Originally posted in November, 2008
Sleepless in Columbus
I'm about to lose my mind. Actually, I lost my mind. It is {poof} gone. Please let me know if you find it. I need it back.
I have now lost track of how many nights in a row that I slept like ___ (the word I want to use here is not appropriate. Forgive me, Lord).
Okay, so I'm not sleeping well. I have a sick baby who wakes up needing tlc in the worst way, and I am sick which means I hack and I sniff and I hack and I don't sleep. And my hubby is sick, which is a curse because on a healthy night, he snores HEAVILY. Throw in a stuffy nose and chest congestion - oh my good golly! There aren't words to describe the noises that come from him as he sleeps. If you were to peek in our windows at night, you would find me in bed with my mouth half-open (because I can't breath out of my nose because I have kleenex shoved up my nostrils) and drool running down the side of my mouth. And before you could even spot my hubby - you would hear the horn of a semi-truck blowing in your ear, but it wouldn't be a semi, it would be my hubby snoring.
And how is it possible for a baby to wake up three times during the night and still not sleep-in the next morning? If I slept like absolute crap you would have to blast a blowhorn in my ear to ever wake me up. But not my kid. During the night, he wakes up every other hour, yet he is still bright-eyed and babblin' at the crack-o-dawn. The problem is that I am a walking zombie. This morning when I made his bottle, I dumped the entire scoop of formula on the floor because I missed the bottle by six inches. I'm not joking. Ask my husband. He found formula dust all over the ground where I tried to mop it up with my sock because I was too exhausted to clean it up properly.
And instead of calmly going down for his morning nap, my baby fusses and screams and arches his back and shoots snot rockets out of his nose for what seems like HOURS until his snotty-faced-rosy-cheeked head nearly pops off and he collapses because he has no more energy left to continue his fit.
In fact, as I type this he is screaming in his crib although I am sure that I will check on him soon because listening to him scream is adding to my desire to leave this place and find a fancy, expensive hotel bed with 1000 thread count sheets {falls into a daydream consisting of a fancy hotel bed, a deep tissue massage, a warm bubble bath, and hot chocolate via room service} {Bbwwwaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh - nevermind, daydream OVER}.
And I cannot sit another day in a house that is a disaster. I just can't seem to work the vacuum as I am wheezing and hacking and sticking tissues up my nose. But if I could only find the energy and ability to lift a dustrag or just any old rag {hey, what about that sock I used to wipe up the baby formula?} then maybe I'd find my mind that's lost in this mess.
Dear Father of the Heavens {ahh, Heaven, that sounds, well, heavenly},
How did it get like this? One minute I was writing with my pink, sparkly pen in my flower-scented journal about the wonders of being a girl and falling in love and having a jet-setting life, and then BAM! I'm surrounded by poopie diapers and snotty noses and sleepless nights and, well, I've lost it. Can you help? Please? I need my sanity back. I'm sure you know where it is. Can you just give me one little hint? Is it here, under this pile of dirty laundry {peeyou - what's that smell} or maybe over here behind this stack of loud and obnoxious light-up toys {Motrin, please?}. Maybe, just maybe, you could give me that special "snap" like Mary Poppins has so that I could clean this place up in a jiffy and my family could all take a spoonful of sugar and we'd be happy and healthy and clean and sane once again.
