August 28th--I was already tired...

On Tuesday morning, I realized for the first time in weeks, I was sleep-deprived again. Now, my boys don't always sleep entirely through the night, and they sometimes wake up at 5 am. But when they wake up at night it involves about 2 minutes of my time (just call me water girl), and if they wake up before 6 am they listen to a book on tape or CD until 6. I love that they're at the age where I can refuse to get out of bed until 6.

The point of that is to day that I get a good amount of sleep. Carl and I are in bed most nights by 10. Like most moms of young kids, I do sometimes long for more sleep. In my case, I long to wake up on my own in the morning, not just because a child is calling "Mom! Where are you?" (imagine that sing-song voice that kids often have when they want something, and you'll be hearing Anders).

Oh, wait. The real point is that the lunar eclipse threw me head-first into sleep-deprivation. It was only one night, but there's something oddly disconcerting about waking up at 3 am for the day. So as I realized I was sleep-deprived, moving slow, and hardly coherent (not to mention I'm sure I was awarded the "grumpy mom" certificate for the day), I thought that it was sure to be the day we'd finally, after 2 1/2 weeks of waiting, get a call from placement to take a baby. It was such an advantage last time to enter into the newborn state fully rested, and I had been hoping for the same. Maybe I just needed more of a challenge.

All morning when we were home I answered the phone. Now, the majority of calls we get on our home line are solicitations, and I tend to ignore the phone. It's also, however, the first number placement will try. I really thought we'd get a call.

We went off to our last storytime at the library (Erik's last storytime because of kindergarten, Anders's last story time because we have to pick up Erik at kindergarten), then into the library to get more books. While the boys were playing the computer (yes, I let my young children play computer games at the library. How else could I ever pick out enough books that I wanted to read to them?) and I was browsing books, it happened. My phone rang.

I took the call in the courtyard, and sure enough, it was someone from placement. She had a month-old baby girl to place. I accepted the placement, then called Carl to tell him the good news. The details, as always, came slowly, but she made a statement that she had some difficulty sleeping. Home buyers are always alert for veiled statements such as "handyman's dream" or "lots of potential". Savvy foster parents can recognize "some difficulty sleeping" as "she screams a lot". In my sleep-deprived fog, however, it went right over my head.

It worked best for me to pick her up later that evening, so after my boys were in bed, I had an hour-long planning meeting, and Carl got back from his meeting, I drove off to meet the newest addition to our household. I knew she was a month old and that she cried some. I knew her name, and that was about it.

Of course I had expectations forming in my head. I didn't expect to meet a tiny little baby who looked more like a newborn. I found out that she was born early and small, and at 2 1/2 weeks old she was 6 pounds. She didn't look much bigger than that now.

The foster family related the bits and pieces of her story that they had, and told me some more about her. It turns out that this baby girl, whom I will call "Iris" here, had the interesting pattern of being really fussy every other day. Today was a mellow day. She slept peacefully while we talked, slept the whole way home, and slept for another hour once I got home.

However, sleeping well is all relative when it comes to a baby at one month old, and not even close to sleeping through the night. I imagine I'll continue on in this sleep-deprived state for quite awhile longer now.