I am tired. I'm sitting here eating chocolate chips and blankly staring at the computer screen, listening to a podcast, wondering if my hands are larger than normal for a girl or if they're just regular-sized. I kind of want to go to sleep, but the bed is all the way over there, and Barclay will be home any second, and, besides, there's still 14 minutes left of this episode, which I have been unintentionally tuning out and will have to listen to all over again tomorrow.
Also: it's only 9:16. On a Friday night. There is a crazy part of me that feels like Past Me will somehow know that Present Me went to bed at 9:16 on a Friday night and feel really let down or something. And I just can't do that to myself.
Sullivan hates sleep, as I've mentioned. People ask all the time how he's sleeping, so I feel like I'm constantly talking about it. I'm not trying to complain or steer the conversation there, but there it goes. Like a shopping cart with a wonky wheel that just keeps veering off into the shelves and into other customers. (In this simile, you are the other customers, I guess, and I'm sorry about that.) It's probably because I walk around with my eyes half shut and a fine strand of drool pendulating from my lower lip. Gross. I know. I'm sorry.
Not only am I constantly talking about it, I'm constantly thinking about it. I obsess over it. I dream (daydream) about it. When I finally get a couple of hours of it in a row, I think about it the way a person thinks about a recent vacation to a white beach. I want to go back, but I know that I probably won't be able to anytime soon. And when you tell me about your recent vacation, I'll try so dang hard to muster up feelings of joy for you, but I admit right now that it's getting harder and harder to do that, because my son only usually sleeps for 30-90 minutes at a time, night or day. A friend posted on Facebook recently that her five month old has been sleeping through the night since he was six weeks (#soblessed), and it made me cry twice: once right when I read it, and again at midnight that night as Barclay and I were trading off rocking Sullivan for four straight hours because he seemed to think that his crib mattress was made of molten lava instead of soft crib mattress-y mattress material.
(I feel bad when I cry over it. It's not the end of the world, it's not a big deal. Tears just kind of fall out of you, I guess, when your eyes are propped open with toothpicks. Another gross visual; I'm sorry.)
Anyway, I've been napping when he naps and following a bunch of carefully curated advice and someday hopefully it'll all work out so that I can be a rational human being again. And somehow, being a mom is still my favourite thing. I suspect this has something to do with love and oxytocin.
A thing to be thankful for, though: today, the temperature climbed above zero, so I went for a walk. Someone said this to me the other day and I was thankful for the reminder: sometimes exercise is even better than a nap. It's weird, but true.
I didn't know where to walk to, so I just went over to the grocery store. I bought some cream cheese and some cottage cheese and some cheddar cheese (cream cheese for me, cottage cheese for Barclay, cheddar cheese for TO PUT ON EVERYTHING).
In the check-out line, I saw a tabloid magazine with some trashy headline about a celebrity couple who was trying to survive some kind of horrible marital tiff, and across the top of the cover I read, "OVER $16 WORTH OF COUPONS INSIDE". Really? Do people really buy tabloids for the coupons? I feel like the kind of person who cuts coupons is not the same kind of person who wants to look at pictures of celebrity cellulite and relationship train wrecks. Unless the coupons are for TV dinners. Then maybe.
I might just go to sleep, actually.
Also: it's only 9:16. On a Friday night. There is a crazy part of me that feels like Past Me will somehow know that Present Me went to bed at 9:16 on a Friday night and feel really let down or something. And I just can't do that to myself.
Sullivan hates sleep, as I've mentioned. People ask all the time how he's sleeping, so I feel like I'm constantly talking about it. I'm not trying to complain or steer the conversation there, but there it goes. Like a shopping cart with a wonky wheel that just keeps veering off into the shelves and into other customers. (In this simile, you are the other customers, I guess, and I'm sorry about that.) It's probably because I walk around with my eyes half shut and a fine strand of drool pendulating from my lower lip. Gross. I know. I'm sorry.
Not only am I constantly talking about it, I'm constantly thinking about it. I obsess over it. I dream (daydream) about it. When I finally get a couple of hours of it in a row, I think about it the way a person thinks about a recent vacation to a white beach. I want to go back, but I know that I probably won't be able to anytime soon. And when you tell me about your recent vacation, I'll try so dang hard to muster up feelings of joy for you, but I admit right now that it's getting harder and harder to do that, because my son only usually sleeps for 30-90 minutes at a time, night or day. A friend posted on Facebook recently that her five month old has been sleeping through the night since he was six weeks (#soblessed), and it made me cry twice: once right when I read it, and again at midnight that night as Barclay and I were trading off rocking Sullivan for four straight hours because he seemed to think that his crib mattress was made of molten lava instead of soft crib mattress-y mattress material.
