Mother's Day is coming this Sunday - or as I call it, "Let's-show-Mom-we-love-her-by-destroying-the-kitchen-and-force-feeding-her-cereal-in-bed-at-5am-Day."
I'm not looking forward to it. Why? Because I know I'm going to be woken at at the crack of dawn, served food I don't want to eat while they watch me consume every burnt morsel before forcing me out of bed to do something "fun" like take them to the mall so they can beg for video games and new shoes in honor of MY day. Yeah. Fun. That's what I call it.
So in honor of all the other moms out there who feel my pain, I'm sharing one of my favorite posts about motherhood and pose to you the question - "Will I ever sleep again?"
"Dawn of the Totally Exhausted"
Last night I didn't sleep at all. Not the kind of "not at all" where you really sleep for a least a couple of hours and then exaggerate it to "not at all" to make a point.
No, I didn't sleep AT ALL. Not until 5:00am this morning when sounds of dawn on the mountain crept in through my window. Birds taunted me that they were so well rested they were ready to go grab themselves a worm. I was hating those birds.
I don't know why suddenly I can't sleep. I LOVE sleep! I am the QUEEN of sleep! Of course, it occurs to me that I've spent SO much time sleeping and napping that perhaps I've used up the sleep time that has been allotted to me in my lifetime and now I'm doomed to nights of laying in bed staring at the ceiling.
I tried to coerce sleep out of my bed by shifting positions over and over in hopes of unlocking the pose that will bring it. Like a complicated lock on an Egyptian tomb you'd see in the movies, I was convinced that one particular contorted shape would be the "key" to opening the doorway of slumber. I twisted, I turned, I stretched, I flipped my pillow over and over trying to enjoy the coolness of a fresh side before it warmed up again. I still couldn’t unlock the door to dreamland.
FINALLY, as I started to drift off I was awoken by rumblings. They were coming from the other room and they were a sign that one of the kids was awake.
"Mommy? I think I had an accident."
NOOoooooo!!!!! I was just falling asleep!!!!!
I rolled out of bed to check hers, which is completely dry. We changed underwear because she wanted to and I put her back in bed. I tried for sleep again.
Five minutes later...
"Mommy? I'm not sure, but I think I had an accident before because I drank water at dinner."
She's waking me up to tell me this??! Doesn't she know it's 5:00 in the morning??? I have GOT to teach her to tell time.
"GO TO SLEEP!"
She returned to her room. I heard her wimpering.
So, I got up AGAIN.
"WHY are you crying?" I tried to sound caring.
"I just wanted to be honest."
"I know. I'm sorry I yelled. Mommy is just SOOOO tired." I kissed her. "PLEASE go to sleep."
She calmed down and closed her eyes. Luckily, sleep seemed ready for me again. And I climbed back into bed and drifted off......
"MMMMOOOOOOOOOOMY! " My son was standing right next to my head but he screamed it anyway.
I was jolted upright like a scared cat. If there had been a rafter in my room, I would have been wrapped around it.
"I HAD A BAD DREAM!!!"""' He was yelling like it was my fault.
This was insane! This is like some kind of relentless torture that eventually breaks you down till you have no defenses at all and are willing to do whatever is asked of you. Including share a bed with a boy who expands to 3 times his natural size...and snores.
I opened the covers to the other side of my bed and mumbled, "Get in...but BE QUIET…PLEASE!”
I know I wasn't being very friendly, warm or nurturing. But it was 5 in the morning and I had been awake all night. I was convinced I’d never sleep again.
He fell asleep. And finally, so did I. Till my alarm went off 2 hours later.
Now I’m a Zombie. I can’t focus, I use grunting sounds as verbal responses and I may have drooled on my steering wheel as I drove the kids to school. Frankly, I don't know how Zombies have the energy to chase people around and eat their brains. All I want is to crawl back into my bed and be left alone.
Once a mother has successfully made it through the sleepless nights of infancy shouldn’t she be entitled to some quality, uninterrupted sleep?
Then it dawns on me, Zombie’s aren’t the undead at all. They’re just a bunch of mothers who haven’t showered, eaten a decent meal, or had a full night’s sleep in years.
