Sleepless

When people ask me why we call our boy "the rooster," I usually give the easy answer: he wakes us up at all hours. They laugh at this, but we don't, as we are too tired. The truth is, in fact, that the name probably evolved in some fatigue-induced haze during which we babbled a string of silly nicknames including Boonie, Roo, Roostie, Roostieroo, and, of course, Rooster. Don't quote me on any of this, as I cannot be held responsible for memory or accuracy - I have not slept in four years.

Again, people laugh when I say I have not slept in four years. These people are off my Christmas/Hanukah list. These people use alarm clocks. Ha! What do these people know.

I'm especially weary of hearing predictions about when we will sleep. These began while I was still pregnant and couldn't get comfortable at night. People warned, "That's mother nature's way of training you, because you aren't going to get a good night's sleep for MONTHS." Then, in the hospital, the rooster kept all the other babies awake, so the nurses asked us to keep him in room, saying we might as well start getting used to it, as it was "only the start." My doctor said three months would be the magic mark. A coworker said a year. Everyone suggested the Ferber method, and we tried, we tried, but alas only we parents cried ourselves to sleep. As all predicted dates for rest came and went, our pediatrician all but promised that the rooster would be sleeping through the night by the time he turned two. And that was a time when he began to sleep through SOME nights. Of course, that is also the year his sister, Peaches, was born.

Soon the rooster will be four and Peaches will turn two. We did discover Melatonin a few weeks ago, no thanks to our pediatrician, so the rooster does GO to sleep now, and that is huge. But what does he expect me to say when he leaps into our room at 3 a.m. and says, "MOMMY?! What are you DOING?" It isn't every night he does this, but, for one reason or another, my sleep gets interrupted about 5 nights a week. Somehow he and Peaches must collude each night. Sometime between dinner and tooth brush time, they must make some plan; with their eyes they must telegraph, "You get mom and dad tonight. Try the coughing thing. That one is good. Tomorrow night I plan to wet the bed, unless you want to lose your pacifier?"

Are my blogs awful? Depressing? The worst? I cannot tell anymore. I'm too tired to read them.