It's three am, and I sneak slowly out of bed hoping that the frantic screams will miraculously quiet themselves before I'm completely awake. As I stumble with eyes half closed to put on my warm robe, I distantly wonder how Aaron was born with the gift to somehow not hear the screaming...to magically be able to sleep through it all. The other day I jumped to go get Addison a bottle when I simply heard the slight noise of her sucking on an empty bottle at 1am. You can bet I'm immediately jolted to awake by the hungry choking gasps of my infant son.

Hurrying to retrieve a bottle of pre-pumped milk from the fridge, I gather my son from his crib and idly think that perhaps his crib is shrinking since he has been filling up so much more of it so quickly. I soothingly assure him that food is coming soon. He blinks his dark with hunger blue eyes towards my dark with exhaustion brown eyes and I carefully settle into the glider/recliner to feed him.

I begin humming softly, a song of desperation. Which, if this song were to inherit words, it would go something like this:  "Oh why won't you sleep....oh why do you need to eat every three hours...oh why can't you sleep 12 hours a night like your sister did at this age...oh why...oh why...oh why"

I didn't say it was a good song. Just a very heartfelt one, accompanied by equal parts of complaining and misery.

He smiles at me then. Chubby cheeks part, eyes twinkle, bottle is temporarily forgotten...it's as if he senses my distress...or he's laughing at me. Hard to tell.

A hand generously filled out with rolls of fat grabs my finger and holds on as if there is a a fear that I'll take the food away before the little belly is full.


Pushing aside my lack of sleep resentment, I entertain myself by checking facebook on my phone, and see a sweet message from a fellow mom who closes with the sentence "So much to be thankful for this year"

and immediately stopped complaining that I was tired. and have been tired for 11 weeks with no end in sight.

I reluctantly gave voice to my inner thankfulness...which immediately brought up Addison's eyes now working so much more together:
Excited about a week focusing on thankfulness...and my little sis coming to visit...and running my very first 5K