I Am Exhausted

Holy cow, guys.  This little lady has been going through her two month growth spurt and it has been hard on both of us.  I THINK she may be done now (it’s been slowly building up for the past three days and seems to have climaxed this afternoon) and I am so glad!  If I do not get some sleep soon, I may start hiring someone who is lactating to come over and take care of her and feed her while I sleep for a couple days.  (That’s a thing, right?)

Right now I am sitting in my chair, my faithful recliner, and watching my little one sleep.  I am so glad she is finally able to sleep hard.  She’s been so fidgety and waking easily over the past few days.  Last night we got a three hour span of sleep after a 6.5 hour cluster feed.  Luckily she gave me a couple 30 minute breaks in there for diaper changes and mommy peeing time.  She finally went down at 10pm, slept until 1:00am and then our night got terrible.

Along with only sleeping for 20-30 minutes at a time (and I’m pretty sure some of those times she was still awake and I just passed out) we also had a TICK in the bed!!  Yes, a tick!  I had woken up once to pick her up and felt something on the palm of my hand.  Felt like crud.  Thought it was probably just fuzz + baby drool that had solidified into some kind of crud on my hand.  I flicked it off onto the floor beside the bed and went about my cluster feed night.  Three hours later, during more feeding time, I felt a tickle on my elbow. (As a side note, I have been incredibly itchy ever since I was pregnant.  It’s getting better, but still pretty itchy.  So I thought it was just one of my itches.)  Since I had that particular hand holding a breast, I couldn’t really move it more than rubbing it on the pillow.  Seemed to help, until a couple minutes later.  Then I knew it was SOMETHING.  I naturally assumed a spider.  I pulled the boob out and reached over with my other hand and smacked at the creature, picked it off, and threw it down on the pillow.  I assumed I had killed whatever it was, but I was also concerned with the feel of what it was.  Spiders are squishy, people.  This was hard and flat…. just like the crud on my hand!

I grabbed my phone and looked at what was there.  Expecting a dead spider, I was quite shocked to see a very alive TICK.  (I am still so grossed/freaked out).  I woke my husband up, confirmed it was a tick, and let him handle the murdering and disposal.  I, on the other hand, jumped out of bed, put Emmy in her bassinet, ran to turn the lights on and began checking myself, the bed, the floor, the baby… everything.  I even checked out little dog, who I am assuming carried this disgusting passenger into our house.  She was clean.  I was traumatized.  My husband was tired.  He told me that ticks usually don’t travel in packs, which means “turn off the lights and go to sleep.”  I was NOT happy.  How could something so terrifying be something so nonchalant for him?  I guess he was just trying to calm me down, but it did not have that effect.  Even though the little one fell asleep during all the hub-bub (figures, right?)  I could not go back to sleep.  Turned out to be okay, since the little one woke up 20 minutes later, but still.

I’ve never experienced a tick problem before, so I know it isn’t something I should be constantly fearful about, but it was on the level of finding a black widow hanging in the window in the nursery or something, you know?

So, overacting mommy, or understandably concerned?

We have bug people coming out on Tuesday to de-bug our entire house – inside AND out!  I will now be adding tick control to our contract.  Ugh!