“I’ll sleep when I am dead!”

Yeah.  I always hated that phrase.  When I was a kid, I used to think it was a declaration in stupidity.  Cause, really, sleep is lovely.  Sleeping in a comfy bed with a down comforter wrapped around you is the ultimate happy place.

Now that I am a mom, I understand that phrase perfectly because that is what my life has morphed into.  I never sleep anymore.

It is all because I had children.

I put them to bed at 8:15pm. At 9:42pm they were are still awake.

Fully, awake.

Like, asking questions awake.

Like, wanting a snack awake.

They never sleep.

I would like to know…. No, let me rephrase that… What I DEMAND to know is when I can actually sleep again? I thought that surely by now my children would be snoozing regularly. Bed at 8:00pm. Waking at 7:00am.

And me… I had visions of my husband and I sleeping soundly through the night. Quiet, uninterrupted, slumber. Zzzzz……

I’m gonna be honest with you. THAT has NEVER happened. They still wake me up.

It is a rare occasion, indeed, when my children don’t wake up in the middle of the night yelling for me or my husband. On those rare occasions they haven’t woke up, they sleep-talk. Which is kinda like sleep walking except it is out loud. Usually it consists of important random tidbits (screamed at the top of their lungs) like, “I SAID IT IS A CIRCLE!” or “MY CRAYON SMELLS LIKE TOAST!”

And of course, we hear them yelling and we go tearing down the hallway to investigate…

You know, nobody warns you about this. Basically you are told that once you get your “babies” to sleep through the night, everything else is golden.

Don’t buy it, folks. If you are pregnant or have small children, you had better just come to terms with it now. You won’t be sleeping through the night again until they are away at college.  Actually, now that I am thinking it, THAT is not even true. I’m definitely sure I will loose sleep when they are at college.  HOLY CRAP. 

Then that means, NO SLEEPING AGAIN… EVER!  I am just realizing this.

Dr. Spock has no idea what he is talking about.