YAWN!

This (see title) is my most used facial expression these days. We've always known our children are miracles, but now it's official. Lily has turned into the (drum roll please)

sleepless wonder.

Friday night we went to an Audi Christmas party, which was absolutely awesome. I'll post some pictures soon. Lily and Finn had both had a good nap that afternoon, so they were in good spirits and having fun. We left at about 10:15 and got home shortly past 11pm. Lily was out like a light in the car (not surprisingly since her usual bedtime is 8pm), and we gave her some milk and put her straight to bed at home. Finn was still going strong (he is always up until all hours if he naps, so I usually don't let him). He couldn't get over the poor mama pig who was looking for her baby pig now, but it got eaten - by us. (They had served a whole roasted piglet, complete with the head. I'll post about that later, too.) Eventually though we were all snooooozing, hoping that Lily would sleep in a bit. Which she did! Exactly 20 minutes, until 6:20am. And guess who got up with her? Right. I hadn't gotten more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep at night the entire week, so no biggie. Yawn. By the time (around 10am) the two male members of this family stopped snoring Lily and I had played with about every toy downstairs, gone shopping to two different stores, filled and changed two poopy diapers (one was Lily's job, the other mine), and set the table for a really nice breakfast. But, to be fair, I did get a big hug from Neil for letting him sleep and a 2 hour nap that afternoon. Was that EVER nice!

Then last night we were sure Lily would sleep like an angel to catch up on sleep. She slept exactly until we were ready to hit the sack, around 11:30pm. She is teething and woke up crying, but wouldn't go back to sleep even with pain killers. So we kept on trying to comfort her, but finally brought her into our bed so she wouldn't wake Finn. We'd never done that before and Lily thought it was so much fun. She was in such a good mood suddenly. First she sang us her new favourite song ("La la la la lalallaala LLLLAAAA!"), then she told us about her busy day. Then she switched to cuddle mode. (All this while her exhausted parents supplied a background noise of "hush Lily", "sshhh ssshhh", "I can't believe this", "lie down, Lily", "I'm going to sleep in the basement", "put your head on the pillow, Lily" etc.) And as nice as the cuddling was, at 1:30 or 2am or so we decided to just put her back in her own bed to see what would happen. And she fell asleep there, YAY! And while we had to wake Finn up at 8:45am the next morning to go to church Lily was up and singing again at 7am. Better than 6, but sheesh.

And yet. You know what?

A tiny hand stroking your head and the face of the sweetest girl in the world just inches from yours, whispering "Mama Mama" over and over is just too big for words. That sweet smelling bundle rolling right into her daddy's arms saying "hugg-ah, hugg-ah!" is something you won't forget. We'll take that any time, even at 2am. Because they're ours to love, but not to keep. Someone said "With children the days [and nights I might add] are long, but the years are short." That is just so true.