I haven’t been sleeping.

For a while now.

Laurelyn has started waking up every night, in the same pattern. She doesn’t wake me up the way most babies do. It’s not the quiet fussing that gently wakes you and makes you aware that there is a baby in your house. I mean the kind of screaming that bolts you out of bed and you find yourself running to her bed, baseball bat at the ready so you can cream whoever is harming your baby. (That got a little too detailed for me, sorry) Point is, she’s not sleeping. She’s screaming at 1:30, 3:30, 4:30 and 5:30. At about 5:30, after a good nursing (Yes, I am still nursing, but that’s a different blog post) she falls asleep again, in my arms and I just start to feel the tension fall from my body when I hear David’s voice next to my bed.

“MOMMY! I WANT MINI WHEATS!”

This is the sign that my day is starting. Laurelyn is now awake because no human being can sleep through David’s screaming talking.

I am getting too old and tired to keep going through life with this much sleep deprivation. I don’t handle it as well as I did when I only had one. Oh, the days when I only had one child. Only one child to clean up after, make meals for, watch at the park, keep from scaling the bookshelves.

Those were the days.

Looking back, those days now seem like play acting at parenthood.

It sounds harsh and I’m sorry if you are a mother of one. You can hate me if you want but frankly, if I hear one more parent complain to me about how little time they have and how much they wish they could get some time for themselves, only to find out they have only one child I’ll puke.

Okay, that puking part is a bit of an exaggeration but remember that I’m sleep deprived.

Although I’m not so tired as I was yesterday. After another sleepless night this is the conversation I had with Chuck. Maybe you can spot how short my fuse has been lately.

Chuck: Did you get a good sleep, sweetheart?

Me: No. Terrible.

Chuck: You should have worn ear plugs to bed.

This is when I shot fire out of my nose which seared his bushy ear brows. I screamed nonsense and my matted and tangled hair become green, viscous snakes which curled around my head ready to pounce on anyone who got too close.

I think I may have been too harsh to my husband this morning but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone or do anything. All I could think about was closing my eyes. Luckily, Laurelyn had a nap while the other kids were building a Lego city in the basement. I was nervous that someone was going to come along asking for MINI WHEATS but I slept peacefully for 3 hours! The kids played fantastically. Chuck got oodles of work done and Laurelyn and I slept the morning away. It was heaven!

So, at this particular moment I have sleep tanks fueled and I am back to being a mom but it’s now dark outside and my children are in bed. I’m afraid to lay down. Will I get sleep tonight? Will I be turning into Medusa in the morning?

I hope Medusa will be nothing more than a silly dream I enjoy while I slumber the night away.

How funny is it that Momversation posted this this morning?

Flippin' Tired!

***Update***
My 18 month old must read my blog. She must have read this post, felt sorry for me and decided to give me a full nights sleep as an early Christmas present. She slept in until 8:00 this morning!

I love this amazing, wonderful, sweet, beautiful little girl!