Dear Beautiful Belle: A break from great

I think all my posts lately have been a hodgepodge of thoughts and feelings. Things are going so great that I hate to complain about anything considering where we were a year ago, or even 6 months ago but sometimes I just need to vent, no matter how good things are now. I promise, I'll end the entry off on a good note ;-)

1. I'm super jealous of you moms that have kids that sleep through the night. Even those moms that have to get up once or twice every now and then. I'm jealous of you new moms that can look forward to the night that your baby sleeps through the night. Even if I changed the medication times we would be risking Lily still waking up for water, diaper changes and risk screwing up her now controlled reflux.

Sometimes I think nasty thoughts. I hear things like "oh my gosh, she got up two/three/four times last night! I can't believe it. I'm so exhausted." I just want to say suck it up. I've been doing this for almost two years and I have a lifetime more of it ahead of me.

And then there's the well meaning people that say things like I can't imagine how you do it every night. I usually just smile and say something like Lily isn't the only one that naps at nap time these days! But most days what I want to say (and sometimes do say) is that I do what I have to do for my daughter. I wake up at 3am every night to an increasingly annoying alarm clock to ensure she has the best care possible. To keep the reflux at bay. To keep her cortisol levels on par with a normal baby, or as close as we can come to it.

I do it because it needs to be done. And that's all there is to it. I'm not a hero. I'm not an amazing mom because of it. It. Just. Is. It's my life. It's normal for me now. It's routine. I can't imagine my life any different. I can't imagine putting Lily to bed at night and not seeing her until the morning the next day. It's reality.

Now that that's out of my head and heart, we can move on!

2. Practice does my perfect. Lily has become increasingly better with the garage and front door stairs. But there are these moments where she stands on perfectly flat surfaces and freaks out, reaching her hand out for me, saying things like "down, Mommy." She thinks she's on a stair and she wobbles to the what she thinks is the edge and then freezes, unable to "take a step down" on what she thinks is an unlevel surface.
This happened the other day by our fireplace from the marble to the carpet. It happened again at the Dominos Pizza store at the threshhold of their door.

It's pretty heartbreaking. I just want to swoop her up in my arms and tell her that it's okay, Mommy's here, there's no step, make believe or not, that she has to go down alone.
But instead I tell her that there is no step, that she has walked over this surface before with no stumble or fear. That she just has to do it. I do reach out my hand to her and usually that's enough to get her over it. Or I walk over it again to show her that I didn't step up or down to get over it.
Practice makes perfect...

3. Okay, enough with the sad. Yesterday we went to the fire station for a playdate! The kids got to see a fireman dress up in his gear (so they would know what a "safe man" would look like in an emergency! Smart!) And then we spent the rest of the time climbing in and out of the fire trucks and posing for multiple pictures. It was loads of fun and we all can't wait to take our kids back when they're older and can understand things better. Here's some pictures: