Motherhood by the Numbers

Motherhood. Such a joy, right?! It totally is but it's also hard. And messy. And exhausting. I sat down for what felt like the first time today at 10:08 PM to write a blog post and all I could think about was how many different types of bodily fluids I encountered today - bodily fluids that weren't even mine. Well, except for one. Kids, man. And in case you're wondering, it was eight. Eight bodily fluids. Originally I thought only six (blood, sweat, tears, saliva, spit-up and poop) but then I remembered that Gracyn peed all over the toilet seat during a potty-training sesh and my boobs started leaking breast milk everywhere when Leighton slept through her normal feeding time this afternoon.

Then I got to thinking about everything else that happened today. Wanna break it down with me? Cool. Keep in mind this was JUST my Thursday...

5. The number of poopy diapers I changed today between 2 kids.

2. The number of outfits Leighton went through because of said poopy diapers. I sent Justin this picture at 12:45 PM making sure his day was going better than mine...

too graphic?! sorry.

4. The number of girl scout cookies I ate for lunch. We were fresh out of Thin Mints until the other day when I went to Walmart. A girl scouts troop was selling boxes of cookies right outside the main entrance. Well played, girl scouts. Well played.

3. The number of meals (if you can count girl scout cookies a meal...) I ate standing up, sitting down, getting things, picking up dropped utensils, wiping hands and cleaning faces. But I guess this happens every day so moving on...

57. The approximate number of times Gracyn asked to watch Skinnamarink on YouTube.

1. The number of shadows we chased outside after dinner. The day wasn't alllll bad.... ;)

101. The number of minutes it took to get Leighton to sleep tonight. She fights sleep with every fiber in her body until she can fight no more and finally falls asleep. We still haven't outgrown the "fussy in the evenings" stage of life - and whoever said babies outgrow it by 3 months is a liar - so our bedtime routine every night is quite the ordeal. She even had a bath this evening which kept her calm for approximately 23 minutes then it was back to crying and thrashing about.

We've tried swaddling, not swaddling, nursing, pacifiers, bouncing, swaying, rocking, singing, lights on, lights off, white noise, TV noise and to be honest, sometimes we I just join in and cry right along with her. No one thing works for this girl on a consistent basis so it's a crap shoot every night trying to soothe her and get her down for the count. When she finally does give up, we usually get a good 4-5 hour stretch of silence.

3. The number of times I nursed her trying to get her to sleep tonight. What kind of baby doesn't nurse to sleep?!?! I guess this is a good thing, per se, since she's not using the boob as a sleep aide, but when I'm desperate for her to calm down and go night-night, it would be nice if I could whip out my secret weapons as a magic cure-all.

0. The number of times Leighton has slept through the night. Hoping this changes any day now...

1. The number of times tonight that I had to clean up vomit off the kitchen floor compliments of Rufus. Because after everything else that happened today, of course he would throw up everywhere. Of course.

It was a crazy day but I loved every minute of it. Well, minus getting pooped on and cleaning up dog vomit, maybe. Regardless, we've got some pretty good stuff going on around here.