Growing pains, growing smains

I really would like to blog more, if only to clear out some of these goopy half-finished thoughts of mine to make room for others. But here are the facts. I have a three-month old baby who currently refuses pacifiers, bottles of pumped milk, and sleeping longer than two hour stretches. She has also refused to stop growing. Her and I need to have words I know. 

Also I have two other kids. Boys. They are noisy and dirty and whiny a lot of the time. They make light saber noises all the live long day. They get angry at each other for things like "he's standing too close to me" and "he's looking at me." One of them is in the throes of potty training but refuses to have a bowel movement unless he's wearing a diaper. I spend my day going between nursing the baby and asking the boy to sit on his potty chair, then doling out jelly beans as a reward, then asking the other boy to do his homework and asking both boys to be quiet while baby girl sleeps, usually a fruitless request. My house needs a good cleaning but being potty chair monitor/teacher/ref/chef/broken record/milkmaid/zombie takes precedence at the moment. Most mornings I wake up in a daze covered in baby spit-up, eyes crusted over, precariously close to the edge of the bed, and the baby sleeping next to me because she won't sleep in her crib. I dare not move and wake her up since a calm slumbering baby is better than a loud screaming baby. I just stay still and try not to fall off the bed. When she wakes up (probably after hearing the light sabers); we snuggle. 

I kiss her cheeks more times than I can count and I also sniff her . . . a lot. I'm not even mad at her for how she acted the previous eight hours. She's magical. The boys think so too. They say things like, "Oh mommy she's so cute," as if it's almost too much to bear. They gently (sometimes not gently enough) stroke her face and pat her head and reassure her that, "It's not so bad baby. You'll be okay." I wonder if she knows how much they treasure her.

I make mental notes to remind her of this when in the future they don't allow girls into their forts. I make mental notes about a lot of things since time is fleeting and these sleepless, exhausting, yet innocent, soft, and sweet days will not last nor should they, probably. I know written notes would be better though since it's the only hope I have of actually remembering them. So I make plans to do just that. I also eat my fair share of chocolate.

And these are the facts. This is why it took me about three days to put this little post together. My mind feels a little less goopy now though. And that's a good thing. My stomach does still feel like a nice roll of cinnamon bun dough however. Ah well.