Well at this point in the night, it’s late and I’ve been dealing with a baby for an hour and a half who refuses to go to sleep. She’s exhausted and I’m exhausted and I have a headache and don’t feel very well myself, and yet every time I try to lay her in her crib she screams and cries. We tried the “cry-it-out” method once tonight, for 10 minutes, and that was a disaster. So I went back in and held her for a while, but it still took a really long time to calm her back down and get her ready for bed. Part of the problem is that she wanted her Daddy, but he was at church for deacons meeting, and then grabbing a few things from the grocery store, so he wasn’t here for bedtime. So tonight is mostly pictures with just a little bit of writing, and then I’m going to bed…
We took her to the doctor’s office first thing this morning. Her fever hot and broken since sometime on Saturday night, and then miraculously it was down to 99 when we got there. So they assumed it was just viral, and it has to run its course. However she had early signs of an ear infection, so we went ahead and got some antibiotics for that.
Then I went to work, just a little bit late, and just stayed home with her today. I had last night’s leftovers for dinner, and started a new book. This is number 3 in the trilogy, and I really really loved the first two, and I’m excited to see how this one wraps things up.
Meanwhile at home, Emerson and daddy played a little, but she was pretty fussy throughout the day, didn’t sleep well, and woke up from her nap after only 50 minutes with a 103.1 fever, which is the highest it’s been this whole time. So she had some more meds, and some ice water (which she loves right now), and kinda roughed it the rest of the afternoon. I wasn’t sure what she was doing in this first picture, but then she fell asleep on daddy for almost an hour.
Then when I got home from work, Emmie and daddy were doing more chalk art in the driveway.
We had dinner together before Jeff headed to deacons meeting at the church. Then I got Emmie in the bathtub. She was happily playing, when a drop of water fell from the shower head into the top of her head, and she freaked out! It must have scared her, because she was screaming crying for at least five minutes! It was clearly a very traumatic experience.
We had about 10 minutes before I was going to try to put her to sleep early, but she was wide awake and being so silly. And then I discovered what she was doing in that photo above, when she walked over to the coffee table and blew a raspberry on it! What a weirdo! I was laughing at her so much when she did that!
And then since she hadn’t actually eaten much at dinner, she came over and said “eat eat,” so I took her to the kitchen to find out what she wanted. She ended up eating two dry raviolis while lounging in her unicorn chair.
And then she had fruit snacks and pretzels. She would finish one thing, and then say “eat, eat,” and she would take me back to the kitchen to find something else!
We read our usual three bedtime books, and then we started the rocking to sleep routine. But my girl was fighting hard.
I rocked her for about 15 minutes, before attempting to put her in her bed. As soon as I laid her down there she stood back up and reached for me, so I picked her up and rocked her some more. After another 15 or 20 minutes, we tried again, but no such luck. I had a headache, and I was tired and not feeling so well myself, and I was getting frustrated with her fighting sleep. So I tried to make her lay down while I rubbed her back, but she wasn’t having it. I finally just left the room and attempted the “cry-it-out” method for about 10 minutes, but she didn’t calm down.
So I pulled myself back together, and went back in to try again. She instantly cuddled up on my chest for a few minutes, and then started being super sweet. She looked up at me, with her fist under her chin, and just kept saying, “mommy daddy puppy,” in her adorble little voice. Then she just stared at me, and leaned up to kiss me. And wow it melted my heart. In a few more minutes, she was sound asleep, breathing deeply. Her tiny body was finally relaxed and her little eyes were closed, and in that moment, I had a revelation.
I had been super frustrated with her for not going to sleep, when it’s the one thing I know she needed the most, but I instantly forgave her, with no reserve, and realized how much I loved her. And then my next thought was, this is how God the Father feels about us, except obviously infinitely more. Our kids may frustrate us to the point of tears sometimes, but we forgive them more easily than we can even understand. It’s hard to articulate a realization like this (I can barely put it into words and sentences), but it hit me so hard tonight and really made me think about not only how much I love Emerson, but how much God loves us as his children.
Anyways, it was just a really sweet moment I had finally getting her to sleep, and also thinking about how much God loves us and forgives us of way worse things than just fighting sleep. And he does it just as easily.
I actually had started writing this blog post during that 10 minutes of her crying-it-out, and if you can’t tell, I was really frustrated at the time. But after I went back in there, my whole attitude shifted and I just had a little reality check of my own. So this blog post started out a little grumpier, but now that I’m finally wrapping things up, my tone of voice has completely changed.
It is still late though, and my head does still hurt, so I’m headed off to bed. Still praying Emerson sleeps well through the night, and that we all get the rest we desperately need. Since she had such a high fever today though, we will keep her out of school again tomorrow, and hope she gets to go back by Wednesday, at which point she will have been on antibiotics for 48 hours, and hopefully fever free!