Hard to be a Parent...

These last 2 weeks have been crazy, crazy, crazy...

Last week we FINALLY put our 1 year old in the same bedroom with her 3 year old big sister. I've been trying to get this done for the last 4 or 5 months, and it just hasn't worked out for whatever reason- Jake's work schedule, Deborah starting school, one of us being sick...

So, finally she's in there! Yay! We have our own bedroom. Yay!

And I had almost no sleep last week, 'cuz Abigail HATED the new room, and was waking up every couple of hours... Deborah sleeps with music and a night light. Abigail wants a fan, no music, and dark as a bear cave... Plus Deborah wants 12 hours of sleep, while Abigail probably only needs 8 or 9 hours... rather unusual for a 16 month old.

The second night, Jake went in on her third crying fit, and Deborah came over to him. She said, "Do you hear Abigail?! Do you hear what she's doing?!" And then she ran to her bed, jumped on and pulled the blanket up over her head. (Deborah likes to go to bed early, and wake early, and Abigail likes to go to bed late and wake late...) So the next morning Deborah started banging around and making noise and calling for me. When I get in there Abigail is standing in her crib and crying, and I swear she looked at me as if to say, "Do you hear Deborah?! Do you hear what she's doing?!"

So, the sleep thing is finally kind of getting together, when Deborah gets sick...

She was kind of whiney last Sunday and I thought, "She's just not getting enough sleep sharing a room with Abigail..." I took her over to a friend's house, and noticed that her eyes were kind of glassy, and right before dinner I take her to the bathroom to wash her hands and notice she's got eye gunk... So, I'm thinking, "Rats, I brought her over to a friend's house with a cold!" And then, after dinner she's running around, and I notice her eyes are kinda red. Yup, you already probably guessed it... My friend, April stops Deborah and says, "I'm pretty sure that's pinkeye. Our kids just had it a little bit ago." What was I doing taking her to a friend's house with pinkeye??

Anyway, we've had another rough week... She woke up two times Sunday night just SCREAMING, "My eyes hurt! My head hurts!" We went to the doctor on Monday morning and find out pinkeye's a viral infection- antibiotics don't work... (They do give you an eye drop medication, but it's for the more serious secondary bacterial infections that are associated with pinkeye.) It just has to run it's course, which could be three days to TEN DAYS... Okay, NO WAY!! She's not waking up 2 or 3 times a night for the next ten nights... And it did get better fast. She did scream 2 times on Monday night, but by Tuesday her eyes looked better, and honestly, I'd probably let her go back to school tomorrow (Thursday) if she wasn't so WHINEY.

Plus, I don't know if this is typical, but apparently the eye drops sting like fire... She fights us like a wild banshee- Jake holds her, while I pry her eye open and drop it in. And then I have to hold her afterward while she wails and wails and wails. I believe that it really hurts, but the reaction we get from her now whenever we come near her with the eye drops is SAD. Every night as part of her prayers she says, "And please God, don't let me have to have the drops in my eyes again."

So, maybe I'll sleep tonight... We shall see...