I know the four of you who read this blog are tired of reading about my sleep woes, but believe me, I’m even more tired of having them.

I thought the morning was looking up. No records set, but we had two 45-minute naps from both kids. Better than it’s been. I credited the functional redecorating I did in the nursery: swap in two room-darkening shades, add a humidifier both for moisture in our forced-air house and for white noise. So far, so good. And yet, the naps were still not enough and meltdowns ensued. At one point, I bundled them up and took them for a walk around the block, which usually at least buys 10 quiet minutes. Well, at least they saw their first snow? Eh.

They went totally mental around 1:30pm. Somehow, that’s my new “witching hour.” So, back in the car we went. I even hopped back on the highway in a partial repeat of yesterday. But the roads were wet and the trucks were making me nervous, so we went to Barnes & Noble. They were reasonably well-behaved. Daniel took some of his bottle, then spit it back up. They both changed shirts about three times from all the spitup, though the actual spitting doesn’t seem to really bother them.

Anyways, it was an afternoon full of screaming with brief breaks. I’m totally frayed. I even called the pediatrician in case anything set off a red flag, but she unfortunately didn’t have much to suggest. Mostly ride it out, but feel free to come in for a check if it really doesn’t seem to get better. Ugh.

So, everyone out there in internet-land, please send nap vibes our way. Getting no more than 30 minutes of peace in between screaming is really getting to me.

A mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.

Today was day three of Sir Daniel’s nap strike. Let’s just say it’s unpleasant.

At about noon, he was positively hysterical. I’d gotten about a 30-45 minute nap out of him in the morning, but it was too little, too late. He had two days of over-tired working for him (strangely enough, he slept pretty well overnight… at least a miserable day didn’t translate into a miserable night). I desperately decided a trip to Target was called for. A ride in the car and moving in the stroller. That should do the trick.

Much like yesterday, he slept for about 15 minutes and woke up again. I wanted to die. If only he’d sleep…

By the time we got back into the car, he was (thankfully) nearing the tired part of his cry/sleep/wake/repeat cycle. Driving around, they were both finally quiet. I looked at the clock. Easily an hour and a half before they’d need to eat again, but if I went home and got out of the car, they’d wake up. And then the only thing that would stop the screaming is another bottle. Nope. I needed to keep driving.

It’s like I was suddenly in the movie Speed, except (thankfully) no Keanu Reeves sitting shotgun. I didn’t dare stop. I silently cursed traffic lights. The only place for me, it would seem, was the highway. And so, at 1:30 this afternoon, I hit the on-ramp. For the first time in their young lives, my children crossed state lines.

Admittedly, I started to wonder if I was insane when I got to New Hampshire. In fairness, this is New England, so it only takes about 20 minutes to get to a new state, but still. It was like I was doing something illicit by driving them over the border. I called M before I hit the road, just so he knew what I was up to. Having lived through the last two days as well, he simply said “go, and don’t stop.” Good thing we understand each other.

We had a brief stop at a (rather lovely) rest area near Derry for pacifier replacement, but basically I drove north for 30 minutes, turned around, and drove back. And Daniel was silent the whole time. He slept for over an hour. It was the longest nap he’d had in three days. Life was a little better at the end of the ride.

When we got home, both had bottles and were happy again. Not for long. Another brief, insufficient nap for both, more screaming, an early bottle, and finally M was home and we hit baths and bed. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting them to stay asleep longer? I just wish I knew what was going on. We’ve done swaddle, no swaddle, light, dark, motion, still, white noise, quiet, walking, bouncing, rocking, crying it out, putting to bed earlier, putting to bed later… I’m at a loss. Please, please let this be a phase that is almost over.

It has been one of those days.

Daniel pretty much refused to sleep longer than 30 minutes at a stretch all day long. He’d wake up, I’d try to get him to go back to sleep… sometimes it worked for a few minutes, often not. Naturally, this meant I had a pretty unhappy baby on my hands for a large part of the day. Rebecca slept a bit better, but not a lot.

Add to that the fact that M had to work from 2am to 6am last night/this morning. So not only was he unavailable for some of the baby night shift that he usually takes, but then he was completely out of commission for much of the day. So not only had I slept less than usual, but I then had yet another day of caring for the babies on my own. And a particularly rough day, at that.

You know how everyone always says to nap when the babies do? Well, I generally don’t take that advice, and that’s alright. Today, I was all over it. The moment I could get them down, I was going to pass out on the couch. Yeah. I didn’t manage more than a 10 minute stretch with both of them sleeping. And I know there wasn’t much M could have done about his work schedule (this is something that happens once every 6 weeks), it meant that I had a sixth day in a row of being on my own with the twins. It’s a lot.

I put them both to bed early, so by 6pm, they were finally both asleep. Daniel fought it, but I swaddled the crap out of him and the room was dark and he finally let go. Rebecca, as always, was pretty much happy to go along. I can only hope they have a better night.

The left side of my head feels like it’s going to explode, and the three ibuprofen I took are only barely taking the edge off. I’m not generally much of a drinker, but tonight might be the night for a beer. And if it wasn’t NaBloPoMo, you can bet your sweet bippy I would not have bothered writing tonight. But I suppose it’s a good exercise to document a whole month.

Today’s picture, also courtesy of my fabulous new iPhone, is one of the moments Daniel was actually happy today. There really are those moments. They just sometimes get overshadowed by all the screaming.