Saturday, December 09, 2006

The Baby is Trying to Kill Me

Her sister took this picture and I think it shows her cunning Mommy-killing mind at work.

For the past four nights, The Bug has been waking in the middle of the night, or sometimes even before I go to bed (to be fair I often get there around 12:30, duh) and keeping me up for HOURS. The first night of this, she was awake from 12:30 - 6am. Then Sweet Pea woke up and I had to get up at 7:30am. We are spending a LOT of time in front of the TV these days because I feel so brain-dead. Gah.

I thought that maybe this was some kind of reaction to her shots kicking in late, but wouldn't that have stopped by now? She got the shots on Tuesday morning. Based on the occasional apparent need to nurse and then popping off and fussing, I'm thinking it's teething.

Now, let me just tell you, I nearly died from Sweet Pea's 21 miserable months of teething. I seriously had to convince myself, over the course of a couple years, that it would not be the same with a second child. That it would be better. I could not fathom having another baby if teething were going to be that bad again.

Guess what? THIS IS WORSE. Sweet Pea never kept me up ALL night. I sternly admonished The Bug that if this is teething for her, she must cut 4 at once, because otherwise I may seriously die. Or jump off the roof. And we live in a two-story house now.

She is clearly so tired when she's awake, but somehow at the same time she's VERY awake and smiley and chipper (at least she's not crying, right? That would send me right over the edge). I could have told you this before, but I'm reminded nightly again, that being extremely cute really is a fantastic defense mechanism. Good thing we have enough ambient light in the house at night that I can see her precious face in the dark.

Thankfully, Sweet Pea, who sleeps in our bed with Slipshod and me, is able to sleep through all the waking-crying, Mommy cussing in a whisper-yell, Mommy getting up and down, up and down, in and out of bed, Daddy getting up, the door opening and closing, etc.

While Slipshod, The Bug and I are suffering, Sweet Pea continues to sleep her 10 1/2 hours or so per night, obvlious to the whole crappy situation. Whew... She can even sleep through the occasional hair-yanking. The Bug LOVES to play with Sweet Pea's hair and since she's all of six months old, if she gets ahold of it she inevitably pulls it. I do my best to keep her hands away from Sweet Pea's head at night.

Bleh... anyway, send sleepy wishes to The Bug so we can all get some sleep around here.

All I want for Christmas is her two front teeth!Posted by Picasa

6 comments:

Julie said...

Maybe she needs that Vibrating Nursing Pillow! Ha! Might help.
Sorry you're having such a hard time...listening to you though is making me not want another-if only because of the lack of sleep. I keep postponing it-Joe wants another now! Isn't it usually the other way around?

Violet the Verbose said...

Who needs birth control when you can just read MY BLOG? ha ha ha! Oh boy. Sorry 'bout that.

I have two saving graces. One, I know that The Bug will only be a baby for a short period of time and she'll get her teeth, and then this will be over. Two, I saw Sweet Pea go through this and she sleeps through everything now, so I KNOW this won't last forever.

I know I just said the same thing twice, but it's that important for me to hold onto that thought. :o)

Stahl family said...

Ok..so Eliana has finally decided to cut some teeth. Up until now she has had only 5 teeth. Last week I noticed that she it teething again. She is getting something like 6 teeth (molars included) all at once! I am going to buy STOCK in Oragel! But, the good news is that Oragel let's us both sleep pretty well through the night. YAY!

Anonymous said...

Hey! I recognize that face! That's the mischievous "I'm up to no good" face!

Anonymous said...

Mika has been tougher with her teething too.. in the beginning when it was super painful for her, I even gave her BOTH motrin and tynenol -- first tynenol when she's going to bed then motrin when she wakes up since the tynenol didn't wear off yet. I've known a few doctors who all okay doing this since the active ingredients are different in each. It helped a lot! Mika has only molars left now.. thankgoodness.. i'm waiting for them to be over -- as we all know that all wonderful day will get here someday for all of them. Having her sleep with me also seems to help during the worst nights, well it helps me anyway (better to have her screaming in my arms than somewhere i can't see her).

Christina said...

Oh, I remember the days of first teeth. We survived by giving Cordy Motrin before bed most nights. It kept the pain from waking her up, and gave us at least 2-4 hour stretches of sleep.

Here's hoping you're all sleeping soundly again soon.