Sleep, interrupted

Lest the title of my post deter you from reading further, let me assure that this post is not intended to whine about or "martyrize" my situation (my name for an ugly phenomenon in the mommy world in which mommies try to "one-up" each other about whose life is the hardest, or whose kids are the most difficult, etc. It's gross and I apologize for all the times I've taken part in that). RATHER, this post is intended to celebrate God's goodness and grace in the face of my weakness and selfishness.
Lillian has never been a great sleeper. In spite of our bedtime routines, our sound machines, our sleep sacks, our lavender diffuser, our sugar monitoring and about 50 other "tricks," she just has a hard time. We joke that she's ready for college because she not only survives but often thrives on much less sleep than most kids her age. As an infant, she much preferred being awake, long past the point of pleasantness, and we had to trick her into sleeping through a variety of jostling positions, swaddling, paci/thumb, etc. Honestly, it's a miracle we decided to have another kid. She dropped her morning nap at 13 months, earlier than pretty much all of her peers. I felt exceedingly sorry for myself ("God!" I cried, "I'm never going to have time for you again! Woe is me!"), and it took me a good month to pull it together and realize how much more flexibility this gave us during the day. Fitting in time with the Lord remains challenging, but He is faithful and I just have to seek it out actively instead of expecting it-- and if that isn't a life lesson, I don't know what is. She had several months of wonderful naps, especially while I was in my first trimester with Elliott and therefore so tired, which helped to make up for her early wake-ups. 90% of the time she would wake up between 5 and 6:30. Occasionally she'd sleep in all the way until 7. Her naps were superb though.
Then it happened.
One night in August (post E's birth on the 18th and pre her birthday on the 31st), Thomas and I + tiny Elliott had just turned out our lights around 10:30 and we heard a giant THUD from down the hall. I knew instantly what had happened, and the pitter patter of little feet + our door opening+ a sweet little voice shouting "I get out!" confirmed my worst fears. Lillian had jumped out of her crib, never to return. Thomas leaped out of bed to deal with the situation by putting her back in the crib, and of course she promptly jumped out again. So down the hall they went to Lillian's big girl bed, which we'd been planning on easing her into in October or November. HA. Apparently we'd forgotten who we were raising. After several hours, she finally fell asleep next to an exhausted and frustrated Thomas. Newborn haze + a newly freed Lillian= two very unhappy and tired parents.
As such, sleep times for the last six+ months have been challenging. Some nights it takes us two hours to get her to sleep. Some mornings are very early. Oftentimes Thomas has to sleep in there because otherwise she will just cry at the door until someone comes back (for hours). So when Lillian started exhibiting signs of being done with naptime in November, I pretty much lost it. Journal entries from that month are pretty melodramatic--"I cannot survive without Lillian's naptime"--and I was absolutely sure that I could not.
But God.
In January her afternoon naps ended. Because of Elliott, I didn't have an hour-plus (the amount of time it took on average to get her down) to spend solo in her room. I was completely stressed out about sleep; bedtimes were nightmarishly long; and thus finally Thomas and I decided together that we'd move up her bedtime and give a napless schedule a try. And guess what? We survived! She still refuses to do any sort of rest time by herself in her room (for my little extrovert, being shut in her room by herself is akin to torture), but most days I settle her down with some PBS Kids on the iPad so I can take time to read or journal or whatever. Is it ideal? Nope, but it's a season and we are working through it. Life has gone on, and I have found some marvelous benefits for our now wide-open days. We get to spend more time with some of her little friends. We get out more in general. We get some good mommy-daughter time when E naps. Thomas and I have more time in the evening together because she now goes to bed extremely early. Some days she's so tired that she falls asleep in the car or the stroller and naps in the garage (rare but wonderful!).
Basically God has completely redeemed a situation that I didn't think I could handle. Some days are tough and I'm pretty much loony tunes by the time Thomas comes home, but those days are a great time to remember that his mercies are new every morning. His grace is sufficient to cover my weaknesses and sins, as well as my daughter's.
And on a lighter note, as a good friend who also has a sleep-challenged child told me: "Presidents don't sleep much either. Maybe she's going to be the President."