I've been living under the illusion that once all my children had grown to the point of "sleeping through the night" as they say, that I too would be able to do this. There are not words for how wrong I was. No words, only a look. That look is one of bags the size of peanuts under your eyes, a baseball hat covering unwashed hair, and yoga pants-regardless of whether or not exercise happened.
Levi, at 18 months sleeps through the night only on rare occasions. Sometimes if you get him a "baa", or a bottle of milk, he will go back to sleep. Far too often, he will cry and cry and not snuggle or lay down or be reasonable by any human standards. I think his frequent ear infections are to blame. Also teething. Also, he's really into horses and he knows that if he screams for long enough I will turn on funny YouTube clips of horses dancing.
Emmett, bless his heart, often comes out of his room for a variety of reasons. Sometimes he's not tired anymore-likely because he fell asleep somewhere absolutely ridiculous for 3 hours earlier that day. Sometimes, he wants to sleep by me. Sometimes, it's too dark in his room. Sometimes, his back itches. Sometimes, he needs a drink. Sometimes, he needs to pee. Always when he pees, he slams the toilet lid closed. One night this week he told me there were ants in his bed. There weren't.
Oftentimes, when he does this, it wakes up Levi. Who upon waking, wants to eat black beans and watch dancing horses.
Elise is currently trying to night train. Which means at 2:30 she comes in and tells me she wet the bed. By the time we take care of that, I'm wide awake.
So I lay there and listen to poor Lila hacking and coughing relentlessly. It's been going on at night for weeks and nothing I've given her has made any difference. She coughs and coughs throughout the entire night and then sometimes chatters because she is then wide awake.
Anabelle usually wakes up somewhere in the five o clock hour, always rushing to the bathroom which is next to my room. If I have managed to fall back asleep, this always takes care of it in a jiffy.
Maisey never wakes me up.
She gets the tallest wedding cake and the prettiest prom dress.
In between all of this ruckus, there lies next to me a dear and wonderful snoring man who I love. Who snores. So much. And I love him. So much. But the snoring. Is hard. So much hard. I am so tired. Sentences are also hard.
Tell me when. Somebody please tell me when I will sleep again in decent amounts of time. Will I be forty but look sixty when this happens? Because that's just five years away. And if it's just five years, then I can take it, I just need to know so I can schedule my Amazon deliveries of Nutella and Diet Coke appropriately.
