Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Wide-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed....or Not!

It's one of the biggest injustices of being a parent. Sleep deprivation. No parent can escape it's clutches or get through the 1st year of a child's life without feeling it's effects. I am certainly no exception to this rule.

It's 6:30 am. Not THAT early, considering I used to get up at 5:45 every day to go to work when I lived in Chicago. The difference then was that I was actually sleeping through the night on a regular basis! Ella woke up at 5:30 this morning. I dragged myself from my bed, regretting the comment I made to Todd at 3am when he was feeding her a bottle. I think I muttered something like, "Thanks for getting up honey. I'll get up with her when she wakes up in the morning. " I didn't think it would be this early!

Ella's sleep patterns have it's pro's and con's. She goes to bed at a very early hour. Between 6-7 pm. Now before you all wish me those "I've been there before" suggestions about putting her to bed later and then she'll sleep later, let me tell you something. It doesn't work that way in my house. Didn't work that way when Emma was this age, doesn't work that way with Ella either. Ella will wake up between 5:30-6:30 am every day. No matter what time she goes to bed. So if I put her to bed later, she will still get up early and then I'll have a cranky baby on my hands. At least she's happy at 6am this way. I can't say the same for myself.

This morning I thought I would attempt to get her to go back to sleep. You know, it was still dark. I thought, "Maybe if I'm really quiet, she'll go back to sleep." So I bounced her for 10 minutes. She seemed as if she might be going back to sleeep, but then she started pinching the fat roles on my stomach with the hand that underneath my arm. About this same time, I felt the dreaded wet warmth of a diaper that apparently could no longer contain it's contents. Yuck. The whole front of my shirt was soaked. Well now she's really going to be awake because I have to change her diaper. But you see, I'm a pro at changing diapers in the dark, so I still held out hope. She seemed to be falling asleep as I changed her, so I thought I'd rock her for a while and get her back to sleep. Nope. More pinching of the fat roles. Leave it to a baby to remind you of your imperfections!! :)

So here I am, 6:35 am. Ella is busying herself a few feet away from me, intreged by a random piece of paper she found on the floor. And I am posting to my blog, in a desperate attempt to stay awake. It's times like these that I wish I had cable tv- my options right now are the morning news and infomercials. Oh well. They don't stay this way forever and I will eventually get a full nights sleep someday. Just in time to lay awake at night, listening for them to come in the door by their curfew. :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Poor girl...we have them coming in at various times during the night to go potty, sleep on the floor next to us, and then later to be put back in their own bed and go potty again! I guess it is better than staying up because they're out with their friends and we're waiting for them to make it back safe and sound!