Naptime

I would give just about anything to get to have a nap after lunch everyday.  To curl up with a blanket and pillow and sleep for two hours would be heaven on earth for me.

Yet, the toddlers at work who need the naps so often went nothing to do with nap time.

First off, who decided that toddlers need nap time more than adults?  We work hard all day, often stay up later than we would like fulfilling our parental duties or finishing household chores while they go to bed early and, well, SLEEP.  Then, we get up early so that we can shower and get dressed in peace before the kids get up and destroy the house that we stayed up late cleaning (while they were SLEEPING) the night before.  And did I mention that we work hard all day while they play?

And then there's the fact that you have to fight with them so that they will sleep - rubs their backs, sing lullabies, read stories - all of it just about puts me to sleep everyday as we fight to get these darlings settled for their naps.  Once they are sleep, we have to tiptoe around to keep them asleep or at least quite for two hours.

Now don't get me wrong, there are some who fall straight to sleep and stay asleep for the full two hours (and I thank my lucky stars everyday that Liam is one of those ones!) but all the rest exhaust me and make me want to give up and go home for a nap of my own!

Sleep Is Overrated Or Is It?

I really have to wonder why our bodies are designed to need so much sleep.  If you believe in creationism, you can just put it off to the fact that there wasn't as much to do when the world was created, so Adam and Eve could sleep as much as they wanted to, when they weren't too busy stealing forbidden fruit.  However, if you believe in evolution, there is no reason for us to need so much sleep, we should have evolved into non sleeping creatures by now.

I have had a lot of time to wonder about that and many other things when I'm NOT sleeping at night.

No matter how I look at it, how much I think about it or how much I try, I don't get anywhere near enough sleep.  If I am REALLY lucky, I am in bed by 10:00 pm.  And given that I am up at 5:00 am for work everyday, that's a grand total of seven hours.  But that much sleep is a rarity.  For starters, most nights it is closer to 11:00 pm before I manage to get myself into bed, bringing it down to  six hours.  

Six hours if I fall asleep instantly and sleep continuously until the alarm goes off.

And what are the chances of that, you wonder?  NIL!  Lately, falling asleep is an almost impossible task.  I have no idea why because I am constant ALL the time.  Most of the time, I feel like I could lay down on the floor and be asleep in moments, but not at night when I go to bed.  As soon as the lights go out and my head hits the pillow, my brain comes alive.  I can't stop thinking about things - sometimes important things, but mostly about trivial things.  Things that don't matter, things that I wouldn't waste a second of time thinking about during the day, things that really shouldn't be keeping me up at night.  But no matter what I do or how hard I try, the thoughts won't go away.  It is just one random piece of nonsense after another until I am ready to scream.  

I toss and turn and toss some more and curse to myself as I stare at the dark ceiling begging sleep to come.

Amongst the random thoughts I always (literally every night) have the urge to write when I should be sleeping.  I can sit and stare at a blank WORD document on my computer screen for hours without being able to compose a coherent paragraph.  Yet, when I should be sleeping, give me a notebook and a pencil because I NEED to write!  I actually have ideas and concise thoughts that seem to be missing when I am actually trying to write.  I don't understand why my brain works like this and I really don't like it.  I am beginning to think that the "writer" part of my brain hates me.  Or maybe it is just trying to tell me that my writing sucks and I should just give up on it.  Whatever it is, I need it to stop!

I need to find a way to make the thoughts stop so that I can sleep before I go completely insane.*  it is times like this when I really wish I had a sleep option, just like my computer, so that with a click of a mouse, I could be in dreamland.  

* see, another reason to get those insane asylums up and running again!

I Hate Mornings

We've been back to work for over a week now after our holidays and I'm still not back into a good morning routine.  Well, the truth of it is, I have been back to work for ten months (since my maternity leave) and I've never developed a good morning routine.  I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON!

I go to bed far too late for someone who needs to get up at 5 AM for work every day.  Sometime I have things that I need to do in the evening, but many nights I just procrastinate about getting ready for bed.  I'm too lazy to get off my butt and get ready for bed, even when I am so exhausted I can hardly keep my eyes open.  So, naturally, mornings come far too early for my liking!

It is not a pretty sight in my houses most mornings.  Nobody wants to get out of bed.  Getting ready to leave for work is rushed and stressful.  Everyone is grumpy.  I hit snooze half a dozen times * before I finally drag myself out of bed with barely enough time to have a shower before waking Liam.  Liam hates being woken up.  He doesn't want to get dressed.  He doesn't want to drink his milk.  He just wants to complain.  Henry just plain and simply doesn't want to get up.

