Wednesday, November 28, 2007

tired

So you know I am tired because it says so in the title of this blog.
Before I had the boys, I thought I knew what it meant to be tired.
I thought it meant,"Oh, boy, I'm yawning. I need to get in bed."
Before children, I had a heavenly sleep life.
Pre-baby, I was fresh and dewy eyed
and regularly achieved 8 hours of consecutive sleep.
The real mind-numbing tiredness set in during that last trimester
of pregnancy, with the leg cramps that would jolt me awake,
the near suffocation of the 137 pillows
I had stuffed around my body to keep me comfortable and of course,
the 14 potty breaks I had to take through out the night.
Some people used to tell me,"That is your body getting you prepared
for waking up all through out the night to feed the baby."
I always disliked those people.
What my body should have done was let me bank extra hours of sleep,
for all the sleep I would be missing out on.
With Jack, I was tired when I woke up to feed him, but it was all so
new, such a novelty, I got a little excited to see his sweet face
in the night. He would usually go right back to sleep after his feed.
Bless him.
With Will, he would sometimes have gas. Oh the infernal gas.
So I would be up for hours in the middle of the night.
We would cry together. That was when the fear set in.
The fear of Jack waking up early and my getting 3 hours of sleep total.
I thought maybe I would lose my mind, tsgs, yes, I did.
The only thing that saved me was afternoon naps.
We would all go down for a nap and
the world would right itself for a few hours.
Then when Addison arrived, all chaos broke loose in the realm of sleep.
Because Jack was no longer taking naps.
So even if I managed to get Will and Addison down for a nap,
Jack was still up so I had to be up.
Now "up" is a relative word. I believe I survived Addie's first year
in a somewhat zombie like state. I couldn't properly form sentences.
Sometimes I forgot who Scott was. Sometimes I forgot to shower.
For days.
You know that phrase, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone."
Oh, how I miss going to sleep and waking up IN THE MORNING.
I get angry inside when the children wake up in the night even now.
I want to say, "I don't care if you had a bad dream about eyeballs.
Stay in your bed and work it out."
The odds for having a full night of sleep with 3 children, ages 6
and under are not good, tsgs.
Someone is invetably going to wet through their pjs (Addie - lousy diaper),
have a bad dream, (Will - eyeballs)
sleep walk, (Jack - likes to tour the house)
come crawl in bed with us, (Jack or Will or both)
or cry (me - when any of the above happens.)
It seems like a full night of sleep is a pipe dream.
I now know that some sleep deprived mom came up the phrase
"eternal rest" when thinking about the end of this life.
Because an uninterrupted night of sleep,
by any mom's definition, is heaven.

7 comments:

Jekissa said...

Oh so true!!! As tired as I am right now, I'm still laughing at how you describe not getting enough sleep. :) Every time my sister-in-law (with no kids) says she is tired, I just laugh. I don't say it out loud 'cause I don't want to be THAT person, but in my head I say "you have no idea what tired is!" I think someday we may get enough sleep again, but for now I keep myself going with lots of coffee and diet pepsi.

Jodie | Velour said...

This is great! And oh I can so relate... tears and all. :) I have 3 kids too, 4 yr. and under. I'm the kind of girl that likes to hibernate, so any sleep-deprivation is to me, equal to someone coming between me and my cubs. I don't like it one bit, and it makes me angry. :)
I love your blog - you make me laugh about life and I love that!

Unknown said...

Is it very horrible that I'm laughing my butt off at your "work it out!!" comment???? Yes, that's how I am. I even whispered under my breath at Shiloh last night at 3 AM -- I told him to put a sock in it. Luckily, he can't understand English yet. :/

Kelly @ Love Well said...

Brilliant and beautiful.

And for the record, I believe I actually have told my kids to deal with it when they are crying about a nightmare. I have very little sympathy in the middle of the night.

Beth said...

Sue, Thank you for the freedom to admit...yes, I too am angered by anything that gets in the way of my sleep! My husband would use the word "aggressive". I can't contain my laughter, since just last night I walked my daughter back to her bed and let her know, "everything is ok, it's better if you sleep in your bed...daddy is taking up too much room." Oh, the irony??!! Why must it be that way?

Anissa said...

So true, I don't remember what it was like to sleep and I have to wonder why I was so all fired to get out of college - now I realize it was my last time of great sleep!

Bets said...

What joy and freedom to hear another mom admit that dealing with issues in the night actually angers you! Thank you! And know that when you are up at those awful hours of darkness, moms all over the world are gritting their teeth and rubbing their eyes right along with you!