insomnia

These last two weeks have been challenging. I've been trying to remain upbeat and positive, but there's really just a lot of junk going on.  It's hard.

I'm not sleeping well lately. There's lots in my brain right now and that translates to too many hours lying awake staring at the ceiling in the dark.

The two most minor things (which feel really huge):  1) Elliott has decided to start her 8-month sleep regression early (aka mama's not getting more than 2 hours of sleep at a time) and 2) We bought a car this weekend.  Which you'd think would be a good thing.  EXCEPT for the fact that we bought it used and now are needing to make repairs.  Repairs to the tune of more than half of what we paid for the car itself.

First,  I should really just stop writing about Ellie's sleep on here.  Because when I talk about how she's sleeping well, it's nearly guaranteed that the night after I hit publish, her sleep patterns go out the window.  I guess it's not abnormal that around 8-months old, babies experience a sleep regression (developmentally, she's 7 1/2 months old).  Because of the amount of information and skills they're learning all at once, it makes it hard for them to sleep.  Apparently this phase can last 3-6 weeks. We're about 1 week in now, and I feel like death.  I'm exhausted and I've suddenly come down with a horrible head cold.  I swear, I've had more colds in the last 7 1/2 months than I've had in the 5 years before she was born. Also, I'm so exhausted all the time, that I have a really hard time just falling asleep. I'm sure all I need is one great night of sleep.  But apparently that's not happening for at least another 2 weeks.

Second,  this is another reason I've been losing sleep. This is our new-to-us 2001 BMW X5.  Bought used with low miles and fully loaded interior:  Leather seats, integrated phone, DVD player, and other fancy things. Basically, it's a sexy beast. I did the online research about this year and model, and it looked great on paper. But we weren't able to have it inspected before we purchased it because we bought it on a Saturday (aka mechanics closed day). It felt good when it drove, and it seemed like it was fine. And so we went with it.  Well, it's not fine. Apparently the previous owners, didn't take great care of it. Today, we took it in to have an oil change, and a general inspection.  It needs A LOT of work.  The mechanic said it's a great car, but it's been neglected. Originally, we said if it needed too much work, we'd list it on Craigslist and try to sell it for what we paid.  However, after realizing how bad it was, we decided we couldn't do that in good conscience.  We got screwed, and we can't do that to someone else. While it puts us into debt to fix it (and that's what we've been trying to get out of), it doesn't break us.  And so we're fixing it.  And keeping it.  I'm excited about it and not at the same time.   I've been praying a lot about it, and I hope it will be a blessing for us and not a continued burden.

In both of the above cases (the baby and the car), they're lucky they're cute.  The baby more than the car obviously.