Who Needs Sleep?

What is it about a sleeping baby? My girls' voices immediately go up 10x past their normal blood curdling volumes. They stomp their feet across our echo-ey wood floors like now fossilized massive predators. When Harper is sleeping, it always seems like the very best time to get in a knock out, drag down fight with each other.

And, then of course, my normal vocal volumes have been known to rise as well. Which is, of course, the straw that breaks the camel's back - or rather, the sound that wakes the sleeping baby.

This is, I guess, no different than the trash truck's inconvenient schedule. It picks up the trash right at 12pm. In Seattle, there are 3 different trash days. One for trash, one for recycling, and one for compost. That's a lot of noise right at nap time. And then to add to that, it is also coincidentally, the time my elderly neighbor mows his lawn. Every. Day.

Sleep, these days, is eluding almost everyone in the Cherry household. At night, once Lucas and I have mustered up every last ounce of our energy to get the girls to bed, Harper awaits - cooing, and expecting to soak up all our attention until our bed time. If we do manage to get her to sleep an hour or so before us, she makes sure to make up for it by waking up just as we're expecting to climb into bed.

Because we no longer live in a dungeon-y apartment, a flood of natural light fills the girls' rooms at dawn every morning. And, they, in turn, wake up with the sun. Next, they wake us up-eager to start the day...at 5:45am. This leaves us all cranky and miserable until nap time. Which is, at this point, touch and go. (See above.)

That's okay, though. Because once my internal clock has set itself to the "never sleep" setting (and it's close), the girls will be entering their tween years. At which point, I'll repay them just as my mom repaid me: by blasting loud music, banging pots and pans "making breakfast", and chatting with other mommy friends on the phone who are awake at ungodly hours for the very same reason that I am.

Until then, who needs sleep?

Through it all, Lucas, (God love him) will be snoring.