um, i love you too?

I spend three nights awake all night long, with only a couple hours of sleep each night. I lovingly reassure Pink that I love her while I fight every one of her 38 lbs to stay still and administer countless doses of inhalers, motrin, ear drops, and bubble gum medicine through shrieks. I call up Grammy during a dinner-time tantrum and have Grammy put Minnie Mouse on the phone to cheer her up. I patiently redirect her when she loses her focus 18 times while cleaning up her toys at the end of a very long day, knowing that she's too sick for timeouts right now. I distract her in the middle of a senseless tantrum with a game of "where'd the binky go?" when she desperately needs to calm down and go to sleep. And what do I get in return?

"Mama, can dada cuddle snuggle wif me?"

After I say, "Sure, sweetie, can mama snuggle, too?" she says to me, the woman who has been making daily sacrifices for her since about eight months before she was born,

"No, get out of bed."

I love you, too. And since you've cost me about 21.5 hours of sleep during the past three days, I'm going to bed and dada can have you. But first I'm going to call my mom to say sorry and thank you.

**after this forsaking episode, she asked me to rock her in my chair and sing to her. she also blew me kisses and signed "i love you" so i guess i can let things go.