Penny slept this morning until we finally gave in and woke her up. Whoo!

Unfortunately, she was that exhausted because she was awake from 1 to 2:30 with a cough that wouldn't let her go to sleep. We'd soothe her and put her back to bed, and for about 20 minutes, she'd be quiet, but coughing every so often, and finally she'd either wake up from her doze or just plain get tired of waiting to fall asleep, and start crying again.

Finally, I gave her a dose of anti-allergy medicine, and a dose of cough syrup, and that seemed to do the trick. Poor little girl - when I went into her room to give it to her, Matt was already in there, soothing her. After she took the medicine, she held her arms out to me, so I took her from Matt. She instantly laid her head on my shoulder and tucked her arms under her body, curled up against my chest like a newborn. "I'm so tired, Mommy," she seemed to be saying. "If you hold me, I can rest..."

I did hold her for a few minutes, and when I went back to bed, I thought that if the medicine didn't do enough to help her sleep, I might get up and just hold her in the rocking chair for a while - if only so Matt could get to sleep.

Because that was the other trick. Poor Matt was having an insomniac night, so he was just coming to bed at 1 when Penny started waking up. I don't think he got to sleep until nearly 3.

Ahhh, allergy season. Any day now, the pines will pollinate, and we'll wake up to cars and streets dusted with sticky yellow powder.

--Liz