14 weeks 3 days

Maybe the mid-week transition is what does the girls in. Maybe they're in a new phase. Maybe they're the devil.

Last night I slept from 9:45-9:50 (yes, that would be 5 minutes in which I was actually asleep -and dreaming! - before the girls woke up), 11-1, 1:30-4. After that, Charlotte fell asleep post-feeding but Lilah flat out refused in the only way she knows how: screaming and writhing. She finally shut her eyes for the last time just before 6. I put her in her crib and my alarm went off. I hit snooze and curled up in a ball in my bed for just enough time to warm the sheets again. It was such a tease.

I don't understand why these girls would suddenly need to eat every three hours and sleep even less. I'm actually hoping they have a growth spurt soon so that they crash at night and sleep for up to 4 hours. That would be so awesome. So. Awesome.

So, today is Thursday and ordinarily people who blog would say something like, "Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday" or "The weekend is SO close" (picture me saying those things with dripping sarcasm) but not this girl. That's because the weekend is not a reprieve for us. Nothing stops except my commute. I take all the feedings on Friday nights since I don't work the next day, and Sean takes all the feedings on Monday nights for the same reasons, so we can give each other just the tiniest bit of brief relief. Sean actually texted me yesterday to say that all he wants for his birthday, which is 2 months away, is 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Maybe I should add that to my Christmas list.

On the plus side, the nanny, Cindy, is an absolute godsend. She arrives at 6:45, sets her bag on the counter and immediately reaches out her arms for a baby. She may actually go through withdrawal over the weekends. She speaks softly and sweetly to them and texts us with photos of what they're up to during the day. At one point she said to me, "You know, the hard part about feeding both of them at the same time is that I can't make eye contact with them both at once!" I thought to myself, "Look them in the eye?! I'm so focused just getting them fed that it never occurred to me that would be important!"

So, she is wonderful with the girls. But a side bonus is that when she has down time, she cleans. Laundry, dishes, dusting, toilets - if it needs to be done and she has a chance, she does it. Now, maybe I tend to spend any down time with the girls attempting to get a nap, but I don't know how she has the time for all of this. All I know is that she takes such a burden off me by doing these chores that I've actually (in jest) suggested having more kids when the girls go to school just so we can keep having her help us! When I get home at the end of the day, I'm not looking at a pile of dishes or "Roscoe bunnies" floating down the hallway and thinking about what a disaster the house is and how I'll never see it clean again. Instead, I can enjoy holding a girl in my arms and maybe even pour myself a glass of wine. And for a brief moment I forget that another sleepless night is creeping closer as the sun goes down. Kind of like a C-grade vampire movie.