ZZZZZZ

Before having children I had no idea what sleep deprivation was. I might have tried to convince you that I slept bad and really needed a nap, but I was just being dramatic.  Obviously having 2 kids and going through the whole newborn experience gave me a new perspective. We survived though and I'm glad I'm not waking up every 2 hours to nurse and change a diaper. What we are dealing with now is something called "night waking". It's a symptom of autism that many exhibit where the child has trouble going to sleep or staying asleep. The cause is not known, although there are some theories that there might be a disturbance in melatonin production. We have had mixture of both, E-man started waking up randomly a few months ago. It will be a couple weeks of waking up around 2 or 3 in the morning and being wired, usually taking another couple of hours to fall back to sleep. Then we will have a few weeks of fairly normal sleep with the occasional early bird wake up call. Now LB is starting to do the same thing, taking over an hour to fall asleep or waking in the middle of the night.  When the crazy sleep cycles coincide, I start to get a little crazy. For example, last night LB woke up from 1am-3am and then E-man was up bright and early at 5:45am.  Sometimes I wonder if I should go to bed when they do but I really enjoy the time I get to spend with Martin just hanging out.  It feels like a constant struggle with some new problem to figure out. There are days when I'm doing great and feel like I have a handle on it. Then there are days it feels like I'm just barely hanging on. What I'm realizing is that this is a marathon, not a race. I've got to keep my steady pace to keep it all going. So the plan for now it to keep moving, one foot in front of the other. I don't care how long it takes or how exhausted I am, I'm going to keep fighting.

Milestones

Today is my 30th birthday. The strange thing is that I'm excited to be turning 30, and there a a lot of reasons for the excitement.
A few months ago I was really down in the dumps about all the autism stuff with the boys and I had a conversation with Fiona, one of my BFF's who also happens to be my trainer. 
She gave me some great advice. Holding on to the pain and sadness was bad for me, poisoning my life. Her advice was to put it down and trust that God knew what he was doing with my life. As an example she explained its like in Lord of the Rings when Gollum keeps holding on to the ring and it ruins his life (I know this is a dorky example but since I'm a nerd it was quite effective). 
That advice really helped me to stop wallowing in the sad part of autism. I'm not saying that I don't allow myself to get upset, I just let it be a few moments instead of all day or all week. I started to feel so much better emotionally and mentally. 
However, I wasn't putting my 100% best into exercising and eating well. I'd put the work in for a few days only to sabotage it all in a weekend eating crap and being lazy. The lesson hadn't fully sunk in. Recently
I was talking to  Fiona, confessing that I wasn't working as hard as I should and she pointed out that even though mentally I felt better I hadn't really "put it down" because part of healing also means taking care of yourself. What a revelation!
I was not connecting the dots at all.
In order to make sure all aspects of my life are productive and happy I need to take care of myself first. 
The thoughts and feelings that were improving needed to turn into action in order to be fully effective.
Going into my 30's I feel hopeful.
I'm healthier than I've ever been in my life, I have goals for myself, my kids and my marriage. There is purpose to my path forward. 
I feel blessed that even when I stumble, I have a great support system and that I am proving to myself that I am strong and capable.
So bring it on 30's!!