The Difference A Day Makes

It's hard to think, let alone write, on no sleep. Which is why, I think, it just so extraordinary that there are so many parents out there producing such good writing - we're all so frequently sleep-deprived. How does any parent manage to think coherently on those long, foggy, sleep-deprived days, let alone spin thought into word and weave prose?

I'm currently sleep deprived, but it has nothing (ok, little) to do with being a parent. WonderBaby has gone back to her regular 13-hour stretches, for the most part - she does still occasionally rise early and request a transfer to Mommy and Daddy's bed, but this is never at any obscenely early hour, and it always results in an hour or two of drowsy cuddling that is undeniably soul-restoring - and so the nights are full of the promise of sleep. But only the promise of sleep. And this promise has, of late, been going unfulfilled.

I'm a long-time insomniac; I suffer from an insomnia that results from being both a very light sleeper and having a very busy brain. If I wake in the night - which I do most nights - I need to sink back into sleep pretty quickly, before my brain takes over, before I start thinking about stuff and becoming ever more alert (Are the curtains closed in WonderBaby's room? Am I going to be able to get back to sleep again? Can we really afford our current childcare arrangements? What if I can't get back to sleep again? Should we have a second child? Oh sweet jesus I am never going to sleep AGAIN...) until I am laying on my back, eyes wide open, staring - defeated - at the ceiling and trying to remember whether the Law and Order reruns on cable start at 3am or 4am. (3am, in our part of the world, FYI.)

It is, I think, complete and utter perversity on the part of the gods to damn my sleep just when I've begun to recover from WonderBaby's stretch of 24-7 wakefulness. But we've been through my troubled relationship with the gods; I won't bore you with my recriminations and fist-shaking. (Note, however, that fist is shaking, furiously, at Hypnos and his dratted family...)

I just wanted to note, for the record, that although it was a long, wakeful night for me last night, as it was the night before that and the night before that... today was a good day. WonderBaby and I took a long walk in the bright cold sun and ran errands (happily running into friends along the way) and then spent the better part of the afternoon sprawled out on the floor of our living room visiting with more friends (the bigger of us sipping - yes- red wine) and I didn't feel the ick of the tired at all. Not one bit.

OK, so the small people didn't sprawl. The small people were a blur of tiny handbags and scarves and bling and pimped-out stroller-rides. It was the mothers who were sprawled out on the floor. With their liquor. Good times.

It was nice. Really nice.

And now I am going to go to bed and sleep the sleep of the only-somewhat-dead until about 3am, at which time you will most likely find me, again, awake - but maybe not minding so much, this time.


**Follow-up posts to posts with big words and involving big thoughts are on hold until semi-regular sleep returns and brain cells recharge.

**WonderBaby didn't really Bratz that doll, did she? She really only kinda glammed it up a bit, no? And not half badly, really, if one goes in for that sort of blingy, mismatched accessories look. But it wasn't really Bratzy - there was no cropping of tops, no baring of bellies, no donning of thong, no spackling of eyeshadow. So, there. I can cross one more thing off of my long-dark-teatime-of-the-soul list of things to think about at 3am.

She DID try to Bratz Bumper, but Bumper preferred rockin' it like a lady. Which Bumper would have carried off, had she not also insisted upon wearing shiny hot-pink rubber boots (not shown.)