tired mama

(my sweeties)

We seem to produce children that require large amounts of parental assistance to get adequate sleep. This week has been rough. I'm not sure if our daughter is teething, bothered by the cheese I ate last weekend (I've been dairy free for 3 years because our son was allergic to dairy), full moon, or none of the above. Bedtimes have taken two hours and involved crying for no apparent reason, wakings are frequent, mornings early, and naps short and light. And at the same time our son has decided that even though daddy usually does bedtime with him he now needs mama to come in and do the final goodnight kisses. Last night when I finally was able to put our daughter down for more than 2 seconds I went to the office and saw that our son was still awake - glowing eyes on the monitor. I went in to talk to him and he said "me have to wait long long time for mama". Poor boy. I had talked to him about how I might not be able to come tuck him in every night and how he and daddy could write me a goodnight note, but evidently that wasn't adequate. It's frustrating, but at the same time he's so sweet that I can't be grumpy with him at all. So I nursed him, snuggled, gave him "blooper kisses", real kisses, tucked his grandma made construction blanket around him and mama bear, and left him happy and snug. Several hours later when my husband went in to go to bed and moved our son to the other side of the bed, our son said "mama came in gave me blooper kisses tucked me in" and he immediately went back to sleep - or maybe he didn't wake up fully. Anyway, the fact that that was on the top of his head meant a lot to me. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't really need me these days since daddy can to bedtime and I'm away at work all day and seldom get time to slow down and focus on our son. But the little things he does show that I am still so important to him. And that makes me both happy and sad. So sad that I am not able to give him more of myself.