Duckie was the last straw of our sanity

Let's just say having Duckie is a lot of fun.

J is getting a very eye-opening experience on what having kids could have been like for him.

Currently, he's the one feeding Duckie every 3 hours between 12-6 (so yes, that's only two times he literally has to get up and feed him). He's understanding legitimate broken sleep.

He lucked out and never really had to get up with our babes. For the first few weeks when H was born I'd have him change diapers when she first woke up, but then realized that was dumb because I was - at the time - all ready up with her as we hadn't yet mastered breastfeeding laying down. Then with B I made him master the sideways nurse from day one. And since he wasn't a pooper like his sister, I admit, I did not change his diaper every single time he nursed at night, it was more like every other time.

So really, J's sleep was only interrupted by rustling or possibly the brief cry when a bare bum was exposed to cold air. And the week we night-weaned H he took over tending to her for a few nights.

That's it.

He's never really had to do anything major.

If we'd been bottle-feeding the nighttime responsibilities would have for sure been 50/50, simply because that's the type of relationship J and I have (okay, if we're being truthful, it probably would have been more like 75/25, with him on the higher end because I need my sleep whereas J is like, "Give me 4 [solid] hours and I'm good" and I'm like, "That's insanity, I need a solid 8, but 10 would be nice.")

But alas, the poor guy is dying with these nightly feedings. It throws off his four solid hours of sleep. Duckie is a bit of pickle, so we have to do this awesomely fun thing where we make him suck our finger and then squirt the milk into the back of his mouth.

And we've tried all kinds of bottles and nipples and syringes and eye droppers. Duckie's just not impressed. He can drink some milk out of a bowl on his own, but not enough where we don't need to continue to bottle-feed him. But we're working on it all.

At least he's super smart in the potty-arena. He's all ready pretty much puppy pad trained. When it's warmer out, we'll teach him to go outside.

I have just laughed at my poor sleep deprived husband when I appear downstairs at 6am with our bright eyed and bushy tailed toddlers (I can call H a toddler for another month yet!). He tells me, after giving Duckie his last feeding, that he's going up to nap for a few hours and off he goes.

He has no idea what it's been like, obviously, for the past three years, getting up every 45minutes - 2.5 hours with small children. Yes, he's certainly helped out a lot with H in the middle of the night when I've been physically attached to B, and I appreciate that I've never had to "ask for help" because he realizes he's an equal parent, even if the kids don't always want us equally, so it's not like I've been, "Can you get H?" He just does it. Because that's normal. And he almost always gets up with them in the mornings and lets me sleep until at least 630 if they're up before that, and I typically get to sleep until 730-8 on the weekends. But it's still funny to see him act like the past three nights have been rougher than his college years.

Of course, despite it all he's crazy in love with Duckie. He calls him his third child. And when he said it was apparent at this point, if it had been at all questionable before, that we have lost our minds.

He then went on to say, shortly after this, after seeing a picture of a friends baby French Mastiffs, which is the type of dog he'd like to get, that we might as well just get a dog now.

I knew it.

I knew it was coming.

I said sure. Who cares at this point? We're mental.

We're sleep deprived.

And to think four years ago our life was nothing but drinking, sleeping, travelling, and unmentionables. Damn, how things change.

And you know we're both mental, because we both said we wouldn't trade in that life for the one we have now on even the worst of days.

Yep, completely insane.