Sleep, Or Lack Thereof

A few years ago, NyQuil or AlkaSeltzer or some such ran a commercial about a sick mom who takes a swig to "sleep like you did before you had kids." Naturally, this elicited a small chuckle from the parents in the crowd. For me, then a childless twenty-something, I didn't really get it. We all know newborns don't sleep, but kids? Heck, I was a champion sleeper as a child. Though I hear stories of little ones waking up at 5 a.m. each day, I was a kid that liked to sleep at least until daylight. Or at least that's how I remember it.

Fast-forward a bit and I now totally understand that awkward cold medicine commercial. Gone are the days when one simply rolled over at every bump in the night. Au revoir to a life sans dark circles under your eyes! At the sound of the briefest whimper or the boy rolling into the side of his crib (which he does approximately five times a night), I'm awake. In fact, my waking life is perhaps so lengthy, I've found that sleep has trumped other indulgences in my life. In fact, it's no small stretch to say that I fantasize about sleep. Who needs chocolate, trekking across Europe, or a dissertation when eight, uninterrupted hours of shuteye is out there somewhere? I dream about those long ago college days when one could roll in at 3 and sleep until 11. Bliss! Now I find myself awake at 3 a.m. changing diapers in the dark and turning the radio to a station for a show I know is on in the dead of night. And I look forward to that show.

Right now, the hub and I are going on a year of subpar sleep. A year. That's hard to conceptualize. What's not hard to comprehend is how a lack of peaceful slumber can make a normally sane person appear slightly boozy. I'm not seeing Tyler Durden or anything, but my mind at times has thought and even rationalized things I'm not exactly keen to. I liken this to the fact that post-natal sleep isn't the sleep one experienced pre-baby. Duh, right? Every parent is tired. What's most odd perhaps is the shift in sleep quality. Post-baby, any shuteye you get is short, shallow, and likely sandwiched between days where you've slept for maybe three or four non-simultaneous hours. In short, it's kind of like being at Abu Ghraib, minus the humiliating photos, barking dogs, soldiers, and threat of imminent death. Oh and the 24 hours of daylight are missing too.

All insensitive jokes aside, one doesn't fully realize what it means to be tired until you're barred from sleep by an insatiable responsibility to a stinky, 10-pound human. Skip a few days of quality shut eye and your reaction time slows, you grow forgetful and generally become a pretty cranky person. Amp up the deprivation time to a few weeks and one begins to rationalize things that are altogether irrational. After a year of forced insomnia, the effects become downright scary. A few days ago, I was second-guessing the spelling of my last name. It's odd to question something that once was so automatic. It's easy to believe you're beginning to lose your mind. Or that you might possibly be experiencing what it feels like to lose your mind. Back in the early days of zero sleep, I was convinced I heard a small child giggling in the static noise setting of our nursery's sound machine. I was so convinced of this, I called the hub in to listen to it. We were both so out of whack, he heard it too.

At times, the mind tricks baby insomnia inflicts on parents begin to take a deeper, more unsettling toll.  During one particularly horrific 2 a.m. spell, I became convinced that I would never know a full night's sleep again. This snowballed into a feeling that none of my needs as a person would ever be met again and hence, the floodgates opened. No more showers! No trips to the dentist! My diet will forever be limited to Coke Zero and Honey Nut Cheerios! In a matter of seconds I had gone from rocking a fussy infant to mourning the loss of my independence and ability to meet my basic self-care needs.  If it sounds like an overreaction, it was. But it seemed so logical at the time. And that's the really scary stuff.

Are there bigger world issues out there than the albeit temporary sleep changes a newborn brings to the household? You betcha. Famine, social injustice, the fact that some people consider Fox a news channel -- these are pressing concerns for our time. But for most of the parents I know, the irrational thoughts  welcome the beginning of a lifetime of worries. Those crazy thoughts have started to seep their way into my daylight hours, when I'm driving to Target for the fortieth time for diapers or wipes or hooded sweatshirts.  It's at those times where the irrational gives way to the real worries. What if el bambino wrecks his car on the way to prom? What if he's bullied at school? What if he gets cancer at five? What if I suck as a parent? Those worries are far less easy to shake than the occasional midnight reverie.

This is a shared experience among most of the parents I know and those I see walking around slightly dazed. There is an unspoken bond between these folks, who are somehow running on empty but still, after all, running. For now, I take strange comfort in knowing they're there with me, listening to the radio at 4:30 a.m. and wishing for a few extra minutes of uninterrupted sleep.

In the beginning...

Welcome. I began this blog as a reaction to, well, a reaction I get often when I tell people that I'm now a stay-at-home mom. That's right. After 10 years of working for the man, traveling a bit, earning a graduate degree, and "being all I can be," I decided to forego daycare and hit the career pause button to raise an awesome little boy.

It's been an interesting year, one in which I've slept little but learned a lot. So, being a writer, I thought I'd blog about it, if for no one else than myself.

Why blog? I chose to quit working in journalism to teach English in a public school. I loved it, and felt like I was kind of working to change all of the things people often say are "wrong" with America's children. I decided to approach motherhood much the same way. Every day, I read about a study or report that talks about how many kids are having sex at age 12, or who watch five hours of TV a day, or who send 1,200 texts in the span of two hours but haven't spoken a word to their parents in two weeks. Teaching taught me those things don't occur in isolation. I also learned that a lot of kids without a parent or other responsible adult at home tend to be a lot less well-behaved than someone whose mom/dad/grandparent can drive up to the school at a moment's notice and put a foot in their ass. Staying at home, to me, is one part of an equation that I hope can result in a kid who is well-adjusted, responsible, and cares for more in life than the latest electronic accessory.

This is not to say being a SAHM is easy. I don't go get my nails done or enjoy a massage every Thursday after work. I've had to learn to use a bevy of coupons and find free stuff to do/eat/work with. This blog will deal with the adventures of being a cheap date, a responsible adult, and in short, someone who is fighting the corporate machine one purchase at a time.