The Many Faces of Mommy

"I never get enough sleep. I stay up late at night, 'cause I'm Night Guy. Night Guy wants to stay up late. 'What about getting 5 hours sleep?' 'Oh, that's Morning Guy's problem. That's not my problem, I'm Night Guy. I stay up as late as I want.' So when you get up in the morning, you're exhausted, groggy: 'Ooooh I hate that Night Guy!' See, Night Guy always screws Morning Guy. There's nothing Morning Guy can do. The only thing Morning Guy can do is try and oversleep often enough so that Day Guy loses his job and Night Guy has no money to go out anymore." -Jerry Seinfeld.

Ellie-Bug turned 7 months old today! She's the happiest, most adorable baby I could ever imagine (tied absolutely equally with her sister for "most adorable," of course, but far exceeding baby Keira in the happiness department).

There's just this one teeny, tiny thing that nags at me off and on: we're still up every 3 hours most nights. It's as if Ellie somehow missed the "You are no longer a newborn" memo and is convinced she'll wither away without at least two mid-night snacks, even though her chunk-tastic thighs beg to differ.

I go back and forth on how I feel about this. When I'm Exhausted Mom, I think I might trade just about anything for a guaranteed, solid night's sleep every night. When I'm Rational Mom, however, I realize that I can't think of one thing I'd give up in exchange for that sleep, no matter how tired I get. Money? Can't afford it. Time? Too precious. Health? Happiness? No deal.

When I'm Impatient Mom, I look at the calendar and at all the younger babies I know who are already sleeping through the night (12 straight hours, baby--none of this textbook definition of 5 hour stretches...which, I might add, I'm also envious of), and think it's ridiculous that mine isn't even close. When I'm Optimistic Mom, though, I remember how much worse of a sleeper Keira was as a baby, and how even she was sleeping 12 solid hours a night by 10 months old. We can't be that far off from progress, then, can we?

When I'm Day Mom, I feel fine most of the time (with random smatterings of "OMG I could lay down right here on the kitchen floor/kindergarten carpet/bathroom tile/Chick Fil-A parking lot and sleep for hours"). I get things done, I have fun, and I feel like I'm managing just fine with my two or three 2-3 hour naps a night. Sometimes, I even get ambitious and convince myself I'm fine to stay awake and watch a Netflix movie with Bear after the girls are in bed. Then, later, when I'm Night Mom, I find myself cursing Day Mom for not lapping up every droplet of sleep possible when I had the chance!

As Night Mom, I get frustrated and impatient after being summoned from the cozy bed for the fourth time on some nights, and occasionally attempt to persuade Ellie that a pacifier and a few "shhhhh"'s are a suitable replacement for the milkies fix she's longing for. I am almost always defeated, because I cannot stand to hear such a normally happy baby cry with such desperation and/or rage for more than a minute or two before surrendering the milkies.

After settling into the rocking chair, though, and catching a few whiffs of that new baby smell that Ellie somehow still has, I become Grateful Mom. I think of all the people we know, or know of, who have lost babies or who struggle to have them, and how any of them would trade places with me in a second...every time. Four times a night. Forever, if need be. And then I soak it up, knowing that as hard as it is to believe sometimes, I'll miss this when she does start sleeping through the night.

Whenever that may be...