Can You Die From Lack of Sleep?

...is a thing I Googled recently.

(The answer is: possibly)

It can also make you forgetful, feel depressed, decrease sex drive, have car accidents, and gain weight (well, duh, said every mom ever).

Luke has been our most challenging sleeper. (Translation: little man wakes up a lot.)

Early on he was sleeping 6 or 7 stretches at night which was, I thought, promising. But then we went on vacation and I fed him basically every time he made a noise at night because we were in a massive cabin with every other member of my family and I didn't want to wake anyone up. And after a week of those shenanigans, I guess he decided he didn't want to give up his late night snack(s). He was still little and I have never had a baby who didn't naturally sleep through the night on their own within the first few months so I just figured it would all work itself out but it didn't and after close to 5 months of sleeping only three hour (and sometimes less) stretches, mama was feeling it.

The good news is, after just a couple of days of sleep training, he is sleeping 8 hour stretches at night and waking up HAPPY every morning! Hallelujah and amen. 

Aaanywho.

The point of all this is to say that I'm getting a lot more sleep and I'm starting to feel like a real live person again. Someone who can make meal plans and cook and clean and play with my kids and talk to my husband at night and not feel like I'm going to collapse in a heap by 8 pm. (Oh, who am I kidding. 7 PM)

Sleep deprivation tends to make me weepy and pessimistic so the world is looking a lot more beautiful this past week.

And actually, the world IS a whole lot more beautiful because we are having a gorgeous fall! The weather has been perfect, the trees have just reached their height of glory, that shining moment when the leaves are blazing with color that happens juuuust before they all fall off. I'm trying to soak it all in before the cold sets in.

So, lets see. What's been happening around here. Ummmm....hmmm.

Homeschool stuff. Lily is an eager student which makes my job easier. Sophia sometimes sits with us, sometimes does her own thing. They are both super smart but in different ways and I find researching different learning styles fascinating.

They both had birthdays and we had fun celebrating them.

We had family pictures. And I had my times mixed up because I'm a super organized person who never remembers to write things down in her planner so we had to race to get there. And we got a speeding ticket from the mobile speed cam on the way, so, expensive lesson learned.

Luke is adorable and smiley and awesome. He melts me into a great big puddle and I can't stop kissing him and hugging him and praying that we can stretch out this baby phase as long as possible. (Whhhyyy do they have to get big so fast?)

We have been super busy with work and church and family stuff and its been good but we've also had to intentionally schedule some downtime because: introverts.

Group Selfie: Take 12,000

I said, "Let's take our picture!"

He said, "....why..."

I'm kind of obsessed with the show Fixer Upper on HGTV and had an actual dream that we moved to Waco and Chip and Jo renovated a house for us. There was also a weird bit in there where I was playing on a professional soccer team so there's a good chance this will never happen in real life.

Life is very full, very messy, very chaotic, and oh so very good. We are grateful. For the things we've learned on the hard road and for a brief sojourn on an easy one.

(Edited to add: I started writing this on Saturday and finished it yesterday...guess which little stinker woke up three times last night?  Oh, the irony...he has also been drooling like a maniac and running a fever off and on with no other symptoms so I'm gonna guess he's teething. But really. Who knows? We moms are just making it up as we go along ;)