It is a gloomy day without sunshine. It has been raining for the past 15 hours. And as I sit in my office, one may be able to hear me quietly arguing with my husband on the phone. Arguing about something that neither one of us will ever win, but we argue daily about it. I will get to that in a moment. I know it was raining 15 hours ago because I was in the car at 1:00 a.m. transporting Jack (4) to the emergency room. We live 2 minutes away from the hospital, but I'm not staying at home...still. We (being the 4 boys and I) are still at my parents until the house is clean enough for us to move back into. The dog and Don are staying there, * allegedly getting it ready for not only us to come home, but for his parents visit in 3 days. The sanding that was done to get our kitchen floor refinished filled our closed up home with dust, and also got in the vents and all the dust is just being repeatedly covered when the heat comes on.
Last night after going to bed a little later than usual (10:30) I was amazed on how well the baby was sleeping..he is in my room after all. Before I drifted off to sleep I said a little prayer, maybe a selfish one, but I prayed for a full nights sleep. That's all. Oscar is getting to be too big for his pack n play so the previous night he had been up on the hour to protest his sleeping arrangements, so I was tired. All was well until 12:15 when I thought I was awakened by a dream of the ocean, but the seal I was hearing was actually my son. I was confused, I looked in the pack n' play, the baby was sound asleep, where is this noise coming from? I ventured out into the dark living room where Jack was crying, barking and gasping for air. All while walking in a circle. He was panicking because he couldn't breath, he was crying which made his cough worse. By this time my mom was up looking at the two of us. He was delirious, and wouldn't let either one of us hold him. Without words, I went and got my clothes on, to the emergency room we go. We arrived around 1. The nurse didn't make us wait in the waiting room, which I wanted to hug her for her kind gesture. There are some sketchy people in the waiting room at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. In the blur of me quickly passing the waiting room, I saw tattoos, pajamas, and teethless men. Within minutes, we were in a frigid room waiting to see the doctor. The nurses seemed to eat Jack up. He is cute, I must say, but they showered him with stickers, compliments, grape juice and special treatment. It was obvious he had croup and a breathing treatment was needed, we were just going to need to wait for another hour to get it. By the time Janet arrived, Jack had fallen asleep. He was awakened to her sticking a breathing mask on his face talking about Scooby Doo. Jack was not pleased. It caused him to freak out again, which caused the barking to begin all over again. After holding him like a mental patient we were able to get the majority of the medicine in him. To the point he still had not uttered a word. It wasn't until he was given additional medicine that he told the nurse it was "awful"the only word he would utter throughout the entire fiasco. We waited another hour or so for the doctor, nurse etc. and when it was all said and done, we had been there for 4 hours. I was able to catch up on late night shows, I had not seen since I was breast feeding. Finally we were able to leave. I had to fill his rx before going home and was advised to get some food in his tummy. Because I'm not usually cruising the streets at 5 a.m. I was amazed that there are not a whole lot of options for sustenance. Burger King was open and I was able to get Jack french toast sticks which he took two tiny nibbles of and I ended up eating the rest. Not nearly as good as I remembered. As I was driving home I wondered where other people who passed me were going at that hour? Its a different vampire world that I'm just not used to and don't care to get used to. I finally arrived back at my parents and just as soon as I put Jack down the baby woke up and did NOT want to go back to sleep. I stayed up with him in a dark living room with the glow of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse filling the room. By this time my mom was ready, she angelically offered to get the others ready, take Oscar and let me get some rest. Around 6:15 I crashed next to the kid who sounded like an 86 year old smoker. I had sent an email from my phone at 3 a.m. to my boss explaining that I would not be in to work in the morning. Within 2 min. he responded. WHY is my boss up at 3 a.m.? I don't know, but if this is a normal occurrence, it could explain a lot, and his crankiness. All along I thought it was just me.
So when my husband called me this afternoon and explained that the house wasn't quite ready for us to move back in our argument began. I methodically calculated the total amount of time I had slept the night before.. 2 hours, and I even took the liberty to add up the total number of the previous week. And he explained that he hadn't slept well either. Wait...he was alone with a dog at home. It was not computing. He explained that he only got 4 hours of sleep. But knowing my body's sleep needs and his, that is like a full night for him. Since we had children we have had this argument almost daily. To the point where we have threatened to keep track of how many times each of us have gotten up the night before, but never following through with it. Mainly because we are too tired at the moment to do so. Today as I quietly screamed at him on the phone, explaining that I was the one who didn't sleep not him, which ended up on me abruptly hanging up on him. It got me to thinking. Why are we arguing about who is the most sleep deprived? Is it a badge of good parenting? Or a badge of bad spouse-ing? In all the years we have been married, has he ever said.." you know, you were up all night, what an amazing wife and mother you are" in short...NO. He has never said that. Have I ever said, " I noticed you got up with the baby to nurse him 6 times last night...NO because, (oh that's right), he CANT. So why do we continue to argue about this issue that only a night vision camera could prove?
When it comes down to it, what I'm looking for is recognition...from someone other than my mother.
What he is looking for is............ for me to not seek sleep deprivation recognition.
What ends up happening when I'm deliriously tired is, bad style choices. Several layers of concealer trying to put on the illusion to everyone ( except my husband) that I don't need at least 6 hours of sleep to function, along with extremely sensitive emotions and weird cravings. Which lead me to the one positive discovery today..the Salted Carmel Mocha at Starbucks. It is Heaven in a cup that almost brought me to tears.
Maybe I should add slight psychosis to my list of tired symptoms.
At this point in my life there are few things I find myself coveting for, and one of those things is a full nights sleep. Is that too much to ask? Obviously, (my prayers were unanswered with and exclamation point) so God must have thought so too.
No comments:
Post a Comment