The Lost Art of Sleep

Lately at our house, we’ve been conducting a study entitled “How to Lose a Lot of Sleep (and Potentially Your Mind)". It typically unrolls something like this:

10pm, lights out; ah, Blessed Dark! “Mom?” “What is it, Wynham?” “How did my new shorts get dirty?” How could I possibly know? After fifteen minutes of argument (pardon me, I mean discussion) about how it must be my fault, Wynham finally remembers that maybe it happened when he threw his shorts up at the bathroom ceiling near the exhaust vent. I didn’t even ask why he was doing that. I probably wouldn't want to know...

“Mom, can you come down here right now?” Chloé asks this question rather frantically, so I hop out of bed a little worried. It appears that some younger sibling has spilled a whole glass of water on her bed. When I dare to ask why she couldn’t just change the sheets herself, she says, “But MOM! It soaked ALL the way through!” A towel over the wet bit and a new sheet really don’t meet her standards, but it will have to do until morning. 11pm. Can we go to bed now?

Sleep seems necessary, even possible. Suddenly, I wake up and remember that I forgot to post my blog for Tuesday and put the steel cut oats in the slow cooker (cold cereal for breakfast; Claire will not be pleased). Technically, since it’s now after midnight, I’ve missed the deadline on both of these items, so I gracefully let go of the guilt and try to go back to sleep.

At 1am, James decides to let the dog out. This must be some secret agreement they have, and I stay out of it. While he’s not looking, I close the bedroom window because it’s getting really cold out. As soon as James thinks I’m asleep, he opens it again because he “doesn’t like his feet to get too hot”. Repeat steps one and two until exhausted…

2am, and Jack is calling “Daaaadaaaa”. This starts as a plaintive whimper and progresses to a howl until Jack gets satisfaction. He used to call my name until he figured out that I can hold out longer than he can holler, but he knows Daddy’s a pushover. Already, I'm not a big fan of co-sleeping, and now Jack’s kneading my shoulder with his little toes.

Not surprisingly, Claire shows up half an hour later saying, “I had a bad dream”. I say, “Go around to Daddy’s side.” Things are going okay for nearly an hour, and then she needs to go potty. When she gets back, she wonders if somebody will give her a foot rub. Are you kidding? A few minutes of silence, and then it starts: the Surround Sound Symphonic Snorefest. These guys really need to work on their harmonizing skills, dog included.

4:51am, and Jack gets restless again, crying, “Go, go, GO!” in his sleep and pointing straight up. I take this as a sign, and decide to get out of bed for good. James lifts his head and says, “Wow. I almost had three whole uninterrupted minutes of sleep.” I think the universe is telling us that it’s a bad time to try and quit caffeine. Espresso, boys, and make it a triple…