To think it was you.

thank goodness for my parents, who took Carter overnight on Saturday while we attended a wedding, allowing us to sleep in until the blessed hour of 9:30 and then enjoy a much needed pancake date on Sunday morning.

thank goodness for my mother-in-law, who has this uncanny ability to detect when I'm on the verge of tears because, once again, I waited too long to ask for help.

thank goodness for my husband, who encourages excessive couch-lying and exhibits a let-me-just-take-over sort of attitude on a nearly daily basis as of late.

thank goodness for Carter, who is the only toddler I know to be perfectly okay with mommy lying on the couch wrapped in a big white blanket while she is halfway between sleep and consciousness, even if it is 10:30 in the morning and time for our apple butter toast date.

thank goodness, thank goodness, thank goodness.
ipso facto, I feel like I'm in a padded room of available help made by people just trying to be there for me.

I don't know why it takes me so darn long to recognize the signs which so obviously shout,
Nicole, you are about to run out of steam, and the only way to avoid the torture that is that stupid knot in your throat for days on end, or irrational grudges against the CW for withholding Gossip Girl from you for one measly week, you need to just ASK.SOMEONE.TO.BABYSIT.AND.GET.SOME.SLEEP.


It's such a simple concept, but yet it takes tears pouring down my face for me to recognize it. Even then it doesn't occur to me until I'm on the phone with my MIL and she tells me that this is simply a product of SLEEP DEPRIVATION, AND YOU NEED TO LET ME HELP YOU!
See?? Padded room of help.
And the worst part is is it's not that I haven't been going to sleep and waking up at regular hours, it's that my body just hurts at all times, and that in and of itself, makes me tired and wears me down.

Babe #2, I'm ready to meet you and to have that moment where I get to think, I can't believe it was you in there for all that time. I can't believe it was you.

.....and there's another moment which can be chalked up to another one of my favorite moments during that first precious week.

linking up here, as always:


and here for the first time:

and here!