Perspective

I'm writing this on very little sleep, but very little sleep is why I am writing. Riley is not a good sleeper, well she can be but it's on her agenda not mine and it tends to be during daylight hours not at night. She's nocturnal. She sleeps wonderfully if I hold her but that means she's sleeping well and I'm not. At this very moment she is doing just that and I am typing this post one handed. I'm quick to get frustrated and annoyed by it all honestly. It has driven me to tears a few nights/early mornings. "Sleep will come" that's what I keep telling myself. It would be nice if it would come now. In fact most of my praying these days is about sleep. Chase says "it's not that bad" and to his credit he has been a wonderful help, however, EVERY night for the past 6 weeks I have been waking up every 3-5 hours to feed a tiny human. Now, that in itself would not be bad, in fact if that was all it was I would welcome it! Riley, however, doesn't eat and go back to sleep, she eats and then stays awake for HOURS before she will finally go back to sleep. During this awake time she is either bright eyed or screaming. EVERY. NIGHT.

I say all this to say, I am thankful for my sleepless nights and my zombie days chasing our 18 month old. In the last two weeks we have had 2 families at our church, one very close to us, give birth to their babies only to hand them to the Lord within minutes of their birth. Both of these families knew what was coming but it doesn't make it any easier. A girl I use to work with said this once "ultimately God wants all of his children home with him in heaven and sometimes He wants them home before us parents are ready." I'm sure either of these mothers would trade places with me in a second if it meant they could hold their baby one more time. My sweet girl is here in my arms healthy and whole and all I have to complain about is lack of sleep. I have a new perspective. That doesn't mean that I won't continue to get frustrated or annoyed that she wants to stay awake for hours in the middle of the night. It just means that I can look at it in a different light now. I can smile through my tears of exhaustion and thank God for giving us such a beautiful baby girl who is a perfect mixture of her brother and sister. It means I can laugh at her not knowing that she is securing her "babyhood" for a lifetime with her sleepless antics (or maybe she does know)! So while I am exhausted and can barely remember what day it is, I am thankful and very grateful for my 3 beautiful, keep me on my toes, exhausting, loving children.