I Am So Tired

I am so tired.

I am so tired that last night I slept in my king bed, in a top bunk bed, in a twin sized bottom bunk bed and slept on the floor beside the crib resting my head on a Boppy between the hours of 10pm and 6:30am.

I am so tired I leave indentations on the hardwood floor from my nighttime pacing. I should buy a pedometer because I may burn more calories at night than during the day. Scratch that, I do burn more calories given my walking and constant breastfeeding.

I am so tired the dog stopped sleeping in my bedroom because he is not nocturnal and needs some rest.

I am so tired I poured orange juice into my coffee.

I am so tired I squeezed tinted moisturizer onto my toothbrush.

I am so tired I put my pants on inside out and didn’t realize until I went to my Pure Barre class and other women looked at me funny. I quickly snuck into the bathroom to change.

I am so tired I look for my keys in the freezer because I have found them there before. Because sometimes when you are unloading groceries you put your keys away with the frozen peas.

I am so tired I put my home phone in my purse when I drove my kids to school this morning.

I am so tired I’ve hung up the phone after making an appointment and immediately forgotten the details of said appointment, but I was too embarrassed to call back.

I am so tired that when my five-year-old completed a mother’s day project at school she listed my favorite thing as sleep and my favorite drink as coffee.

I am so tired I cannot remember the last time I slept through the night without getting up, but I am sure that it was more than two years ago.

I am so tired because I am a milk factory for a nine-month-old.

I am so tired I have googled “baby sleep” more than 1,000 times in the last nine months.

I am so tired I rage when I read comments on baby sleep websites where anonymous parents’ declare their child slept through the night when he was six weeks old because the mother “has a night time routine.” Thanks, anonymous parent, I’ve never tried one of those things.

I’m so tired I rage when Facebook friends make status updates when their first child sleeps through the night and the child is only a couple of months old. Those parents do not understand the hex they put on themselves and the pain of people who did not birth good sleepers.

I am so tired I own more than a dozen sleep books.

I am so tired that I thought I may have accidentally side swiped a parked car while three kids screamed in the back of the van. I was late for an appointment, in heavy traffic, and there was no place to stop, when I returned five minutes later the car was gone. I then drove to the police station to confess the possibility of my mistake and the police officer told me to go home and take a nap. He told me that someone could take advantage of me in my state.

I am so tired that with the baby on my hip, I explained to the policeman that I drive a minivan and I never bumped into anything in my entire life until this minivan, but now both sides of my car are completely scraped up from pulling in and out of my garage and bumping into trashcans on a regular basis.

I am so tired that I told this policeman that the dimensions of my minivan are weird, even my husband has bumped a trashcan.

I am so tired that one day I tried several times to park my minivan next to the curb on an empty street but this simple task was nearly impossible. A construction worker watched my failed attempts. Finally, I drove around the corner to park because I didn’t want him to see my continued failed efforts. After birthing three children, my theory is that one’s parking skills are the first thing to go when you are exhausted.

I am so tired that making small talk is almost impossible. I stick my foot in my mouth constantly and then walk away embarrassed by what I have said. Yesterday, my daughter’s teacher told me she loved my kid’s pink converse high tops and I responded, “Oh, her husband is obsessed with shoes.” Oh, I mean that would be my husband who is obsessed with impractical children’s shoes.

I am so tired that I don’t even like candy, but I shove handfuls of chocolate chips or old Halloween candy in my mouth in the afternoon, so that I can make it until bedtime.

I am so tired, and I admit I did this to myself. If you have three children under five years old, the probability that at least one will be up in the middle of the night is quite high. The probability that more than one will be up is also very high, so if I am up three times with the baby and twice with the three-year-old that equals five times. The conclusion, three kids equates to never sleeping.

I am so tired that I understand the phrase “bone tired.” I literally ache.

I am so tired I know why sleep deprivation is a form of torture.

I am so tired – I NEED TO SLEEP TRAIN THE BABY STAT.