The dogs are the only ones who are eager to get up and start the day . . . but only because they know that they are going to get fed.  And because they are dogs and they get to sleep whenever they want all day long!

Seriously, who ever decided that people should have to get up at 5 AM?  I am sure that it was someone who doesn't have to get up at such and ungodly hour.  You know, one of those people who gets to sleep until 8 or 9 AM every day!  And for that matter, why is it that Liam gives me so much grief for waking him up during the week, yet on the weekends he is almost always up before 6 AM?

Somebody somewhere should start a protest against mornings that have to start before 8 AM.  There are protests against everything these days, so why not protest early mornings?  ** Alright, I admit it, I am being completely, utterly ridiculous.  But that's simply a result of my constant sleep deprived state!

Some days I really worry that if things don't change soon, I am going to morph from chronically sleep deprived to completely insane and eventually to stark raving mad!  So, when my posts start to become like those of a raving lunatic (assuming that they don't already) could someone please send help??

So, until someone decides to have me committed to an insane asylum . . .  do they still have those? because if not, someone may want to start re-opening them because I know of a few people who could really use their services . . .  as I was saying, until someone feels the need to have me committed, I will try to go to bed early and get more sleep to avoid being locked up in a newly opened insane asylum.

* I know that my repeated snooze button use probably makes me feel even more tired when I finally get out of bed, but at the time, I feel better about those extra 9 minutes.  

** If someone takes this protest idea and runs with it, I am totally taking credit for it!

Remember when Saturday mornings were for sleeping in??

6 am?  Are you freaking kidding me???  Liam, you are a wonderful baby, I love you more than anything, but 6 am on a Saturday?  Is it really necessary??

The little bugger slept in last weekend when I was away . . . 8:30 am on Saturday and 9 am on Sunday.  But this weekend, I am home and we are up at 6 am.  I tried to just leave him in his bed and hope that he would quietly amuse himself and let me get a little more sleep.  But that was a stupid though . . . sure, he was amusing himself with his blanket and stuffy sleep friends (a teddy bear and dragon) but he was anything but quiet!  Seriously, I should have known better, when is this child ever awake and quiet??  I can't even imagine what life is going to be like once he actually learns to speak, because even though he only says one word, Ada (Liam speak for Daddy) the child never shuts up!  He babbles all the time.  He makes the strangest noises I have ever heard come out of a child.  But, luckily for us, he hardly ever cries!

I guess I really shouldn't complain that he gets up early because I am sure there are lost of mommies out there with kids Liam's age who don't sleep through the night yet, something that Liam has been doing since about 5 months of age, but I miss sleeping in!  I miss the days when getting up Saturday morning meant that we were going out somewhere to do something fun and exciting.  Now getting up on Saturday morning involved me, in zombie mode following a wild and crazy child around the house making sure that he isn't eating the dog's bones, cat food or doing and of the other 5 million things he's learned how to do that 13 month old munchkins shouldn't be doing . . . oh, the life of a mommy! . . . is it nap time yet???  I hope so!

Does anyone remember . . .

. . . what it feels like to be well rested?? Because I sure don't! As my exhausted brain tries to think back to a time when I wasn't perpetually tired, I remember struggling to stay awake as I put the babies at work to sleep during my pregnancy, I remember waking up every two hours to feed Liam as a newborn, I remember getting up with him much earlier than I would have like during much of my mat leave, but I don't have any recollection of what it feels like to be well rested.

I can also remember countless nights of partying and bar hopping in college that left me with very limited amounts of sleep before getting up to go to an early class or to do it all over again . . . I was never this tired then . . . it is amazing what 10 years can do to a person!

I know that I should go to bed earlier, but by the time Liam goes to bed and I do even a very few chores, I feel like I need some "me time" before I go to sleep, so I fiddle around on Facebook for a little while, knowing full well that the time would be better spent sleeping. But instead, I sit here at the computer thinking about all the things that I should be doing, all the things that I need to do, all the things that I barely have the energy to think about let alone accomplish. Sometimes, I sit here even longer because I don't have the energy to get up and get ready for bed . . . now seriously, how sad is that?

Now, I will drag myself off to bed and hope that I will wake up feeling refreshed and ready for the day that will come . . . however, I am not optimistic. I fear that I will be dragging myself out of bed much the way I am dragging myself to bed. Please, if anyone does remember what it feels like to be well rested, I would like to know. It has been so long since I have felt it, I may not recognize the feeling if it slapped me across the side of the head!