Walking to Stay Awake

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ThoughtBubbleMy husband was pacing the other night as I was trying to write one of our infamous to-don’t lists (that’s a to-do list that never gets done). It’s not like him to pace and, quite honestly, it was irritating and distracting.

“What are you doing?” I snapped.

“I’m walking to stay awake,” he answered with a straight face.

I laughed. Hard. But then I realized this was a wonderful example of exactly how pathetic our life had become.

Just to be clear, we do not have infants. We’re not getting up at all hours of the night to feed, comfort, or change dirty diapers. Our kids are eight and ten years old, yet we are still so completely sleep-deprived our days are lived in child-fog. Dude, back off. Child-fog is real.

We walk around like zombies (good-looking ones without the cannibalism thing) and I’m wondering when this is going to end. How old do our kids need to be before we get a decent night’s sleep?

 

My Sunday thoughts in 200 words or less.

 

21 thoughts on “Walking to Stay Awake”

  1. gradually they stop waking in the night, coming into your room, and then they start going out on their own and you wonder where they are and how they’re getting on. And they go to university, travelling and you don’t hear from one day to the next and still you catch yourself wondering… grab your sleep when you can

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    • Oh, my heart… Here I am complaining in a comfortable little thought bubble and you shine the light of truth onto my rant. I don’t want to think of my little ones leaving and going to university quite yet. I think I’ll take the sleep deprivation a bit longer. (I’m crying a little here…give me a moment.)

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      • It’s exciting too of course, watching them become independent people with their own hope and fears but the tug in the gut never really goes. You’ll love it. The one good thing is that every age is a delight, even during the Lawyer’s simian period of grunts and sniffs

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  4. You have to have another child. You see, the recipe for sleep is that you can relax enough to sleep by the third kid. I know that pacing pace and I think it was worse when they were teenagers, out driving at night to rehearsals or sports. By the time my son was driving to cross-country meets as a senior, my girls were already out of the house on their own and had a wonderful wall of sleepiness hit. I fell asleep before he got home, stayed asleep all night and I knew the spell of parental wakefulness had ended! Until I woke up the next morning to find three panicked calls on my answering machine…”Mom! Mom! Pick up!” He got lost, very lost, and I slept through it! Luckily some other parent still on child #1 or #2 was wide awake and helped him find his way home. 🙂

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    • This is marvelous! I can break the spell! With another child. O_o

      Although, I have heard people say that three or more are easier than two. I’ve never wanted to prove them right…or wrong.

      So, by the third one you were all “Whatever. Find your own way home, buddy. I’m going to bed.” I can see that. (I’m sorry, but as frightening as the voicemail must have been, that is hilarious!) I’m glad that the other mom, who was still in zombie mode due to only having one or two kids, helped him. Bless her sleep-deprived soul.

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  5. You know, I actually got decent sleep while I was home schooling. We could start the day whenever worked best for us, and that typically was a little later. Since putting the two youngest in public school, I’m totally living in the fog–and not just because I’m expecting. School starts too early.

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  6. Now you really have raised the bar with ‘200 words or less’ (please edit that to italics for extra emphasis!!)

    Great post and I can provide no advice as ours has just turned 16 and we are still sleep deprived – yesterday he woke us singing opera in the shower 😖🎶 #NotNormal

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    • Hahaha! Singing opera in the shower! That’s quite the way to be woken up. 😀 I can’t stop laughing. So sleep deprivation is just a parenting thing? Not a parent-of-a-newborn thing? That’s fun.

      Thank you! I enjoy writing my posts but have been on a once-a-week schedule for a year, which I like, so I figured these thought bubbles would be a fun post between my “real” posts. Or something like that. I will italicize or bold the “200 words or less”.

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  7. Child fog!!! I believe it’s real for sure. It’s funny–when my husband’s sleepy, he takes a nap. When I’m sleepy, I hop on the treadmill. It’s the perfect cure for that afternoon slump while I’m working. But I don’t have kids around to put me in a fog, so I have no excuse for my tiredness.

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    • Naps don’t work for me–they make me groggy and cranky. So I’m left with your (awesome) idea of jumping on the treadmill. I will have to try that. Even if it’s for a few minutes…who knows?

      And, what now? You totally have good reasons to be tired. We all do. Maybe I should rename the “child fog” and just call it what it is: “a special form of brain fog”.

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