have I mentioned how tired I am? have I?

Seriously. So. Fucking. Tired.

Stella will be 8 months old this month. Which means for 4 months I've been sleeping really, really badly. According to some crack pediatrician I saw at some point babies often do a radical sleep pattern adjustment at around 16 weeks.

Frieda went from multiple wake-ups to sleeping blissfully through the night at approximately 14 weeks.

Stella's gone from a really good newborn sleeper to wake-every-3h-horrendo-baby at yup, about 16 weeks.

I know I've gone on about this before. Forgive me for getting a bit obsessive. I mean, it's just sleep right. Not essential for our physical, emotional and mental well-being or anything.

So two things have happened since the last time I had a bitch.

First, Stella decided waking up every 3 hours was so passe. My Mum has a theory that just when you can't bear something a moment longer, it changes. This has mostly proved true. Like now, when a week ago Stella started waking every two hours. Short wake-ups granted but every. two. hours. (I talk in single word sentences a lot these days).
4 or 5 nights of this and I was about ready to die. It's like my nights are made up of a (short) series of afternoon naps, never sinking into that deep sleep supposedly so imperative to your physical, emotional and ... etc etc etc ...

Then the second thing.
Stella got a horrible chesty flemmy coarse and painful cough.
And stopped sleeping all together.
(Ok not altogether, that would be exaggerating. She sleeps if strapped to my chest with me in an upright position. Very comfortable position for me. No really.)

It's been 2 nights.

My thoughts are as clumsy and sluggish as my writing. My humour is as dark as this post is almost-unpublishable for it's incredible boringness. My brain is as vacant as, well, a vacant thing.

The worst part about this brand of sleep-deprivation is there's no one to blame. Not the neighbour with the faulty car alarm. Not the cow waitress who clearly brought you a regular coffee and not the decaf you ordered. Not the big sister who gave the baby the cough in the first place.
And not Stella. She's not a small pink nobody anymore, she's my small girl, my daughter, my nearly-8 month old friend, and she's suffering.
And that hurts more than my dessicated eyeballs.

Chest-monkey just coughed herself awake.

This too shall pass. This too shall pass. This too shall pass. This too shall pass.