i'm checking into rehab

Why? Because it's the thing to do right now and everybody is doing it. Plus, it sounds a lot nicer than checking into a nut-house or loony bin or funny farm and I'm about 2 more sleepless nights shy of being committed to one of those.

You can go to rehab for anything these days and honestly, the thought of having all my meals cooked for me and having access to outdoor activities and a professional to listen to all my problems sounds really appealing right now. Another plus is that I would have a good chance of meeting a celebrity (and then selling their crazy story for hundreds of thousands of dollars to a shady magazine). And, I'm pretty sure that I could get 8+ hours of sleep a night, which is even better than rubbing elbows with a celebrity.

Last night was another torturous night like the one we had last month. We had gone to my neighbor's house for a get together and W had played really hard and was really wound up. The baby screamed most of the time (big surprise) so I wasn't able to pay much attention to W. I'm pretty sure he ate something that makes him sick or drank from another kid's sippy cup because about an hour after I put him to bed, he was up screaming. We went through the normal motions of me picking him up and holding him and then putting him back down a few times and he still wasn't going to sleep. I climbed into bed with him and tried to get him to sleep that way, which worked, until I tried to leave the room. He kept pointing to his stomach and saying "owie" so I gave him some gripe water but 2 hours after he first woke up, we were still doing the screaming thing and then CB woke up.

Like before, I brought W into my room, which I knew wasn't going to work, but I did it anyway because I didn't want him screaming in his room. I laid him down and laid next to the baby to feed her, which made W mad because that meant I couldn't hold him. So he climbed all over me while I was trying to feed the baby. Then both of them were wide awake, screaming. These are the times that I literally have no idea what to do. Both of them wanted to be held and rocked, but we couldn't all fit in the glider. So I took the 5 pillows that are in our room and made a little nest in the bed. I sat cross legged, with W laying against my right leg and with CB in my arm, across my left side. And we swayed back and forth for about 20 minutes, until W thought it was irresistibly hilarious that his sister's feet were touching his stomach. uuuuggggggggghhhhhhhhhh.

Plan B. I laid W down on the bed next to me, laid CB on the bed in front of me and rubbed both of their bellies at the same time while bouncing the entire bed with my legs. That worked for about 7 minutes, until CB had a wicked reflux episode and started screaming. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Plan C. Laid W down on the bed next to me, held CB in my arms, against my chest and bounced while loudly saying SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I realized, after about 5 minutes, that I was practically hyperventilating and feeling dizzy from the lack of oxygen because I wasn't breathing properly, so I had to tone the shushing down, which meant there had to be more bouncing. I guess the good thing about that was that I was burning off all the food I had eaten earlier. After about 10 minutes, both appeared to be asleep (Ahhh! Great Success!). So I quietly laid CB down and laid down between the kids. And out of nowhere, W sits straight up and says "KA CHOW!!" Which, of course, woke the baby right up. I just laid there, as still as possible, because if I closed my eyes tight enough and didn't move, they would both magically go back to sleep, right? Wrong.

Plan D. Put W back in his bed, to which he went willingly, and rock the baby to sleep. After about 20 minutes of rocking, the baby fell asleep so I put her into her swing because she was still refluxing pretty bad. The second I put her down, she woke right up and started screaming, again.

Plan E. (banging my head against the wall at this point) Try to nurse her back to sleep, again. Nope.

Plan F. Try to rock her back to sleep again. 30 minutes later, I had almost rocked my glider off the rockers and she was finally asleep. I put her down in her swing and climbed into bed. She started to fuss and I prayed like I never have before that she was just crying in her sleep, which she was.

Sweet silence, for an hour, until W woke up screaming and saying "Uh- Oh!". So I rushed into his room expecting to have to clean up throw up, but he had just lost his binkie so I gave it back to him and climbed back into bed. An hour later (2:35am) he was up again screaming and the baby was still fussing in her sleep. An hour after that, the baby was up screaming for food. And an hour after that, W was up screaming again. At 5:45, the baby woke up again so I fed her and we got to sleep until about 7:30. Then she was up for the day and then W woke up at 9.

Now do you see why I want to check into rehab? Just to get some sleep. That's all I want. Normally the baby is the only one who is up all night and that is borderline intolerable. Having both of then up all night pretty much pushed me over the edge.

We were supposed to run some errands today but I don't think that's going to happen. I hope we will all be taking naps instead. But that's probably not going to happen either because every time I plan on taking a nap when the babies sleep, they only sleep for an hour. But if I don't plan on napping with them, they will sleep for 3-4 hours. It's not fair.