the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Night

Last night was awful. The girls would not go to sleep. The baby wouldn't stay asleep. And all I wanted was desperately to fall (and stay) asleep.

Sleep just would not come to my tired mind. Nothing I tried worked. All I wanted was to get some sleep, so I was particularly ticked by this turn of events.

The boy was up every hour. He wasn't hungry. He wouldn't even nurse when I tried to shove a breast in his mouth in the desperate attempt to just MAKE THE CRYING STOP. I occassionally got him to nurse, but on most occasions, he refused the breast and just screamed louder. I tried putting him in the swing, but that didn't even help. At 2 am, he stayed awake for a full hour. He repeated that performance from 5 until 6 am.

Girl 2 woke up and proclaimed once again, "I'm afraid of the dark." That's code for, "I miss daddy. May I sleep with you?" She NEVER comes into our room. We've always wondered why that is, but we just figured she felt safe with her sister. Lately, however, I guess the sister's just not cutting it. So I had Girl2 in our bed (she insisted on sleeping on daddy's pillow. If that's not a glaring sign, nothing is) from about 3 am. She did that last night too.

Then at 7:30, Girl1 woke up and couldn't find her sister. Does she peak her head in my room to see if the sister is there? Does she come in to ask me if I've seen her? No. She stays in her room and repeatedly yells her sister's name for a good 10 minutes before I yell, "She's in here. Go back to sleep."

I was not a happy camper today. The girls have activities tonight which is going to keep me running around when that's the last thing I want to do.

The bright spot, though, is that we have a play date at a friend's house tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to that. If nothing else, it'll get us out of the house and keep the kids occupied. Although, getting to see not only adults, but adults I really like is a huge added bonus.

And just because I'm keeping track, it has been over 1 full day since I last heard from my husband. He e-mailed me from Germany yesterday morning. That's the last contact we had. And so I go back into "military wife" mode with one eye on the phone and another on the news (CNN, not FOXNews. I don't trust those morons).