I'm Tired

Sleep when your baby sleeps.  That's what they tell you.  Or, in my case, when your babies sleep.  Does anyone else find this completely impossible?

When both my babies are asleep, the last thing I can/want to do is take a nap.  It's not that I'm not exhausted and got more than 5 hours of sleep; my mind just won't shut off because I can't stop thinking about all the things I need or want to do while they aren't crying for my attention.  For example, some housework chores cannot be done while they are awake.  Like mopping or sweeping the floor - both of these things are impossible with Cohen on my tail.  Or reading a book, or blogging - blogging is impossible when Cohen is awake because he thinks the only reason to have the laptop out is to watch Netflix.  He points to the screen while crawling all over me crying, 'Elmo, ELLLMMMOOO!'.  And forget about making beds or putting any laundry away.  Cohen loves to yank on a freshly made bedspread and throw clean laundry around while yelling OH, NO! almost as much as watching the movie Cars.

So, needless to say, I'm tired.  All the time.  Joe offered  to get up with Elliot on the weekends so I could get one or two nights of good sleep in, so I agreed.  But I quickly reconsidered when he ended up tired and groggy all weekend, which is far worse than me being tired and groggy (...far worse, bless his heart).  So, on the weekends, he gets up with her if she wakes up before 3, and I get up with her after that.  It's worked out quite nicely so far.

I am praying that I only have another few weeks of waking up at night.  Cohen started sleeping through the night the day he turned three months old, so I challenged Elliot to beat it.  We'll see.

----------------------------------

The following pictures show what happens when I leave Elliot alone.  Within seconds Cohen is all over her.  I wanted to get some pictures of it, so I put Elliot on the couch and silently sat back with my camera. Sure enough, it took Cohen about 2 seconds to maul her - although, this mauling session was quite mild compared to what he usually does.  But, I have slowly learned to just let him and her be together, instead of hovering over him saying "don't poke her eyes; don't pull on her feet; don't yell in her face; don't pick her up my her neck; don't try to feed her those!".  So far, no catastrophes have resulted from it, and Cohen is so proud to take care of his little sister.