Really, it was silly of me to even try. But somewhere in my tired head, I thought maybe, just maybe my kids would let me have a quick nap. So I lay down on my daughter's bed, ready to drift into slumber with the sound of their happy playing in the next room as pleasant background noise. HA!
I can hear you guffawing - don't think I can't. I can see now it was always destined to fail. But desperate sleepiness calls for desperate measures. I've had a busy week, I've been exercising a lot to try to fit my clothes properly again, my kids have had a spate of nightmares about kidnappers, crocodiles and 'baddies' in the hallway... I dunno, I'm just tired today.
After a minute or so, the kids relocated themselves to the floor right next to the bed. No problem, I thought, I can still doze. Then Laura started rhythmically bumping the bed with her hip...shove, shove, shove. " Laura, can you stop that please?". "Why?" (insert boring explanation here). "Oh, OK Mummy".
A few seconds later... "Mummy, can you be one Barbie and I'll be one Barbie and Laura be one Barbie?".
"Ben, Mummy's trying to sleep. Only wake me up if it's IMPORTANT, OK?"..."OK Mummy".
A few seconds later again..(shouting)" 1, 2, 3...WAKE UP MUMMY!".
"What's wrong Ben?"
"It's an emergency."
"What's the emergency?"
"We want you to read us 'Charlotte's Web'."
SIGH. I'm vertical again. As soon as I'm done complaining here, I'll be doing some reading aloud. There will be no sleep until they sleep. I know that now, and I secretly knew all along (one can live in hope, though!). I realise this is why coffee was invented.
Anyone else who needs a jolt, meet me in my kitchen in 5 minutes. Chocolate is optional.
9 comments:
I feel your pain. I remember the graveyard shift when my son was young. Coming home to a little boy who was happy to see me and wanting to play. Trying to explain to him that Mommy had been up all night was useless. God must have invented coffee for those kind of days!
Been there, done that. We feel your pain. Hope you get a good night's sleep after the kids go to bed.
They really can't help it -- they just love you so much that they want you to pay attention to them all the time. They don't want you to sleep, they want you. Because you are loved. You're their mum.
Pretty soon they will grow up and go out of the house to live their own lives. And, you will wish they were small again, even for five minutes, so you could hold them again and tell them how much you love them.
Aaah the frustrations of motherhood! Never mind, as you say, that's why coffee was invented :)
Hope you get a lovely, peaceful sleep tonight...
Not to discourage you, but you'll loose even more sleep when they're older and out late on dates or driving the car. Survive. They do get to be 30 eventually.
Ah..motherhood...I remember it so well... the sleepless nights. I didn't dare try to sleep while they were awake...something always bad happend. They once broke all the eggs in the frig and mixed them with flour on the floor. Another time they tried to cook and nearly burned the kitchen down...that was the last time I tried to catch up on some needed sleep.
But, as John said...it gets worse when they get older and are out driving.
In fact...I just had a sleepless night last night and I'm functioning on coffee.
I'll be there for chocolate and girl talk!
Sleep is hard to come by when you have little kids, and as John says its hard to come by when they are teens, and then when you get my age and it's possible to sleep when ever you want, you can't.....
Hopefully you can catch a few winks in between playing barbie...that is so cute.....
Sleep is the one thing I have not been able to do regularly since having kids. Of course, I could be sleeping NOW but then I so desperately want to be awake when the house is quiet. A vicious cycle, I tell you.
I agree with John C: when they're under your control is the easy bit, staying awake listening for the car to pull up outside (with the doof doof going) at 2 a.m. is NOT easy. BTW, I could swear that I could be "asleep" when reading to the kids (hearing myself read as I drift back into consciousness...)
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