Going Solo

Ellie returned to her job yesterday, sort of. She took call for someone who was out sick. Being on call on a Saturday can be a horrendous 24-hour stretch of answering pages, running to the hospital, and doing all sorts of things that don’t involve sleeping. Or it can involve sitting around the house waiting for a page that never comes, fearful of starting any great projects like watching the entire countdown from VH1’s greatest celebrity feuds since you just know that as soon as they get to Spears vs. Durst the pager will go off and you’ll never find out what the greatest feud of all time is.

Fortunately her day was more of the sitting around trying not to jinx things kind. Once she jinxed things by starting to feed a baby, which of course signaled the hospital to page her within seconds. Otherwise she was available to help, as long as she wasn’t doing anything that would take her minutes to get untangled. This gave me a chance to ease into the excitement of taking care of all three children by myself when Ellie goes back full-time tomorrow.

The night was rockier than the day. Ellie went from having virtually no pages during normal waking hours, to getting virtually no sleep while she answered pages at all hours of the night. This left me to care for all three kids by myself while trying to sleep. Abbie remained a sleeping superstar, staying silent in her room until past 8am this morning. The twins though may be going through a growth spurt, a growth spurt that doesn’t involve sleeping. Three nights ago they went four hours between feedings overnight, and I thought I could do the Happy Dance of Perpetually Lengthened Overnight Feedings. Two nights ago they reverted back to their three-hour overnight schedule. Last night they slipped closer to two-and-a-half hours between feedings, and weren’t too pleased when I set them down after each feedings. When they woke up at 3:30 for the 4am feeding, I think I ignored their complaints for too long because I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep yet after the 1am feeding.

So I’m tired today, Ellie’s tired today, and the kids are at their usual level of refreshedness. We recovered by taking turns napping and resting our brains with VH1’s mindless programming. When Ellie goes back full-time tomorrow, I’ll be alone, but at least she’ll be back to help out overnight. Hopefully the kids go back to that four-hour routine, or at least stick to three.