It's Happening!

I'm finally at the point in motherhood where I feel like I can finally say,

I absolutely LOVE being a mother.  I am finally confident in my parenting abilities which is something I have been lacking since they were born. Now that the boys are a little older and hardly ever cry, I feel like I am connecting with them in a whole new way. My little Everett has made the habit of falling asleep to me singing "Somewhere over the Rainbow" to him every night, and it almost makes me cry to think about how one day, he will be a grown man and I am going to miss these sweet days. I just want to cherish every second of it!

The boys have been sleeping SO much better over the past few days. The 4 month sleep regression is no joke! I thought I was going to lose it there for awhile. I was just baffled at the fact they went from waking up once in a 12 hour period to 3+ times! But now they are back to 6:30-6:30 with one feed in between. Seriously, I could do the one bottle a night thing forever. (although I would be fine if they decided not to, LOL!) But I am just so happy that I can get the sleep I need to be the good parent those boys deserve! Now lets just hope it stays this way!

Two weeks from tomorrow, I am finally leaving to go back home to Virginia. We are setting up our new place which means I am so close to having a husband again! I look back and I honestly don't know how in the hell I have done all of this without a spouse. I can't wait to see what it is like to be a family! I know he may be overwhelmed at first, but is there anything better than two happy babies??

Andrew is on the left, Everett is on the right

Andrew

Everett

Parenthood.. sucks.. sometimes..

Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

That does exist, right? Parents eventually do get to sleep at some point during parenthood, right? Anyone? I don't even care if it's not true. Lie to me and tell me it gets better. They do sleep longer than a few hours at a time. I need to hear it. SOMEONE!

So the boys have only slept through the night, twice. And let me tell you, every night when my head hits my pillow, I pray to god that it will happen again. That I will magically wake up and I will realize I just got 6-7 hours of sleep. But nope, within a few hours I am woken up by babbling/crying/screaming. You name it, they do it.

My sweet adorable Everett has learned how to get out of his swaddle. And ladies and gentleman, I take swaddling seriously! Blankets didn't work, so we moved on to Swaddle Me's. When those didn't work, we moved on to the "Miracle Blanket". I am still baffled at how in the heck that kid can bust out of that thing, but he can. And he will. So at 1am this morning, I wake up to the sweetest babbling noises and at that moment, I knew once again he was out of his swaddle. Sure enough, that kid was all over the place enjoying his freedom. I re-swaddled him, he screamed, I fed him, he went back to sleep, and wouldn't you know, I was woken up again at 4:45am this morning to a babbling happy baby. I know what you're thinking, just let him blabble! I wish it ended there. But this sweet babbling eventually wakes up Andrew, which leads to crying.

Don't let this face fool you. Nothing but trouble!! 

So I feel like I am just stuck. I want to sleep train the boys, but I am a softy. I keep repeating to myself, "I don't care. Let them figure it out on their own" but I always cave. I think part of it is because I live with my mom, and I feel awful thinking it's my fault that no one is getting sleep in this house because of my kids. So I am always running in there to get them back to sleep as quickly as possible.

But I am moving out of here in 29 days. I will have my own house again, which means more opportunity to get these boys on track. I hate seeing them so tired in the mornings, and trust me, they don't like dealing with a tired momma!

football time!!! 

Speaking of tired, this deployment is dragging.. Seriously, I. AM. DONE with it.  I need my husband back. I crave being touched and kissed every day. Sometimes I wonder if motherhood is much tougher than I expected because I don't have someone to turn to physically and mentally. Of course I have my mothers help every once in awhile, but there's just that calming factor only a spouse can bring. If I am having a bad moment, his hugs bring me back to earth. His terrible jokes can turn a bad moment into a good one. It sucks missing out on that. But what can you do. All I can do is try to survive, and so far I am. Maybe not gracefully, but I am. 

And on that note, I can hear my little one's waking up from their 30 minute cat nap.. Only 9 hours to go until bedtime!