Just Do It

Right now I am in a sleep deprived funk.  Oh yeah, it has also rained for at least a week straight.  That isn't helping.  So, after slogging through rain, being glared at by someone who felt I wasn't walking my girls fast enough in the BJ's parking lot in the pouring rain while wearing a walking cast, the final straw was my four year old, who has refused to nap,  climbing me and screaming that I am not getting her a "squeezy yogurt" fast enough.  Really, I just lost it.  I'm not proud, but I will admit to quite sarcastically calling her "your highness" while handing her the entire box of 12 and going to the nearest bathroom to count VERY slowly. 

I am clever enough to know this one moment isn't going to ruin her life, (I'm not even putting change in the therapy jar), but it does kind of smart to realize that I can be undone by a four year old.  I am normally a calm and patient person.   I am, dare I say it, really, really good at working with kids professionally.  I just need some sleep. 

In answer to the Barenaked Ladies call "Who Needs Sleep?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP67E0AfhAI, (Waving hand frantically, i.e. Arnold Horshack)."Me!  Right here!  Oh, Me!  Please, oh please, dear God, me!"

This episode also brings into focus my huge anxiety that my kids don't sleep through the night with any regularity; that my four year old can only fall asleep with an adult settling her in and staying with her until she's out; and that on most nights of the week, there are at least three, if not four family members in my bed by morning.  I love their little toddler and preschool presence.  I love snuggling them and smelling their little kid-ness when they first wake up.  I just want it to be closer to 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning and preferably after 6-8 hours of my own sleep.

I am apparently not alone.  This week seventeen Mama-friends sent me a link to a spoofy children's book called "Go the F*** to Sleep".  http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/new-childrens-book-go-the-f-to-sleep/   Why does it seem so hard to get little people, (who do have a routine- let me spare someone the time of suggesting it), to just go to sleep?  I'm exhausted.  They're exhausted and glassy-eyed.  Please, dear ones, just do it?