I love the weekends!

During the week, life is not easy. A typical day at work for the past three weeks involved waking up at 6am, getting ready in barely enough time before feeding Lily, going to work where I'm doing the work of three people (and slowly becoming more cynical towards the education system). I come home, exhausted, wanting to take a nap so badly, but I can't sleep with Gabriel running around the house. Besides, it's then time for Lily to eat and to have fun with her smiley self after feeding her. A little cooking, straightening up, and other household duties call, and by the time Gabriel is in bed, I'm ready to hit the sack, but my stubborn self doesn't usually go to sleep then. Instead, I'm trying to get a little quiet time. But something happens at night where cute little Lily just doesn't want to be so cute anymore. The scenario usually involves an hour and a half to two of crying before she'll finally go to sleep with either Dave taking her outside so I can get some sleep or me walking around the living room or the bedroom (Dave's a pretty heavy sleeper) trying to get Lily to calm down and go to sleep. The other night, she woke up at 11 (I had gone to bed at 10:30) and cried until 1:30. I fed her until 2, which is when Gabriel woke up. He kept crying every time I left his room, so I opted to lie down on the recliner in his room, where I dozed off and on until 4 in the morning. At 4, I went back to my room, thinking at least I have two more hours. As soon as my head hit the pillow, Lily woke up. It took at least 45 minutes to feed her and change her diaper. One hour and fifteen minutes. Something there is that does not love to let Jill sleep. That was the worst night of them all, but the better nights aren't that much better. Lily is now on reflux medicine, and that is helping, but something is going on anywhere from 10 until 4 that could at any time explode within this child. Do any of you think it could be her recognizing nighttime and wanting to eat more so she can get a better night's sleep--better than the usual 3 to 4 hours? I mean, after she's cried like that and I feed her on schedule, she seems ravenous. Maybe crying like that makes her extremely hungry.

Whatever it is, though, has got to give. I feel so volatile. I try to avoid confrontations at work so I don't lose it. Oh, don't worry, I have the patience of a saint with Lily, but while I'm holding her trying to calm her down, I'm mad at anybody I can blame anything on. Good thing I get it out of my system by morning.

And this is why I did not post anything on Wednesday when it was Lily's 5 month birthday. I was just too dang tired. But here she is, 5 months old and cute as can be. My, how blessed we are, despite the rough nights and the exhausting days. She smiles, and it makes up for it all. I was giddy this afternoon because she and I had such fun playing together. I was trying to sit her up on the couch and take a picture of her, but she kept toppling over. Every time she fell over, she smiled a big smile. I think she might have been doing that on purpose! And I'm posting the picture that proves it! We all just seem to be more relaxed on the weekends.