Ever Just Need a Smile. ... and/or Coffee?

Another rough night last night. This time I had the pleasure of two hysterical little ones. Started with Arianna (surprise, surprise) who was absolutely fine up until bedtime. As soon as I laid her down she started to drift off and as I'm creeping out of the room the phone rings (now all the phones in the house have the ringer turned down and the one in their bedroom is on silent, but the stupid base still rings - explain that, and we have to keep the base in their room because it's the only location for the phone jack - the other one was covered up by cabinets when the previous geniuses/owners did the remodel). I frantically dove across the room to answer after one ring, but it was too late. .... the night had begun. Wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't Gina on the other line. I lost it a little bit because I thought we had a rule "no calling the home phone after 7", in her defence 7:15 is a little earlier than normal bedtime, but in this case Arianna was way ready for the sleeping. So now Arianna has lost it and although she is tired she keeps working herself up. The problem is that as soon as she relaxes and drifts off her breathing (you know that stutter breathing that you get after a heavy cry) wakes her BACK up and that pisses her off again. So we enter this ridiculous cycle. I finally come to the conclusion that there is no way she's going to sleep until she can get her breathing back under control so I take her out to the living room to play and I move on to Genevieve. Now Genevieve is equally as tired but she has just sucked down 6 1/2 ounces of milk - which is way more than I thought she'd do. I made a bottle that big because I wasn't going to feed Arianna - that tends to cause problems - but I wanted a little extra from Genevieves bottle just in case it was absolutely necessary to use on Arianna. But I should have known better. Geneveieve is a chow hound. She has no little voice in her belly that says "OK, we're done now, tank is full". She will literally eat until she explodes! So now, rightly so, she's got a belly ache and she's upset. Needless to say two upset babies don't make anything right. I finally resolved to let them scream for about 10 minutes, just to get them good and tired - of course I absolutely hate this method because I'm afraid that this kind of unpleasantness is a bad association for bed time. Bed time should be a good time, not a terrible experience. But the screaming worked. I went back in held each of them close for about 5 minutes and laid them back down. Little stutter breathing, but neither was severe enough. It's now 8:45, bed time only took an hour and 45 minutes. I need a beer and to watch the rest of the Laker game. Laker game started at 6 tonight, not 7 like I thought. Guess I just need that beer then. Woke up this morning totally exhausted, and a little on the depressed side. These experiences aren't just rough on them, they're rough on me. I hate that the last image I have of them is screaming, crying, red faced terror - and they probably hate that that's the last image they have of me too! Fortunately (for me, not Gina) Genevieve was up early this morning. So I told Gina, "I'm sorry, but I need a smile before I go", I poked my head around the door, she rolled over and looked at me - whammy! That's what I needed. Let Thursday begin. Next stop, Starbucks.