Those Darn Pioneer Women

In honor of three nights in a row of up-every-hour, here's a little taste of what it's like at our house.

7:00 - Annie goes to sleep perfectly peacefully in our bed. With the fan blowing on high speed to drown out the sound of the dance party going on four feet away in the living room.
8:30 - Bedtime for Nellie (after potty, brush teeth, read David and Goliath out of her toddler Bible, light on for five minutes to read, light off with flashlight, lights off music on, drink milk).
8:40 - Nellie crying. Kevin goes in to remind her that I will only come in if she's not crying.
8:43 - I go in. Cue "Snuggle with me one minute. I need to go potty. Can I have just a teeeeeeny-tiny bit more milk?"
8:50 - Nellie is back in bed.
8:55 - Kevin goes in to check on her. She is fine and awake.
9:00 - Nellie is sleeping.
9:30 - Annie wakes up. Won't go back to sleep without eating. This repeats at 10:15 and 11:45, and somewhere between Kevin and I fall asleep on the couch watching reruns of 30 Rock on the computer.
1:00 - Annie is up again, so I decide to take her back to our bed so she won't wake up Nellie.
1:45 - Nellie is crying. Also coughing, which makes her "spit up," as she calls it. Nellie comes to our bed, Annie back in the crib.
2:00 - Everyone is asleep.
4:00 - Annie wakes up. This repeats at 5:00 and 6:00, and it's morning.

Now, our house was built in the late 40s and is small. The girls share a room, which is just fine with me (I did it, it builds character, studies show it leads to happier marriages down the road, etc.) Plenty of families have kids who share rooms, right? I'm pretty sure it's a modern Western phenomenon for kids to sleep in their own rooms. Plus, I always remind myself of those pioneer women who birthed babies in dusty wagons and shared one bed with the whole family in a one-room cabin. So I CAN DO THIS!

Everyone says the girls will get used to it and learn to sleep through each others' wakings and learn to put themselves back to sleep. This is not happening. In theory, I have no problem letting them cry or fuss a little and go back to sleep on their own, but one wakes up the other and it's all over. Within minutes everyone is wide awake scrambling around for pacifier/blankie/flashlight/blankets off/sheet on/potty/sippy cup/milk/rocking chair.

Note: By everyone, I mean me. Kevin has a super-human ability to sleep through anything.

On the upside, I find that I enjoy those quiet moments when it's just Annie and me rocking in the chair in the wee hours of the night. She is a sweet little baby and never cries if someone is holding her, or even looking at her for that matter. So our late night meetings are brief, and she's relaxed and cuddly. And there's always coffee in the morning, and I can now drink coffee any time of the day and it doesn't keep me up. So maybe it's not all bad.

Plus, I tell myself that it won't be like this for long, and someday I'll look back on this fondly. Well, maybe.

And there are always those pioneer women reminding me to suck it up.