paying for sleep

Mama, I don't know WHAT you're talking about... Emry eating yogurt, July 2011

The children have been mean at night lately. One night, Emry's up every hour and a half. The next night, Elan's up several times. Last night, Mikhail was away for Night 3 of his business trip, and they split the night: Elan took the first half (1 a.m., 3 a.m.) and Emry took the second half (4 a.m., 5:30 a.m.). See, it works better that way. Neither of them get too tired when they split it like that.

Of course, I was a raving lunatic. This kind of "let's gang up on Mama" night was my worst fear when Mikhail took his new job which requires business travel. At 3:30 a.m., after he had been up for a half-hour for the second time that night, including a stint of Sleeping With Mama otherwise known as throwing his body against me repeatedly while actually asleep, until I gave up and went to sleep in his bed, I dropped the f-bomb on Elan. As in "What is your f@#*$* problem?" Look, I won a bad parenting award. But honestly, I think anyone would have been tempted, given the situation. I'm hoping that Elan was too half-asleep himself to remember the word and throw it back at me in the future.

Last night, I slept in 3 different beds. If it would have helped me get more sleep, I would have slept in 4, but Emry's crib has a weight limit that I exceed.

And then, at 7 a.m., we got up. I say "got up" because "woke up" isn't really appropriate when you've been up most of the night. I had a very bad headache. I've been getting these lately. Maybe they're migranes, because no combination or amount of water, Advil, or caffeine dims the pounding. They often come on in the middle of the night. This one came on at 3 a.m., which probably partly explains the use of f*$&.

I took a not-very-clear-eyed look at my situation and decided that the only way to maintain sanity was to pay for sleep. I fed and changed everyone, took Elan to school, came home, talked to the contractor who's still working on our deck, put Emry down for his nap, called my babysitter and told her that I hid the key for her and she should let herself in and that I would be asleep. I have never done this before. Sometimes while pregnant, I napped while Elan was at nursery school. But I have never had a babysitter at my house and slept. Usually, no matter how tired I am, the list of things to do provides enough momentum that I just keep on keeping on. And between my desire to exercise, to get my work done, and to have a little time to myself, babysitter time is a precious commodity. But I was desperate, and my body, in the form of my head, was rebelling.

I put in earplugs, laid down, and said a little prayer that no one would wake me. Actually, I said: God help the person who wakes me. Maybe I roared it, internally. Anyway, next thing I knew, there was a knock on the door. I took my earplugs out. Was that really a knock? It was bright and sunny through the cracks of the mini blinds. I'm sure this is really important, I thought. And when the knock came again, I said Si? My babysitter's 12-year-old daughter poked her head in. I'm sorry, but my mom wanted me to come and tell you it's 3 o'clock and do you want us to stay?

3:00. It was 10:30 when I got into bed. I just slept through my babysitting, plus another half-hour.

I think you could say that I was pretty f@*#*%& tired.