Tired. So tired.

Day three.

There is no picture for today. If there was, it would be me with my head on the counter, drooling into my coffee.

Since Tom was gone and I was already going to be exhausted, I decided it was a good time to cry-it-out with Ellery.

Now, I know some people don’t believe in cry-it-out, but I think if these people birthed my children, they might come to my way of thinking. My children don’t sleep hours and hours in a row. When they are born, they wake up every 2-3 hours to eat because they need to. But then they don’t really need to eat that often, but let’s face it, if you could just roll over at 3am and take a few sips of a latte and then get tucked back into bed, it sounds kind of cozy and appealing. My children agree.

With Neko, we didn’t cry it out until she was nine months old. Nine months old and still eating every 2-3 hours. With Shep, we waited until he was six months old. My intent was to wait that long with Ellery, but when last week she ditched the 2-3 hour gap and decided to eat every hour on the hour all night, I decided I’d had enough. And, no, this pattern did not continue during the day. She lasted nearly five hours the next morning before she ate again. So I know she’s capable. And clearly not starving.

And if she were my only one, I might feel differently, but when you’ve been awakened every hour all night and then these two other needy people wake up at 7am and demand to be fed real food and changed into clean clothes and stuff, my grip on emotional stability becomes a little dicey.

Anyway, last night Ellery cried a lot and I did a lot of useless middle-of-the-night tasks, resulting in not a lot of sleep for either of us.

Fortunately, my aunt was lined up to take Neko and Shep in the morning, and I crazily thought Ellery and I would take a nap since neither of us slept the night before. Ellery had other ideas and stayed wide awake until about half an hour before it was time to pick up the other kids. Ellery then slept the whole time in the car and while the other kids ate lunch, promptly waking up as I put the others down for naps. (Libby, this is the collaborative effort I speak of.)

But wait! My kind mother takes Ellery for nap time so I can sleep. But then Neko decides not to nap, and I am kept awake by the adventures of Lightning McQueen and Sally and some other characters. I have no idea who, but they sure are loud.

This whole entry probably doesn’t make any sense at all, but it’s managed to keep me awake long enough for Ellery to conk out. Blahblahblah. I promise to be more fun tomorrow.