Wisps of smoke

12:38 am. 

The screams or my daughter wake me for the light sleep I've managed to achieve. My girl usually sleeps through the night but it's hard here. Our wing houses mothers and children.  The benefit is what they call a single room - instead of sharing space with a stranger only myself and my daughters crib occupy the long narrow room.  They say the walls are concrete but sound travels around here.

What woke her tonight? Maybe the whimpers of the infant down the hall. Much younger than my 14 month old, he is still in the stage of needing to be fed every three hours. His poor mom looks ragged,  tired. The shelter doesnt allow anyone to have visitors and here we are 100% responsible for our children 100% of the time. There are no breaks here.

12:52 am. 

My daughter continues to cry.  Still breastfeeding,  I tried her favour comfort measure to no avail, she screamed round my nipple. Resettling her also didnt work, nor did a diaper change, turning on the fan, adjusting the blinds or any of the trivial measures I've tried. The room is warm, unconfortably so I even tried stripping her down to her diaper but that didnt work.

But what's this? Shes been sucking on her hand, as she often does but this is a lot of drool. Might it be her teeth? This I can treat but I'll need the help of staff.on the journey to the front hall we notice sounds, lights on in every room. I feel guilty knowing it's the echos of my daughter screams that have woken so many tired moms, and so many more children of varying ages.   Tonight will be rought for anyone in the family wing and in my heart I whisper apologies as we cross each door.

12:57 am

 I request my lock box in which mine and my daughters medication is stored. Did you know by law an infants bottle of tylenol cannot contain a lethal overdose of the drug for it's intended age? There is so little active ingredient in this tiny vial that a 3 month old could drink it to relatively few ill effects. And yet the rules of the shelter state that even this drug must be surrendered and monitored by staff at all times. 

We administer the dose together, the night staff and I. I measure the drips of liquid, have it verified by staff, give it to my still crying baby, and have the whole procedure documented and signed off on. Back home I could have grabbed a dose from my cabinet    and been done in under 3 minutes. Here the process takes closer to 15.  We head back to bed hoping for some calm soon.

1;26 am

My daughter is still screaming. Why? I dont know but I'm certain it makes sense in her mind. Hering the upst voices of children down the hall,  we decide to venture back out of the room, hoping to find a quiet place where maybe I can soothe her and we can get past this. She may have be the instigator, but now the sounds of whines and cries mingle together from a number on tiny humans of varying ages.no one can sleep because everyone is now cranky.

 A woman with 4 children approached the main desk and asks for some equipment. Coming up to me she invites me to join in thir ritual designed to hell children relax.  Nodding, I join her in a large room where she lights sage and begins to ceremonially smudge all the children in the room, promising this will help them relax. My girl thinks the wisp of smoke is hilarious and giggles.  As she completes the smudging ceremony, she explains to me the comfort this being her children. 

1:44 am

This tired momma gives in and gives up a little.  Grabbing my cell phone I set up Netflix to allow my daughter to watch a childrens tv program.  I hope the soothing lull of the tv might convince her to sleep in a dark and quiet room. Unaccustomed to much screen time, this method too fails. She thinks it's a party. I'm out of options.

2:09 am

Well - everyone here is going to hate me but it's time to employ the good old sleep training method. Cry it out. Shes clean, dry, not hungry or thirsty, just over tired, overstimulated and plain old discombobulated. This isnt her bed, her room or anything familiar and it's all just to much to navigate at 14 months old. I get it. I feel the same way.  Only I have to keep on trucking through the tears for her sake. 

3:08 am 

She fell asleep. It lasted 21 precious minutes. Another baby added her voice to the din and that was it for sleepy baby time. 

5:28 am. 

Heres what I know: no further sleep has happened since those precious 20 mins. The alarm rings in half an hour so letting her go to sleep now seems like a questionable choice when we need to eat breakfast,  get dressed and get out of the shelter to daycare so I can get to work. Not going to work is not an option- every cent I can earn right now is precious and there has been a strict no-spending policy in place since we landed here. Except of course for mandatory bills like my daughters daycare which a certain-soon-to-be-ex has already managed to not have any money towards.

Coffee. Coffee seems like the immediate answer to my problems. The wonderful thing about the shelter is there is coffee at all hours. Actually someone thoughtfully put a giant take out box of the good stuff - Tim's like any good Canadian - in the fridge. And cold coffee goes down much faster than the hot stuff so that's goal one. I would say let's hit the day running but at this point I'll settle for surviving without falling flat on my face.