I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
I've gotten my wish, I suppose. I have many, many more hours these days. I have more wakefulness than I can handle, for I have a newborn.
My first child epitomized the word "insomniac." From the moment she vacated the womb, she fought sleep at every turn. Her naps averaged 20 minutes each, and you could almost set your watch to them. Nighttime sleep was even worse. After carefully spending hours each night helping her reluctantly get to Dreamland, an errant step on the creaky hardwood floor in her room would rouse her to hysterical consciousness. If we were lucky enough to dodge that bullet, she could easily be awakened by the sound of my eyelashes blinking from two floors below.
If she woke up quietly, it wouldn't have been all that bad. But Pumpkin awakened with an ear-splitting ferocity that could have brought the deceased back to life. And unfortunately, the task of quieting her usually fell to me, as I helplessly paced the floors of house at all hours of the day and night with my screaming bundle. I learned to live on caffeine, even naming my blog after my child's epic wakefulness.
People were quick to assure me that my second child would be different, especially because he was a boy. The logic employed by this thinking continues to escape me, as it's become increasingly apparent to me that Child #2 failed to get the memo. He's not anywhere near as awake as his sister spent her newborn months, but oh, he's looking to give her a run for her money. (Did I really mention recently that I was thinking about a third child? I'm guessing it was the delirium talking.)
And so here I am, up and awake at all hours again, wearing my baby in the Bjorn, or the Ergo, or the sling, or whatever else I can find that promises to soothe my fussy child to sleep. And here I am, cruising the virtual aisles of amazon.com, buying books on ways to make my kid the happiest one on the street, or ways to instill healthy sleep habits, or ones containing promises of many hours of consecutive sleep by an improbably early age (these are not works of fiction, presumably).
The hubs and I are champion sleepers. Pre-kids, we'd go to bed early, and if it were the weekend, sleep late and take a two-hour nap at some point during the day. We could sleep anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. How is it possible that these children share our DNA?
We'll get there, one day. I know I'll look back when these kids are teenagers, snoozing their lives away, and wonder how we ever got there. But for now, we're awake. Pass the espresso.
An original DC Metro Moms post. Diana has no excuse for not blogging more regularly at Caffeinated, seeing as how she's awake ALL THE DAMN TIME.
