Hiking and (Not) Sleeping

Still pregnant. But not for lack of effort.
Recollecting my 6-7 miles of walking on the day before Natalie was born, I hoped that our hike on Saturday morning would get things going. We hiked for over 2 1/2 hours out in the woods, with lots of steep hills. Walking officially does not induce labor. It does, however, cause severe edema of the hands and feet.

It was still a nice hike; very pretty. And the weather was wonderful. Here is Micah sliding down a bamboo tree.

Surprisingly, being hugely pregnant is only my second greatest stressor these days. #1 is, without a doubt, Natalie not sleeping. Despite great effort to enforce naptime and following every rule in the books for encouraging toddler sleep, Natalie continues to hate sleep. She took 3 naps in the last week and has been up 5-10+ times a night every night. Sometimes, she just cries until Micah offers her water and she goes back to sleep easily. About 1/3 - 1/2 of the time, however, she is wildly inconsolable and screams on and on for no apparent reason. The other night, after an hour and a half straight of middle-of-the-night screaming her head off for no reason, I had Micah put her in the shower and turn on the cold water. She was quiet after that, though probably traumatized for life. So there you have it- cold shower- the first disciplinary method that we have employed that is regarded by some experts as abusive. Even for naps, the only thing that has worked in the last week has been holding her on the couch while watching really boring daytime cooking shows. The rest of the days, she won't settle down and quiet down and generally, after 1-3 hours of gently prompting her to lay down and be quiet, ends up left in her room to cry for 30-60 minutes. I am trying to convince Micah to let me give her Melatonin, but he's not quite exhausted enough yet to try drugging her. We'll see how he feels once we have a newborn to deal with, too.

She is wildly overtired; so much so that she can't get any decent sleep because she is so exhausted! And we've done absolutely everything that we can, so I don't feel any pity. Just annoyance. 

In fact, I am so irritated with her, I want to share this shaming video that will surely embarrass her to death when I show it to her prom date some day.

The volume is stifled, but she is responding, "My boobies".

And, for a glimpse of what life is like during the few hours each day that are not focused on trying to enforce good sleep or handle tantrums spawned by sleep deprivation, here she is with her very normal, healthy, well-sleeping bff, who we trade off babysitting with.