In view of my last post about my chronic sleep deprivation of the past year, some may ask, “Why doesn’t she try to make up the lack of sleep with a daily nap?”
Great question.
To illustrate why this isn’t happening, here’s a little thing I like to call What Happens When Mom Tries To Nap
This morning, I am again awakened by a very cuddly but dangerously large 3 year old who could easily smash the baby with her feet if she takes one wrong step, so my eyes pop open and I protectively scoop up the baby, who isn’t so innocent himself, as he has woken up every 17 minutes all night long.
I head downstairs, wiping crust out of my puffy, bloodshot eyes where my husband greets me with a cup of tea. A few minutes later, caffeine notwithstanding, the sleepiness is too much for me, so I hand baby off for hubby to change and put my head down on a sofa cushion.
I decide I’ll sneak a quick nap, as hubby is going out for a walk with the little ones.
Only.
“You have to take those shoes off,” he says. She’s wearing her new tap shoes, which will be permanently affixed to her feet for the next few weeks if I know anything about it. “They’ll get torn up if you wear them.”
My husband is unfamiliar with both the makeup and durability of tap shoes and the passive-aggressive, non-violent resistance of the typical 3 year old. I know that it will take 30 minutes of top-secret-military-level negotiations to convince her to relinquish her shoes and put a different pair on. If she can even find them.
He sends her off to hunt for shoes. He doesn’t understand that he could perform intricate brain surgery in less time than it would take for her to locate shoes she doesn’t want to find.
After a few minutes of hearing the exchange between them, no effort being made to whisper or use low voices, bless their hearts, realize I can either lie here and listen to this for another half hour, or I could speak up.
“They’re in the van. She took them off when I bought the tap shoes.”
Despite several years of having young children together, he also hasn’t learned that when preschooler shoes are missing, they’re ALWAYS in the car. Always.
That settled, the 3 year old runs off to get socks. Only 3 year olds, being not quite expert yet at getting that annoying seam at the toes just so, needs assistance putting them on.
“Mommy,” she says. (Children do not comprehend the simple rule of etiquette that states that waking a sleeping person for minor personal requests is generally eschewed.) “Can you fix my socks?”
Seam-aligning commences.
My husband, noticing, loudly remarks, “Victoria! Don’t ask her, she’s resting. I can do that!”
They walk out the door and I enjoy perhaps 30 blissful seconds of quiet, which would have been far shorter had all 7 of the kids been up.
Until my oldest child walks up the stairs from his bedroom, exclaiming, “Mom! Want to see how fast my new computer (that he and a friend built the night before) boots up!?
Sure honey. I can hardly wait. Let’s see it.
And so it goes…
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