Thursday, March 31, 2011

The 11th Commandment: "Thou Shall Not Take Away Your Mother's Sleep"

I've been a temporary single Mom since 3:30pm on Tuesday afternoon.  My husband had to fly off to Vegas (I know poor Jonny) for a conference.  One that he was actually presenting at.  I have what you call irrational fears - one of them is something bad happening when my husband is out of town.  I get really stressed when he leaves, no amount of anti-anxiety meds will cure this.  Its just me.  I worry that the plane will have unmentionable issues, etc.

So Tuesday night goes really well.  The kids cooperated perfectly.  They bathed, got ready for bed, let me read one book to both kids and then snuggle time.  My daughter agreed to let my son have the first 2 minutes of snuggle time (by the way two minutes is just our way of saying a limited amount of time, its never 2 minutes.  Its more like 5-20 minutes).  So I snuggle with my son first and he actually slipped off to sleep in a matter of what was probably a legitimate 2 minutes.  Then off to my daughter's room where I had to snuggle with her for said 2 minutes.  Then I had the rest of the night to myself.  Wahoo!  I wanted to go to sleep so badly but I couldn't, my brain was on autopilot and I couldn't shut it off.  So I turned on the T.V. and watched some news.  I finally was tired and slept until close to 7:00am, which was a real treat!  Since I didn't hear anyone stirring I decided to just enjoy the comforts of my bed and just relax and catch some morning news shows.  Then by 8:20am, I decided to get out of bed and wake up my daughter since her favorite Disney show was on, Jake and the Neverland Pirates - because god-forbid she doesn't watch it, her day will be destined for horribleness!  So I peek my head in my son's room and he's awake and ready to start his day.  My daughter was still sleeping but when she heard her show was about to start she hopped out of bed.  

So by all accounts I had a great night.  I'm thinking, maybe my husband needs to leave town more often.  That was my first mistake, having this thought and then being stupid enough to say it to him .... because .... last night was the exact opposite of Tuesday night.  

My 2 1/2 year old son caught the cold virus that his sister has, a cold virus I have and really thought was just sinus related and/or allergies.  Nope, has to be a "cold virus" because 3 of us now have the sneezing running nose, sore throat thing going on.  My son was recently in the hospital and I think being sick just brought back the neediness he displayed when in the hospital.  He woke up every 30 minutes crying and saying he needed mommy.  Normally, I just let the crying go and then eventually he stops, but he's sick with a cold and the crying just makes the congestion worse.  So I would go back and snuggle until I'd hear him snoring.  By 1:30am I was just spent, so I grabbed his pillow and him and carried him into my room and laid him on my bed.  I put a pillow between the bed and the nightstand so he wouldn't fall in between the bed and the nightstand.  I never thought to build a fortress at the edge of the bed with pillows to help avoid a fall-out-of-bed situation.  I mean, really, he's 2 1/2 years old and 2 1/2 year olds sleep in big boy/girl beds - right??  Well my son spent the next hour or so tossing and turning and snoring and tossing and turning and kicking me and tossing and turning and snoring.  Finally I put him on the bed on his pillow just next to me.  Mind you I'm sleeping at the edge of my bed with the hopes I won't fall down the 2 1/2 foot drop because I have him in the middle of the bed  hoping he'll stay put.  I finally must have dosed off and then I hear this huge thud and crying - my son fell out of the bed.  He was sobbing telling me his head hurt.   Then I tried to cuddle him and he kept squirming away and then he finally told me his butt hurt, along with his toe.  He was walking really funny too.  So I attempt to call my husband in Vegas on his cellphone - thinking since its the city that never sleeps - he'd actually be awake.  No such luck.  So I had to resort to calling the "nurse on call" at the CCF.  I just wanted to know what I needed to keep an eye on and prayed I didn't have to take him to the ER.  Because, one thing we haven't gotten a clear answer to yet is - does he have a platelet function issue?  If he does, a fall like that could cause him to hemorrhage, and since his head took the brunt of the fall, the brain isn't exactly the place I'd like to witness such hemorrhage.  So yes, my irrational fear comes out in full crazy mommy force.  So I get the flashlight and test his eyes, make him walk, basically I woke him up so much that he couldn't fall back asleep for another couple of hours and when he did it was - just in time for the alarm to go off.  I had to set the alarm to make sure he was wake-able and to get us to his doctor appointment at 9:30am.  Who would have known I could make a doctor's appointment at 4:30am.  With all that, I didn't get any sleep either.  

We did go to the doctors and so far so good.  No broken bones, no bruising and he might just be a-OK.  Thank goodness.  The next 24 hours is key - I do need to keep a watchful eye.  So, of course, I won't sleep good tonight either.

I'm a person who needs sleep, can't function well without it, and truly loves to sleep!  If given a choice between a million dollars and an uninterrupted night of good solid sleep - I'd take the sleep in a heart beat!

My kids are lucky that I was so ignorant in the thought that I would have lost all this sleep time after becoming a mom.  If I knew now that sleep was going to be such a difficult commodity for me, I might have passed up the whole notion of having children.  

So all those who caused your mother's little or no sleep throughout your childhood, you need to confess your sinfulness of not observing the 11th Commandment: "Thou Shall Not Take Away Your Mother's Sleep"and repent!  The pearly gates will not open unless you do so!

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