13 weeks 3 days

I am so tired today. So tired that I'm on the verge of tears for no other reason than that I'm tired. I'm a walking zombie with slightly less dirt on my clothing. Apparently the fact that I'm back at work is lost on my daughters, the succubi. (Succubi: noun, plural of succubus 1. a demon in female form, said to draw the energy out of a person until they are so exhausted they die.)

For the last two weeks or so, the girls eat at around 5:30 in the evening, fuss and squirm until around 8, finally are coerced into sleep using a series of rocking movements, wrapping in warm blankets, and shushing until we're pretty sure our own ears have lost the ability to hear that frequency, and then put to bed. To our amazement, they have then slept until 1 or 2 in the morning. Sean and I use that middle time to get ready for bed, prepare milk and bottles, get the coffee-maker ready and set for the break of dawn, and preparing lunches and work clothes so that we can sleep as close to departure time as possible and still be ready for the day. Sometimes, we even eat dinner. But not always. Sleep is, after all, a hot commodity these days.

If we're lucky, the girls take 30 minutes to eat (total if they are being fed simultaneously by both of us, 30 each if only one of us can feed them at a time), fall quickly into what we have termed a "milk coma", and sleep until 4 when we do it again. Or rather, I do it again, because Sean leaves for work around 3:30.

Now that I'm back at work, that 4:00 feeding all by myself can end around 5:30. My alarm is set for 6:00 so that I can leave the house by 6:45 and meet my carpool. So effectively, all sleep is over at 4. If I fall asleep at 9 (ha!), I get about 5.5 hours of sleep a night, none of it in more than 3 hour increments. Until last night.

The girls ate at 5:30 and 6, but then Lilah effectively fought sleep until 8. Sean had made dinner while I tried to soothe her and we scarfed it down while running interference for her pacifier-ejection skills. Once we moved them to their beds and did whatever voodoo we thought would keep them asleep after that transition, I did a quick mental run-down of all the tasks I would still need to do: pump, make milk, clean the bottles, fill the bottles, put the hot-water mugs into the microwave for quick starting later, clean up after dinner, take a shower, dry hair, put on pajamas, make sure my lunch was ready, make sure my clothes were ready, put away the groceries I brought home that were still in bags on the counter. Was that it? Probably not, but that was the current list.

At 9:45, I crawled into bed next to my snoring husband. Before he had fallen asleep around 8, he looked at his watch and said "4 hours. 45 minutes." "Huh?" "That's how long I get to sleep." He had to be at work at 2 in the morning for the next two days. He may not have meant it, but those words stuck in my head when the girls started crying to be fed at 10:30. The guilt seed was planted. I got up, since Sean has the incredible Rip Van Winkle ability to sleep through the grunts and cries until he actually hears my voice asking for help, and grabbed the first girl. I brought her out to the kitchen and pressed "Start" on the microwave so that the mugs of water would be ready to heat the bottles when I returned. I changed her diaper in the near darkness so as not to wake the other demon and begin a symphony of shrieks in unison and then brought her back out to the living room.

The one good thing about night feedings? Catching up on all my favorite DVRed programs. Last night it was the series premiere of America's Next Top Model. It was a 2 hour episode, so even with fast-forwarding through commercials, I was pretty sure I would have something decent to watch at every feeding. The. Demon. Took. 45. Minutes. Perhaps she was distracted by Tyra's ego? It is pretty awe inspiring, after all. Either way, when the milk coma started, it was 11:15. I repeated the cycle with the next girl and crawled into bed near midnight.

Sean kissed me goodbye around 1:30. One of the demons woke up at 2. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Crawl into bed at 3. Awake at 4 in complete disbelief that either of these girls could possibly be hungry already. Do a silent recounting of past transgressions to determine which might have possibly have earned me this particular spot in hell*. Feed one girl. Feed the other. Crawl into bed near 5:30 thinking, "A half-hour is at least something, right?" Alarm goes off. Lilah starts crying at 6:15. Attempt to appease her with a binky for just another 30 minutes until Cindy, the nanny can arrive, hoping that it will buy me enough time to brush my teeth and not be undressing when she finally walks down the hallway. Just barely make it because of the constant need to reinsert the binky after repeatedly searching a 5 foot radius around Lilah to find where she could have possibly ejected it. When Cindy arrives, Lilah is screaming enough to finally wake up Charlotte. Poor Cindy.

Thus was my night.

Before you think that I am on the verge of running away to join the circus, as my dad used to tell us about my mother, there was a moment of redemption amongst the Tyra mails and yawns. As I asked Charlotte to please keep eating at one of the feedings, she turned her wide eyes to me and looked at my face as though she was memorizing every detail. I smiled and she cocked her head as though this gesture was new to her and she was really seeing me for the first time. I stopped and stared, wondering what was going on in that newly forming mind, and kissed her forehead. She kept looking at me. It was pretty sweet.

But I still need a nap.

----------------------------------------------
*I looked it up. I'm in the second circle of hell, which Wikipedia describes as:

"Second Circle (Lust): Those overcome by lust are punished in this circle. They are the first ones to be truly punished in Hell. These souls are blown about to and fro by a violent storm, without hope of rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly."

This makes perfect sense since lust was ostensibly what got us into this. Good to know.