I'll be on hold until the sleep fairy backs up the moving van at our house

I'm still here.

I haven't left.

If anything, even if I wanted to leave, I couldn't. But I don't, so no worries there.

My blogging, unfortunately, has taken a back-burner to the ever-so-present every single waking moment of the day reality of INSOMNIA.

I've constantly got that worn-out I'm a mom of small children mixed in with a little is she aware of concealer look. Those "bags under the eyes" make-up commercials would turn me away for fear of being able to show anything positive with the end result. Tylenol PM worked for about 10 days. What's next that is fetus-friendly and won't leave me in a drug-induced morning stupor unable to hear my toddler screaming, "I got poop in my pants, mama" before he spreads it ALL OVER the bed and walls. (Experience has taught me that poop in the bed usually takes about 3 days to fully recover from)

(I feel your pain, Hill)

I am a self-diagnosed Princess & the Pea when it comes to sleeping. Everything must be just right for productive sleep to occur. The temperature, wind-speed, weight of the covers, pillow numbers/placement and sounds must be on a 9 out of 10 scale for optimum-sleeping-conditions to occur. Anything less is null and void, I'm up like I've downed 3 Red Bulls ready to discuss which part of Trigonometry I enjoy the best.

Something about this pregnancy has sparked my body's insatiable desire to produce nightmares that are every parent's worst, well uh, nightmare. There's always some type of conflict and most of the time someone is dying or is close to it. Boring infomercials don't even put me back to sleep, I just pick back up where the nightmare left off, because I'm OCD like that.

So, since I'm already very sensitive to little sleep (without a growing fetus in my womb), adding normal stresses of raising two very active children into the mix of a body I feel is borderline too old to be birthin' anytime soon, has broken me of blogging. To put it honestly, this pregnancy is kicking my butt.

Blogging has been my outlet. It was my answer to not developing pictures for the last 3 years or not keeping up a memory book. I would get the blog printed at the end of the year and felt good about solving both motherly inadequacies.

But, my need for sleep has trumped. As it should.

Little people are depending on me each day to be loving, provide food and be a bearable human in the house. Notice I haven't thrown in "extras" because there's no time for extras. Most of our friends are sick half the time and potty-training mixed in with cold weather makes a good excuse for the park to be put on hold until Spring.

There are so many things I wish to write about: us seeing the Rockettes, our budding ballerina, our low-key Christmas, Monster Jam tickets, my wonderful birthday-week, potty training successes and even the oddly opposite ways Jim and I handle our illnesses (I could write on and on about that one), but they'll have to wait until I can get sleep back into a more normal routine.

Here's where I get selfish: to the 3 people who might still be reading this blog, please keep me and my sleep-needs in your prayers. I appreciate any and all you have to offer. Maybe even some bible verses for me to read at 2am or even explain what's going on.

Know this, I LOVE blogging. I hope to get back to it soon. I love writing about our children, telling funny stories, taking pictures while thinking of interesting ways to explain them, all the while knowing that one day they'll have their mother's crazy thoughts in a bound book to read over one day when they're old enough to be interested. It breaks my heart, but I must have a self-appointed time-out, regroup, and hopefully return sooner than I think I will.

Until.....whenever mi amigos.