Sleep Delirium

Remember when your kids were newborns and you were on auto-pilot for the first several months, maybe even years? Sometimes I wonder how any of us even survived that. When I think about how little sleep I actually lived on, and was still able to manage to stumble out of the house each morning in matching shoes is completely baffling to me. How did we do it? How did we get by on so little sleep and not walk around in a near coma every day? I'm surprised I didn't leave one of my kids at Kwik Trip by accident on a regular basis.
And that newborn eat-every-three-hours thing is like a cruel joke. I was horrified with my first baby that it was actually three hours from when she started eating, not when she finished. If she was in a "sleepy eating" mode, it could last way too long. And then just when I would start to drift off into that blissful state of unconsciousness, I would be awakened by a hungry cry. How the Octomom managed to do it with her entire brood and not go completely batshit crazy is beyond me. Oh wait... I've seen some of her recent television interviews. Never mind.
I can remember feeling just absolutely desperate to get sleep. I would lay there and make deals with God. "Please," I'd pray. "Just make her go back to sleep and I swear I'll be a better Christian. I'll go to church more. I'll quit flipping off pro-life billboards. I'll make sandwiches for the homeless. Did I mention I'll go to church? Please just let her go back to sleep."
I think God was busy sleeping because my prayers never seemed to work.
When my last baby, my son Wyatt, was born he weighed 10 pounds and ate like a trucker. He was never satisfied and used my boobs as a pacifier. I didn't care. One time the cable guy came in and asked if I ran a daycare. "No," I told him, flashing him as I switched sides with the baby. "They're all mine."
He shuddered. I didn't blame him.
Once I confided to my cousin Jenni that since Wyatt was born I was only counting my sleep in minutes, not even hours. "It's horrible," I told her. "I think a two hour nap would be a luxury."
I still remember one night when he was in the bassinet next to my bed, and I was up every 30 minutes. I felt like I was losing my mind. After about the 6th time in three hours that my husband handed me the baby, I thought I was going to crack. I'm pretty sure I took a swing at him in frustration (my husband, not the baby. The baby was already attached to my nipple like Velcro.)
Yet somehow I got through it. As our babies make the miraculous transition and eventually start sleeping through the night, us parents emerge like battle-weary soldiers. We're worn down and exhausted, but proud that we made it through hell and back. We should seriously get medals. And I know several parents whose children still don't sleep through the night, and their kids are school age now. How those parents don't resort to nightly Benadryl druggings is a miracle.
As my kids have gotten older, it has become more and more rare that they get up in the middle of the night. It doesn't mean I jump out of bed with enthusiasm and energy every time I hear a weak "I don't feel so good..." followed by a splash of vomit next to my bed. I'm still bone weary and desperate for sleep. It's like the no-sleep soldier that I had become when my kids were babies has disappeared, and been replaced by a mom who would probably cut off her left arm for a full 8 hours rest.
Last night was a perfect example. We are in the middle of an incredible heat wave and it was still in the mid-90s with an 80 degree dew point when I finally fell asleep. Even with the central air on and the ceiling fan running, I had a hard time falling asleep.
Several hours later my 7 year old son showed up at the side of my bed.
"Mom," he whined. "My butt itches."
"What?" I mumbled into the pillow.
"It itches and its driving me crazy!" By now his whine was on full throttle and I slipped into automatic mom mode. I looked at the clock and did a quick calculation. Ok, I told myself. It's 2:57 and if I can get his butt to stop itching and him back to sleep in the next 20 minutes, I can still get another 3 hours of shut eye.
I followed him into the bathroom, barely awake. Turns out he had the unfortunate circumstance of getting several mosquito bites in his butt crack.
"Ok," I told him, as I grabbed the tube of hydrocortisone cream. "Bend over."
He looked at me horrified. "No! What are you going to do?"
I looked in the mirror and stopped. Dear God, I was a sight. Hair messed up, my eyes barely open, and an index finger covered in white cream. No wonder he was slowly backing away, holding his shorts tight against his little body.
After a few minutes he took matters into his own hands and stopped the itching on his own (with probably less invasive measures than I had planned), and crawled into bed with me.
I kissed him good night, then turned to the wall.
"Mom, is that a thong sticking out of your pajama pants?" he asked after a minute.
"Mmmm hmmm..." I mumbled, on the brink of falling into the blessed dark abyss of sleep.
"It's in your butt crack. Ick."
"Oh yeah?" I responded. "At least it doesn't itch!"
And within a few seconds, we both fell fast asleep.