Strawberries and Mochas

It's been a bit intense with the lack of sleep around here. The babe is not a fan of thunderstorms and has been up constantly for the past 2 nights. She seems to think she is allowed to sleep with us if there's thunder. We don't agree. So we take turns bringing her back to her room and signing to her. The little guy is not a fan of the hours between 2 and 3:30 am and has been left to "scream it out" in his crib. It kills me to leave him in there but it's for the best. He continues to wake at around 11:15 pm and 4:00 am to eat. Sleep training, which has been going on for a whole month now, is a work in progress, I suppose. We must be headed for some yummy pay-back sleepy time somewhere in the near future, but for now, I'm running on a broken 4.5 hours per night. My brain is swimming.

Anyway, my blog does not exist to only publish my random complaints. It exists to tell you about getting it together and dragging the kids to the farm to pick strawberries with our play group friends. This morning we threw our disheveled selves in the car and drove out to the country. It was a beautiful drive and the scenery (and real estate) was smashing. The picking was good and the babe seemed to enjoy the process of finding the "really red ones." Luckily the little guy slept in his car seat in the field (fresh air combined with exhaustion does the trick).

On the way home I did a selfish "me" thing. I pulled into a suburban strip mall to drag our dirty and tired selves into Starbucks for a venti (yes, venti) mocha with whip cream and a bagel with cream cheese. The sweet buzz I got on the ride home made up for the screaming in the back seat and the sitting on the road stuck in construction. Sometimes I wish I had a taxi cab with the window separating me from the back seat chaos. Alas. I am the referee and I must take my job seriously. And this referee was happy to have pulled off a good day. Strawberry shortcake, anyone?