Getting Perspective

I didn't expect this week to be so physically exhausting. This getting-up-every-hour thing is driving me to insanity. I'm sure this is how they torture prisoners of war---they sleep deprive them for weeks, and then they let them sleep 45 minutes and just as soon as they fall in a deep sleep, they scream as loud as a wailing baby, "Wake up!" and then they make them stay up for an hour, and start the whole process again around the clock. After all my serious grumbling, I got some encouragement from my wonderful girlfriends and one thing they said was: Lower Your Expectations! This gave me some much needed perspective and so I chose to turn a corner and not focus on the burden of nursing every two hours with no sleep whatsoever, but to focus on the privilege of getting to hold my baby and smell him and to watch him grow. Here is my crashed-out baby smelling like well...a delicious newborn baby!
So with a shift in perspective, I looked back on the week and found myself to be grateful:
1. that Micah slept through the night every night since we brought Caelan home except for the first. What a huge relief!
2. that my husband tirelessly helps around the house and burps and changes diapers without complaint. Every now again, he'll look at me and say, "I know this is hard..." and it makes a world of difference.
3. that we went on a date night in the first two weeks, even though we did still talk about the kids. It was nice to get out and be alone. (Actually, the real first date was on day 4 when we went to Walgreens at 11:00 at night and like school kids, we browsed the aisles laughing at things we found that were so weird to find at a drugstore. It was a lot of fun, and we laughed a lot - so what if our mission was to buy stool softener - it was STILL romantic!)

My funny husband on our first date (post two kiddos!)
4. that I got to take a shower at least every other day. That's unheard of!
5. that breastfeeding does not hurt as much as the first time
6. that my mom gave up two weeks of work to spend quality time with Micah, clean my house, and make all our meals. Mom, you are heaven-sent!

When you can focus on the good things, you realize how blessed you are. And it gives you the strength to get through the tough nights. My prayer is that Caelan will grow quickly so he'll at least give me four hours of uninterrupted sleep. Truly, that's all I need to survive! For now, I will just sniff his wonderful baby smell, and realize that I don't want time to speed up too much or I'll miss the part of enjoying him!