(I feel bad when I cry over it. It's not the end of the world, it's not a big deal. Tears just kind of fall out of you, I guess, when your eyes are propped open with toothpicks. Another gross visual; I'm sorry.)
Anyway, I've been napping when he naps and following a bunch of carefully curated advice and someday hopefully it'll all work out so that I can be a rational human being again. And somehow, being a mom is still my favourite thing. I suspect this has something to do with love and oxytocin.
A thing to be thankful for, though: today, the temperature climbed above zero, so I went for a walk. Someone said this to me the other day and I was thankful for the reminder: sometimes exercise is even better than a nap. It's weird, but true.
I didn't know where to walk to, so I just went over to the grocery store. I bought some cream cheese and some cottage cheese and some cheddar cheese (cream cheese for me, cottage cheese for Barclay, cheddar cheese for TO PUT ON EVERYTHING).
In the check-out line, I saw a tabloid magazine with some trashy headline about a celebrity couple who was trying to survive some kind of horrible marital tiff, and across the top of the cover I read, "OVER $16 WORTH OF COUPONS INSIDE". Really? Do people really buy tabloids for the coupons? I feel like the kind of person who cuts coupons is not the same kind of person who wants to look at pictures of celebrity cellulite and relationship train wrecks. Unless the coupons are for TV dinners. Then maybe.
I might just go to sleep, actually.
7 comments:
Sweet girl. Oh, how I feel this pain. Edith was an unreliable sleeper for so many months in a row, and the other problem is that I am also a bad sleeper. Between the two of us, I'm remembering now many months where I was trying to remember HOW to sleep, feeling like I functioned better without it than the rare moments I got it. BUT. It took reading this to remember that. Which doesn't make now easier, but one day you shall sleep again!
I have a book that I swear by...it is yours to read if you want. I will not push it on you or tell you that you have to read it, but with William, I was stressed about his sleep like you and a friend mentioned it to me and I've been addicted to it ever since. Let me know if you want to take a look. It's no miracle worker...Emmett still has weird sleep habits that I can't seem to break and there are no answers for in it, but the concepts about sleep in it are bang on and may be of some help to you.
You are, like, my favorite. Ever.
I hope you get some sleep soon because I sometimes think about when I never got any sleep and that makes me want to cut someone. Not Evan or Maddox-please. But someone.
However, this is amazing and I love it. Also I want to point out that $16 worth of coupons?! THATS IT? Lame sauce.
Ugh, I cannot imagine how life would be if I couldn't fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Lately, as soon as his eyes close, I'm right there too.
Haha, but you're right - I will sleep again, and this part of things won't be anything but a distant, foggy memory. :)
Haha, I'll take a look, no harm in that! You never know! I do feel like this is just how Sully is; we've tried everything, and I'll probably just have to power through and keep napping when he naps. I'm not exactly stressed about it...but oh man I dream about a good 8 hour sleep. The thought of that day is pretty marvellous. ;) Thanks!
Hahaha you're so sweet. I hope I get some sleep too. Sleep is such a beautiful, beautiful thing, which I completely took for granted from the ages of 0-26. Nevermore.
And while $16 seems like not very many coupons, it really does depend on the distribution of them. Like, what if it's two $8 coupons for something that's regularly $10? But what kind of coupons would you find in a tabloid magazine? What if it's a whole bunch of 10 cent coupons for like mayonnaise or something? I should've checked. But then I was like, I don't know if I could buy a tabloid, even if it was actually for the coupons.
Rambling again.
I realize strangers giving strangers advice on anything over the internet is weird and pushy - but I have been there sister, totally been there. Sleep is vital.
The best $100 we ever spent was on a sleep consultant. Our little girl has much improved (it wasn't even "sleep coaching" for her as they say it is, it was more like coaching for us as parents, because it was our actions that changed not hers, and then she started sleeping longer because of it.
Anyway, before hiring this lady (who does all over email consulting so it doesn't matter where you live) I would have said the "kind of parents" who hire sleep consultants are probably not the kind of people I want to throw my hat in with.
I was bound and determined to be more laid back and flexible and not stress out over things like this....
However, life loses all color without sleep, and she worked a miracle for us.
Here is the link if you are interested, she also posts a lot of articles on her blog with tons of advice and information that is good food for thought.
http://www.weebeedreaming.com/
Good luck!
I truly believe there is no right or perfect method or way for every kid, we just happened to luck out with this lady's advice and it worked for our babe.
However things shake down with Sullivan, solidarity sister! Some day we'll all sleep again, glorious uninterrupted sleep....
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