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Define Sleep.

At some point in this crazy fun house ride called parenthood, I figured I'd get a break, I figured that when the kids reached a certain age I would be able to get a normal nights sleep. But no.
I've been averaging between 4 and 5 hours of sleep a night which provides me with enough manic adrenaline induced energy to make it through the first 6 hours of the day. With well timed caffeine injections boosting me along I'm good for about 6 more hours. However, after that, it's all over. I can't sleep but I'm not really functioning as a conscious person.

I drool on the couch, grunt to my kids, raise my eyebrows at my husband and pray for sleep or death, which ever comes first.


By 9 p.m. I'm a quivering bowl of something that quivers in a bowl...like maybe, tomato aspic with beef tongue.

I digress.  

By 9 p.m. most good little girls and boys are in bed fast asleep, but because my kids are neither good nor little -- they are both so much better than good and tall for their ages-- I find myself stumbling, mumbling, incoherent but awake trying to herd them up stairs, chanting, "Pajamas. Teeth. Bed. Mercy. Uncle."

At at midnight, my son and I are finally able to drift away to slumberland snugged together in his twin size bed. Immobilized, wedged between a sweaty giant of a boy and a smelly giant of a dog, I sink and smother to sleep.


I pop awake from dreams of premature burial in time to shuffle into my own bigger bed. I need my down blankie, I need my feather pillow.  The dog usually follows me and I find myself once again wedged between a big smelly guy and a big smelly dog but I'm too tired to care. I cling to Blankie and Pillowy. It's going to be okay.


At 5 a.m. my alarm goes off and I jump out of bed, panicked, ready for a brawl, or a quick sprint away from whatever monster is obviously trying to kill me. After a cup of coffee, I've quelled my fight or flight response and I'm resigned to my fate.


Time to get moving, wrangle kids, nag, make breakfasts, do dishes, run off to work, run back home, figure out what the hell to make for dinner, help with homework, do the laundry, drool on the couch, dreaming of sleep with my eyes open.


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