Humorous Tales of Sleep Deprivation

I hesitate to even use the term "sleep deprivation"--because I don't feel deprived at all, merely in a constant state of sleepy. Plus, I tend to think that Cyrus is an extraordinarily good sleeper. He goes to bed smoothly, usually between 9-10, usually wakes up once to eat (sometimes twice) and then wakes up for the morning between 4-6 a.m I know that that is fantastic for such a tiny baby, but my grown-up body still has a bit of adjusting to do when trying to live on a baby's quantity of sleep.

I wouldn't call myself deprived, however, "sleep deprivation" is a well-understood term, so I'll keep it.

Here are some funny stories from these first weeks with baby:

> Cyrus is an early bird, so I wake up with him early in the mornings, and then once Angel wakes up for work, Angel takes care of him while I hop in the shower. One early morning shower...I poured shampoo in my hand and proceeded to apply it to my face to wash my face with it. That was a first for me. No good. Shampoo works best for hair.

(p.s. I always hear moms talking about not showering for 3 or 4 days or something like that. They must not live in homes without air conditioning in the tropics. I'll wake up at any hour to make sure I get a shower in, even if it does mean being so sleepy as to mistake shampoo for face wash)

{I call this his "What does the fox say?" outfit}

> We always start out the night sleeping in our own bed with Cyrus in the playpen right next to us, but we don't always finish the night that way. The other morning I laughed when, by 5:30 a.m., Angel was sleeping on one couch in the living room and I was lying down on the other, arm outstretched and bouncing the baby in his bouncer. Hey, whatever works.

> We went to a traditional Chinese wedding dinner this past weekend, and baby came, too, of course. All 8 courses were finished being served by about 10:30, and we were home shortly after 11, which doesn't sound like an excessively late night. However, by the time Cyrus had been bathed and fed and danced with and put to bed, it was midnight. And then he was up at 3 to be fed, and then he was up at 5 for the day--a day which included church followed by youth group followed by basketball (for Angel) and dinner with the family. We looked at each other groggily at some point during the day and were like...man, I don't think we're that awesome at late nights anymore. Not that we ever were. Angel and I are the kind of people who leave the party early so we can sleep by ten. Our siblings laugh at us.

> I've always heard ideas like, you can have grown-up time after the baby's asleep for an hour or so before you go to bed. Maybe at some point one would feel energetic enough to stay up past when the baby's asleep. So far for me, no. As soon as he's in bed I'm falling into bed as quickly as possible because I know this is my chance, and while staying up to read a book or watch a show with Angel might sound appealing in theory...it'll never seem worth it at 2 a.m.

> At 6 one morning, Angel is up for the day and getting ready for work, and I come back in the room and lie down with the baby. I call over to him as he's brushing his teeth: "You know what? We really should have had bakery cookies from Meijer at our wedding reception. That would have been awesome. We could have had tiers for the M&M cookies, the chocolate chip cookies, and the oatmeal cookies. But I'd get more M&M cookies, because those are the best.

Apparently when I've been up with baby since 4 a.m., my mind contemplates cookies...and adding them to the menu of our wedding, which took place 7.5 years ago.

To Angel's credit, he totally rolled with my suggestions and instead of questions like, "Why are we talking about cookies that we can only buy in America and our wedding reception at 6 a.m.?" he simply agreed with me that yes, we totally should have thought of that idea earlier (like...nearly 8 years earlier) and served those cookies when we got married.

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I'm sure I'll have more interesting adventures in the wee hours of the months that lie ahead...but hopefully no more shampoo-as-face-wash episodes.

Has lack of sleep ever led you to a similar misadventure?