In the trenches

I love being a mother and I absolutely love my children. With motherhood comes many challenges. The hardest as of yet is sleep deprivation (when the teenage years come, this will seem like small potatoes!). Right now I am in the midst of a season of extreme sleep deprivation. Thankfully, I learned a lot last time...it won't last forever. It feels like forever right now, yet I know it won't be. I can see why they use sleep deprivation on prisoners as a form of torture. Its awful!!!
I tried leaving Abigail home yesterday with my in-laws while I went to work. Abigail refused the new $18 Adiri bottle we ordered from Ebay, the acclaimed remedy for babies who refuse bottles. After a recent NY times article, they are so popular that you can't find them anywhere, except of course, Ebay. We were gentle with introducing it, yet Abigail screamed when she saw it, even when we weren't offering it to her. I have to applaud her for her spunk. This has to be a virtue, right??? So, after half of my 10-hour work day, my in-laws brought her to me. She was then awake for the rest of my shift (5 hours), slept 20 minutes on the car ride home, and has been waking up every 2 hours since midnight. She's been in this 2 hour wake cycle for the past week, probably due to one or two nights of a bad pattern. I'm so exhausted that I am usually asleep before my head hits the pillow, this morning I have been awake since 3:30 and can't get back to sleep. My body is too wired for sleep. Since Abigail is on the small side and recently wasn't gaining well, I don't think I should do any sleep training. Let alone the fact that she would wake up the whole house in the process. Besides, every day is different for Abigail, especially since she'll continue coming to work with me for now.
If my in-laws weren't here this week, I don't know how I would be making it. They have been wonderful, providing breaks for me, allowing me to get errands done that I can never get gone, and most blissfully...napping.
This is a season, this is a season, this is a season. Please Lord, help me keep going until the tides shift and I can sleep again.