Sleep: What is it Good For

Sleep deprivation. It is a funny thing. In the Johnson household, we are currently averaging about two 3 hour spurts of sleep. Last night, we actual got 8 hours, but Madelyn is 7 weeks old and we just aren't getting too excited about it. This wouldn't be the first time she's fooled us in her young life. And I just don't like being made a fool when it comes to something as precious as sleep.

Ah. How I miss it. I am one of those people who actually requires a lot of sleep to fully function. This is why I have not been blogging. Slowly this lack of sleep is turning my brain to mush. No lie. Stories take me forever to tell. And listening... man. I don't even hear words coming out of your mouth until the next sentence. Even then, you'll probably have to repeat yourself multiple times before eventually just giving up. 

No sleep also makes me extremely forgetful. I forget why I am in the shower. I wash my hair at least three times during showers. I forget letting Parker back inside from being walked. I forget dates. I forget to put on deodorant. (Don't worry I recently started to wear perfume to mask the smell of spit up so it's probably all good.) I also have forgotten to lock my car on numerous trips out and about and a couple of times I've had to rewash a load of laundry I forgot about.

Jeremy can't remember what he's doing most of the time these days either. It's quite funny. He's gotten up from dinner to refill his drink and while walking into the kitchen has forgotten that he was going there for that purpose. He also can't remember what he just did. He's gone to get B his water and then forgotten what he did with the water after getting it two minutes prior. He's forgotten he's turned off the fireplace and I'll catch him standing over it (turned off) while trying to warm his hands. I think he uses sticky notes constantly... and he might need to get his eyes examined. That fireplace thing...

Sleep deprivation has also made us say really stupid things. My go to snack lately has been nuts and dark chocolate M&Ms. It's basically trail mix without the raisins. Or so I like to think. Well, Jeremy went to get some and noticed that my latest mix had slightly more M&Ms than nuts. His comment was, "Want some M&Ms with your chocolate?" I couldn't make too much fun because just prior Madelyn was crying to eat and it was taking me slightly longer to get set up and ready for her. Jeremy made some comment making fun of my slowness and I responded with, "Don't call me a bad girl." Yeah... so you know....

Jeremy and I are also learning that no sleep makes us horrible parents.  For instance, Bradley was put into time out today by Jeremy. From time out, he yelled, "Mommy, help me!" He sounded so distressed that I couldn't stop laughing. Yes, laughing at the misery of my son. That's me. Then, there was last night at dinner. Bradley is a great eater and will eat all kinds of foods, but lately he has started to pick and choose his favorites and only eat those. So while he loves green beans, he decided last night he wanted only ham for dinner. Whenever I gave him a spoon of green beans to eat, he'd throw them back into the pot. He had great aim and we are getting little sleep so naturally we couldn't stop laughing. So you can imagine how many of our green beans were thrown back into the pot. Then, I told him that he would get more ham if he ate some green beans. He complied until he started throwing them in the pot again. After making ourselves stop laughing, I told him he should not throw them in the pot. So what does our son do?? He puts them on the plate with the ham which technically was obeying even though it was disobedient. The smartness of his disobedience got us and it was all over at that point. We couldn't get on to him because we were once again laughing. Yup. Parents of the year over here.

I imagine that if Madelyn doesn't quickly start going longer at nights you might find Jeremy and I walking aimlessly in circles forgetful of who we are and what we are doing and why little people are running our home.

And then maybe that is their plan...