Yesterday we toured the new child care place. It’s awesome. We’re up for it, as soon as we can put the financial piece in place, maybe in a couple of weeks. (It’s spendy. Extraordinarily nice, brand spanking new. But spendy.) P held it together remarkably well throughout the tour, given her fear of being left at child care places – even when we walked into the classroom that would be hers and all the little heads swiveled to look at her. She melted down pretty much immediately after we got out of there, though. It was hard to put it in perspective, but that was a win. She made it through the tour.

But she screamed while M ran into the store for a few things. Non-stop. In the car. My hearing, that was better-than-perfect despite the loud concerts I attended in my misspent youth? I swear I felt the cilia in my ears curl up and die. When I have migraines, I can see sounds. Yesterday, I didn’t need the migraine to see the delightful red and yellows of her screams.

She fell asleep after much drama, around 7 PM. It was so deliciously quiet that I stayed up til around midnight writing and tweeting. And then I crashed, hard.

She woke up at 12:30. Shouting. All in all, I was up pretty much every 30 minutes from 12:30 to 5. Sometimes she was in my bed, sometimes she was trying to steal the wool throw I sleep with (over the duvet, which is super thin, because M is always too warm), sometimes she was demanding assistance to go potty. M was up with her, too – at one point around 4, I sent him off to get me a migraine med because the migraine lack-of-sleep trigger didn’t even bother to wait until daylight to kick in.

Oh, it sucked. It just SUCKED. Once your kid sleeps through the night, you tend to think that this stuff is over, except for viruses. But, no. Now I am awake, M and P are sleeping. The only obligation I have for the day canceled via text message at 8:30, waking me up. I am grateful for the cancel, but oy. Why didn’t I put the damn thing on silent?

She’s 3 1/2. She has parents who tend to have uneven schedules, and it makes sense that she will have an uneven schedule, too, at times. Thinking this doesn’t help at 3 AM.

It makes sense to me that, biologically speaking, women’s bodies are designed to bear children young. Granted, emotionally, I wasn’t there until my mid-30s. But physically? This would have been a hell of a lot easier at 20. Thinking that doesn’t help at 3 AM, either.

(Imagining myself with a 17 year old right now does – yikes!)