takes me 4 and a half years to get there.

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I should also report to you that Joshua had his annual peanut allergy checkup with the doctor last week.  I had been hoping and praying that we would get the results of his blood work back and they'd say that there was marked improvement in his results, or that he was magically no longer allergic.  If you remember, he was a high 5 on the 0-6 scale that they use to measure allergic antibodies.  Unfortunately, he is an even higher 5 now.  As we edge closer and closer to the 6, I get a little nervous.  Dr. Sutton talked it through with me and shared that there really is no way to know if he's allergic just by airborne smells, etc. until he has a reaction.  They once again used the term "relentless vigilance".  We also had him tested for other nuts to see if he has the tree nut allergy as well.  Evidently, until age 4 there is no way to really tell by blood test if there has  been no allergic reaction.  His tests all came back negative except for the one to brazil nuts.  He tested slightly allergic to them, but the doctor said he's not even sure that it is clinically significant.  But all that was for naught when he said, "With a peanut allergy this severe, I'm not sure I'd introduce nuts of any kind just in case."  That was TOTALLY what I was thinking too.

On a good note, my new love affair with my iPhone has led me to an app that I think will be quite useful in my quest for "relentless vigilance" for Joshua.  It's called Food Essentials.  You scan the bar code on a food and it points out all of the allergens that are listed on the label or hidden in the scientific names on the ingredient listings.  So, on top of reading the bolded allergen listings and "manufactured in the same facility as..." and "may contain traces of...", I can use this tool as a little extra added comfort.

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And on a totally unrelated note, why is it that Lauren insists on wearing Joshua's (clean) underpants as a hat?  And socks as gloves?  That girl is really something.