Count Your Blessings

Phillie came home a little over a week ago, and I pretty much feel like a walking zombie. Between getting up to feed her and Faith in the middle of the night, let's just say that I'm not getting much sleep. I do try to take naps during the day, but haven't been so successful as my mother in law is still here and I feel kind of like I should offer her some sort of entertainment (I'm sure I'm not doing a very good job of it, though.)

I also have been shirking my chores in an attempt to get some extra Zzz's, but that creates other problems as the Little Diva pretty much picks up EVERYTHING she can find and tries to eat it...in the last two days alone she's tried to eat wire, a thumb tack and a scrap of ribbon (which she successfully managed to get in her mouth and choke on....)  Needless to say, between sleep deprivation and trying to learn how to navigate life with 2 babies, I've found myself feeling pretty overwhelmed and losing my patience fairly easily...I hate it, because in the back of my head I KNOW that I don't need to over react to things, but I just don't have the energy to stop myself and breathe...I've said things I regret and I've been harsh with people who have only been trying to help...

Well, the Lord definitely has a way of putting things into perspective...

I stumbled upon the blog of another mom via Pinterest and when I read her story, I couldn't help but say to God, "Message received, I have been thoroughly chastised."  I read the story of how they found out that their 10 1/2 month old daughter had cancer and 17 days later, she was gone...at exactly 11 months old.  For added kick, I was feeding the Divine Miss Cupcake as I read... As I held my little Phillie closer, it took everything in me not to run to Faith's room and pull her out of her nap to hug her extra tight.  As I read, all I could think of is the fact that Faith is EXACTLY that age, she will be 11 months tomorrow.  I couldn't picture losing my smiley, happy girl so quickly...or watching her be that sick...the ER last week was almost more than I could take....

So, I am reminded that I need to count my blessings. I have two beautiful baby girls to love and hug every day...and, in spite of sleep deprivation, I need to take time to remember that "this too shall pass" and that sometime in the future I will be longing for these sleep deprived days where all I want to do is lay on the floor and let Faith play with my nose (she squeezes it, and I make honking noises...she gets a kick out of this for hours...), I will wish that the Little Diva was throwing a temper tantrum over the fact that I won't let her hold my phone, I will long for the times when Phillie would snuggle up close to my chest and sleep in my arms...

The Divine Miss Cupcake- 3 days old

the Little Diva- (almost) a year

I am one lucky mamma...

Hugs and Loves until next time...

(P.S. these pics are previews of the newborn and 1 year photo shoots I did with my girls. I realize that I have friends and family that aren't on Facebook and haven't seen all of them yet and I've had a few Facebook messages asking how I did it... For those of you who asked, I will be blogging about it soon, I promise...and for those of you who just want to look at the cute pictures, I will be posting as many of them as I can here soon.)