Sleep

(You knew this post was coming, right?)

I think one of the update emails that I sent when I was pregnant with Rhys said something like “I know I’m going to be tired.  I get it.”

What a f*ing idiotic statement.  No one can “get” how tired they’re going to be when they have kids.  To all of the parents who read my statement and bit their tongue, I commend you.   

What’s weird is that I don’t actually feel that tired.  My body, having gotten the message that sleep of any quantity or quality will not be happening, is pumping out mass quantities of adrenaline and cortisol to stay in a somewhat functioning mode.

What I do feel is incredibly irritable.  I have no patience, which is a bad thing to find yourself in short supply of when trying to be a loving mother to your three year-old.  It is nearly impossible to be the woman and mother I want to be when my sleep tank is constantly on empty.

I was dealing ok with the sleep deprivation prior to returning to work.  If the opportunity presented itself, I could linger in bed in the morning.  Most days, I was able to catch at least a short cat nap that revived me.  Now that I’m back at work, neither of those are an option and the lack of sleep is taking its toll. 

As a result of my grid-iron determination to breastfeed Lorelei and my concerns about her weight gain, I have always been the one to get up with her.  I hit my breaking point last week and asked Brian for help (note that he’s always been willing to help, it’s been me who has insisted on doing it herself).  Unfortunately, Lorelei was not on board with this idea.  The couple of times we’ve tried it, she has cried and cried.  As Brian said, it seems that our daughter is much like her Mama in the middle of the night…pissed off about being awake and wanting what she wants to help her get back to sleep. 

Perhaps sensing that Dada was available for duty, Rhys has now started to call out for Brian up to 3 times per night.  And by “call out” I mean scream at the top of his freakin’ lungs.  It sucks.  That is an understatement.  (In our new house we are much further away from Rhys, but his voice echoes throughout all 3K+ square feet, so we hear him loud and clear). 

Before I had kids, when I heard people say that being a parent was hard, I’d think to myself, “that’s ok, I can do it.  I’ve done lots of hard stuff in my life.”  What I never really understood was that being a parent is hard because it is constant.  24/7, day-after-day, week-after-week you are a parent.  It’s not hard because it’s ditch-digging, it’s hard because it’s relentless!  The “hard” stuff that I’d done before always had a known endpoint followed by a rest period.  That is not the case now.  There are no weekends in the job of parenting.  There's no guarantee of a good night's sleep following a day's work.   

Sorry for the Debbie-downer post.  I just needed to vent.  Deep down inside, I know how lucky I am to have two beautiful kids.  It’s just really difficult to live in that space of gratitude right now.  Not being able to find the joy in life, but instead feeling like I’m in survival mode, is the worst thing about not getting enough sleep.

They are cute, no doubt about it.
And I'd be able to enjoy them so much more if I could get a 5-hour stretch of sleep.

Isn't the look on her face priceless?!
"Good luck with that 5 hours, Mama.  Bwahahahahahaha!"