Exhausted!

We've been on vacation for 11 days now and I already feel like I need a vacation when we get home. We've done birthday parties, family portraits, visited grandparents, gone to the park, eaten just about everywhere I think I might miss at some point in the next 3 years, had issues with the flippin' swaggerwagon that resulted in unplanned spending (both of time and money) and on top of that, apparently going from 80+ degree weather to Kansas' range of 52-80degrees means we are all, or have all been sick.

Whew.

Sorry if that was a huge run on sentence. In my mind, everything is running together.

Don't get me wrong, most of it has been a LOT of fun. But the kids' sleep habits? Not so much. We're split into 2 rooms here at my parents house. "My" room is for B and I with a pack n play for Sissy. The other bedroom has 2 beds, one for Bubba and Pooks and one for Peanut. It sounds ideal.

However, Peanut won't actually sleep in said bed. Every night one of the adults has had to rock him or snuggle with him until he falls asleep. Then once asleep, he usually wakes by 1:00am SCREAMING for B or I. Then he ends up one of two places: on the couch with B or in my bed with me. Where he ends up depends on if I'm already up with Sissy. Who is teething, going through a growth spurt and out of her element and is waking anywhere from once a night to NINE times. And she doesn't just wake up, no no....that would be too simple. She wakes wanting to nurse. Which I don't plan on stopping anytime soon, but man oh man is tiring.

Last night I was up with Sissy til one am, then up with Peanut trying to settle him with Sissy woke back up. I had her to my right, latched on and nursing with Peanut on my left, curled up against me while I combed my hands through his hair. I finally got them both to sleep, shut my eyes when Pooks came into the room and woke me up to tell me that there was a fly in his room and that he needed water. Got him settled down, laid back down and it was 3am. Finally fell asleep when next thing I know, Nanaw is waking me saying that Bubba is really coughing and needs cough medicine. So I handle that, then go back to bed. Up with Sissy at 5am who of course, wants to nurse again. She and Peanut wake up for good at 8am when I promptly hand them off to B (who was forced to sleep on the couch due to lack of bed space for him). I then slept til 9:30 when I got up for good.

Less than five hours of sleep and it wasn't even uninterrupted. Ugh.

I love my kids. I knew what I was getting into when we decided to have each of our little ones. I do not regret my decision. Most days, it's great. We have fun, they get along fairly well with each other most of the time and I am grateful. But that witching hour before bedtime hits with the tiredness and whining, then a rough night like the one last night and I'm beat. My back is sore, my sinuses are killing me and yet I can't take anything. I am constantly starving (due to the huge increase of sissy nursing) and because my older two no longer nap and my younger two are unpredictable in theirs, I am up all day.

I keep reminding myself that this too shall pass. That soon enough my kids will all be big and I'll be begging, pleading and yanking them out of bed. I know that one day I will look back and miss them being little.This I know for a fact.

Yes, I have a five year old, a four year old, a soon to be three year old and a 1 year old. And of course, I will have days (in this case, a week) where I am utterly exhausted. I expect that. Hell, in the last six years I've only spent 11 months of it {split into 5 months and then 5.5 months} NOT pregnant and NOT breastfeeding. The last six years of my life can be summed up by this:

July 2005-March 2006: Pregnant with Bubba
April 2006-Sept 2006: Breastfeeding and then, pregnant again.
Sept 2006-May 2007: Pregnant with Pooks
May 2007-Nov 2007: Breastfeeding
Dec 2007-Mid March 2008: FREEDOM!!
April 2008-Nov 2008: Pregnant with Peanut
Nov 2008-Aug 2009: Breastfeeding
Sept 2009-Jan 2010: FREEDOM!!
Feb 2010-Oct 2010: Pregnant with Sweetcheeks
Oct 2010-today....Still going strong breastfeeding

Yeah, the exhaustion should certainly be expected huh?