Inspiration might be a strong word for what I’m finding right now… Blogging material might be more accurate. Or sanity in writing. Or solace in readership. But, for purposes of prose, we’ll call it inspiration.

It’s 2am and our 4.5 week old baby is confused by day and night and has them conveniently switched in her head. More so, tonight she has decided to try her hand at staying up for hours at a time… Something she hasn’t really done before and not exactly something I’d like her to be experimenting with between the hours of 10pm and 2am. I’ve tried everything – rocking, swinging, feeding, burping, shhing… And after a minor meltdown (mine, not hers), we’re trying the repertoire again.

This is compounded by our oldest daughter, age 4.5, getting out of bed mid meltdown (still mine, not hers either) to tell me she misses me and wants to spend time together. Though time together at two in the morning is not my idea of quality, I understand her sentiment. My first baby has had to mature twice in order to be a “good big sister” when each of her sisters was born. And even though she has been wonderfully loving to her sisters and forgiving of my absence when they were newborns, the feelings she’s having of missing mommy are real and warranted. But not something I can solve at 2am, much as I’d like to try.

And this is compounded by our middle daughter, just shy of 2.5, stirring from her fever-induced sleep where she lay burning up despite the dose of Tylenol she had before bed and the eye drops we gave her for the pink eye that developed over the course of the day. She is uncomfortable and wants to snuggle in our bed, where she slept last night as her fever began to set in. She’s in need of love and attention too, and it’s coming out in an actual physical response.

Three sweet, beautiful girls, each needing time, love, and attention. Each craving it at 2am, when we are all at our most vulnerable. As I sit nursing the baby with tears streaming down my face from sheer exhaustion and my husband negotiates the older two girls’ needs and requests when they should really just be sleeping, I find myself overcome by the simultaneous overwhelm of it all… The good parts and the hard, the tears (theirs and mine), the endless exhaustion, the reality of “holy #$*@, there are three of them,” and the deep unfailing and unconditional love I’m filled with.

None of that changes the fact that it’s now nearly 3am and I just want to go to sleep, but it’s comforting to know all those feelings and emotions are there and they’re real.

So thanks, readers, for keeping me company during a particularly rough night and for giving me an outlet to express those emotions… It’s comforting to know you’re “listening.”