A Typical Night

Wherever we go someone invariable asks me the age old question, “How are you” And my answer is always the same, “Tired.” It didn’t used to be this way. Before the Little One was born, my answers would have been, fabulous, peachy, good, or okay, all depending on my mood. But since the Little One, it’s been the same… tired. I’ve decided that the best way to demonstrate why my answer is always tired is to share a typical evening with you.

9:00 p.m. Little One is finally asleep, so we head to bed. Me in a twin bed and Little One in her swing, with the white noise machine set to “summer night.” Basically it’s white noise with a few crickets chirping. Now before Little One was born, I needed absolute silence to fall asleep. Once when we were living in Maryland, we had a cricket in our house somewhere, its incessant chirping drove me crazy. I would literally lie there for hours just wishing for its slow painful death. Now it’s just another noise in the room to contend with.

12:30 a.m. Little One gets restless and starts to fuss. It’s not a hungry fuss, so I replace the pacifier and stroke her cheek until she calms down.

12:35 a.m. See 12:30 a.m. entry

12:45 a.m. See 12:30 a.m. entry… okay so we don’t get too repetitive this continues until about 1:15 a.m.

1:45 a.m. I am awakened by a loud thud followed by a quiet whimpering. No doubt in my mind what just happened. Big One just fell out of bed and is still trying to figure out what in the heck happened to her. So I race in her room, hoping to catch her before she starts wailing like a banshee. WHEW! I made it, when I get in her room she is still layed-out on the floor, face-first trying to figure out where she is and why it hurt so much to wake up. I quickly grab her and begin to rock on the floor with her in my lap. She quietly whimpers, “mommy, wock…mommy wock.” Translation = Mommy, rock. She wants to rock in the rocking chair. So we begin to rock and she looks up at me and says, “mommy nap, mommy seeping.” Yes, I replied that mommy was in fact sleeping until something scared her and she had to come make sure Big One was okay. “You fall, you fall,” she says. “Yes, Big One fell out of bed,” I whisper. {she is a bit confused on her pronoun usage so when she says “you,” she is actually talking about herself.}

2:10 a.m. I crawl back in bed restarting the chirping cricket noise in hopes of assuring the Little One will sleep a little longer.

2:20 a.m. Get back out of bed, go outside and tell the dogs to shut the heck up or someone is going to get hurt and I don’t think it’s going to be the stupid opossum or raccoon that they are barking at.

3:00 a.m. I am wide awake, having realized that it’s been a really long time since Little One has eaten. Living by the cardinal rule of NEVER waking a sleeping baby, I take my chances that she won’t wake up for a while, and pump so that we don’t all drown in milk.

3:30 a.m. I try to get some sleep. Feeling great relief with a full bottle of milk in the refrigerator, I can comfortably lie on my tummy. Of course, now I know that since I just pumped that the Little One will be up any minute starving. So I lie there waiting…

4:00 a.m. The crying begins; wearily I get up to retrieve the aforementioned bottle of breast milk, hoping that it’s still semi-warm.  Little One takes about two ounces, so I know she wasn’t really hungry. UGH!

4:30 a.m. Sound asleep, I lie Little One back down in her swing and hope to not hear from her until at least 6 a.m.

5:30 a.m. The fussing begins; I offer the bottle once again. She takes a couple sips and is back asleep. However this sleep will not last. She is up fussing every few minutes.

5:40 a.m. See 12:30 a.m. entry…

6:30 a.m. I finally give up; sleep has eluded me once again. So I try to feed the Little One, once again. She is really not interested, so now she is chewing on her hands and I am sharing my lovely evening with you.

It is like this every night? Not this exact sequence of events, but some variation of it, yes pretty much every night since we came home from the hospital. Would I change it? Hmmmm that’s a good question. Yes, I think I would, not that I would give the Little One back, but I would definitely recommend the model that sleeps at least a few hours at night!