This too shall pass. Right?

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. ~Leo J. Burke

I love my daughter, but between the hours of 3am and 6am for the past 10 days, she's become my worst enemy. Right now we're in the middle of a major (read: debilitating) sleep regression caused by a pretty painful case of separation anxiety.

Yes, I'm throwing around baby-themed psycho-babble (I tend to do that when I'm sleep deprived). What all this means is that we've had ten days of either around 2 hours of banshee screaming per night (to the joy of our wall-banging neighbors), or else she does manage to sleep but is ready to get up for the day at between 5:30 and 6am.

Not so ideal.

Our precious daughter is amazing at many things, but sleep is not one of them, as I assume you've been able to gather from this blog. I can't quite stress how tired I am of talking and obsessing about just how tired I am (So STOP, you say -- ha, if it were so easy. If I were to stop, I might implode from the desperation of it all).

Not sleeping makes you a crazy person: a caffeine addict who can't quite focus 100% on the day ahead of you (me) or literally starts falling asleep - like, deep sleep - at the dinner table, in the middle of a sentence (Andrea). Not sleeping makes you say mean things you don't mean to your partner, makes you happy as an upstream salmon to go to work in the morning to take a step away, makes you fear Friday as it means there will be no daycare to help with baby's naptime since she refuses on weekends. It makes you sad, out of control and, mainly, not really a very nice or very present person.

And so, here's my message to my Peanut, which I trust she will receive somehow (if I know my girl, she has her ways):

Dear Peanut,

We love you, but you're killin us.

Love,
Mommy and Papa'

p.s. if you don't start sleeping, we're going to have to take away your cookie priveleges.