Sleep Deprivation

Notice this was written yesterday once I got over the shock of the van ordeal.   Keep that in mind as you read this.  It was actually Thursday night that was rough for me not last night.  Last night I got a much needed regular night's sleep.  I think it is a good one. It's the one that was locked away in my brain yesterday from the shock of the accident with my van. Enjoy!  Vern

Have you ever been so desperate for sleep that you’d have sold a kidney on the black market for just a few hours of good sleep?  I am there today.  Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing.  It seems like mothers have to endure more than their fair share of it too.  The worst part of it, in my opinion, is that it seems to be like running as far as conditioning goes.  With running, I have to train and condition my body to function properly during a run.  Sleep deprivation is the same. Your body learns to function on very little sleep over time.  Time is the key in this process either way with running or sleeping.   It takes time for you to adjust.  When my kids were newborns, for instance, I seemed to function just fine on very little sleep.  I would get 2 or 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night and still feel safe to drive the next day without hitting anything. 

Well then your kids grow up which is a beautiful thing. You slowly get back to a fairly normal sleep pattern which is also a beautiful thing and then “Bam!” it happens.  You get dished up a night like last night for me and you swear you are going to die from sheer exhaustion alone.  And then to make matters worse, you decide to go to the gym because you are trying to be good.  You are trying to overcome the tiredness to stop it in its tracks. And then “Bam!!!” you clip the edge of your garage with the van.  The worst part is, it does leave a mark--A great BIG one on the van and a somewhat smaller and more obscure one on the side of the garage.  Oh shit.

My youngest, Hazel, is now 14 months, so I have enjoyed at least 10 or 11 consecutive months of good sleeping.  I know that is pretty impressive, isn’t it?  Most parents are not so lucky.  It was the same with all three of my kids by 7 weeks they were sleeping through the night sporadically and by 10 weeks my kids had the sleeping thing down to a science. I don’t mean to brag and I am sure that some moms out there reading this are down right pissed at me for having children who sleep so well.  I do realize that I am just truly blessed in the sleep department. That is I had a great sleep pattern, until last night. 

Hazel decided to wake about every two hours and cry for no good reason.  As far as I could tell there was nothing wrong with her.  I suspect it may have been associated with teething, or a full moon, who really knows?  Anyways, at about 4 this morning (I say “about 4” because once you have been up so frequently in the same night you lose all concept of time) So the exact time I am not certain of but I do know that it was the fourth time that I had been awakened by our screaming child.  I was desperate, completely, totally embarrassingly, desperate. I had already changed her diaper, given her a drink and tried to give her a snack.  I had rocked her, bounced her, hugged her and dropped her on her head (just kidding).  Thankfully that did not happen.  She wasn’t really interested in any of the offerings I had made her.

On this fourth trip, I changed her pajamas on the off shot that she had something (that I could not see or feel) lodged inside of them causing her discomfort.  I had to get serious or it was clear I would get no sleep. It was also clear that I was going to have to resort to drugs. I decided on the very popular trifecta of Tylenol, Orajel and breastmilk. It seemed logical for the most part.  The Tylenol and Orajel are pretty much standard issue options for parents in similar sleep deprivation situations. They were nothing special.  Now the  breastmilk that was a different story.  The breastmilk was something special. While breastmilk is a logical soothing medium for babies who are actively nursing, it is somewhat less logical for Hazel who had been weaned for well over a week. All of her crying had caused some milk to start leaking out, so I decided to give it a try.  How could things possibly get worse.  I had nothing to lose, right? 

She nursed fine for about five minutes and it did seem to soothe her and calm her down.  It was working! But then it happened and very unexpectedly.  She bit me and really hard too.  I nearly lost my left nipple from the whole ordeal.  It was awful.  I shrieked loudly enough to scare Hazel and start the whole damn crying cycle over again.  Well needless to say, the night was a long one, but we did survive and without a trip to the ER to have my left nipple reattached and more importantly without watching TV.  Praise the lord for that.