Tonite's the night

Today was a really crap day in a long string of sleep deprivation induced crap days.

Don't get me wrong - I love my children - all 5 of them. I love them so much that I've turned myself inside out trying to do everything right and be the perfect attachment parenting mama.

And I don't regret that - I have a strong connection with my kids - my 14 year old daughter isn't embarrassed to hold my hand in public, or to walk down the hall with me at her school. My 7 year old comes down to hug me several times at night after he's gone to bed - he just oozes with love. My 9 year old still kisses me good night and calls me Mumma :) The babies glow when they see me after being away. We've done a good job.

That said - I'm exhausted. To the bone. Completely and utterly. I had my oldest daughter when I was 19 years old. I'm 34 now and I've been nursing someone at night for 9 straight years, with only a year or so of sleep between my first daughter night weaning and getting pregnant with my 2nd.

Soooooo I'm ready to sleep now please.

I've been agonizing over this all summer - in fact my goal had been for her to be night weaned by the end of summer - but my sweet little rascal is the sort that if you try to limit things she wants them all the more. And so now at the end of the summer instead of making progress, she's nursing all night long - and I've been too tired to do anything about it.

No more. I may be still too tired, but I am one determined mama. I am going to break out of this fog. I'm done night nursing.

Tonite is the night. Last night was my last night of night nursing ever.

Go ahead and quote me on that. I'm writing it here so that there is no turning back.

And if you come in the next few days and find that my posts are completely unintelligible ? You'll know why ;) But never fear! I'll be back with brain on and hopefully soon! Maybe in the meantime I'll just post a few pictures of the chaos to let everyone know that I'm human. Never going to be that perfect mama - and I'm starting to finally feel ok with that. I'll keep on doing my best, but now that my kids are a little older my needs are going back to being high priority. And that feels so right. But first - some mama pictures - totally random from over the years.

I had to go and look to remind myself that I'm glad I've parented the way I have - as tiring as it has been I'm fairly certain that one day I'll look back and feel glad.