Monday, June 30, 2008

Desperately Seeking a Nap

What would qualify as evidence of needing a nap or generally more sleep? I submit this story as my answer to that question.
Last week was super busy for me. In addition to very busy days, it seemed that in the evening, before I even knew it, it was very late and I still had many things to do. To make matters worse, Austin was waking up once a night crying (we think from bad dreams) and Mia was still waking up once to eat. All the lack of sleep was quickly starting to catch up with me and I longed for the weekend so that I could catch up a little bit. That was beyond wishful thinking. Not only did I not get to rest on the weekend, but my nights ended being even longer than I expected, especially last night. We were at a graduation party for three of Mark's siblings (one high school and two college) most of yesterday. As I was helping clean up before we left, I grabbed a deviled egg and popped it in my mouth. At no point did it occur to me to think about the fact that the egg had been sitting on the table for a minimum of 4 hours. Now, I don't know for sure that the egg was the problem, but I felt very sick last night and sleeping was not going well. In addition, Mia was up three times. When the kids got up this morning I thought I would die!
All day I was watching the clock waiting for nap time so that I could finally get some rest. But, Mia, who also didn't get much sleep last night, decided to take a three hour morning nap. I didn't want to wake her up because I knew she needed the sleep and usually she will still take at least and hour nap in the afternoon. So, I put Austin down, spent a little one on one time with Mia and then when it was time, I put her back down for her afternoon nap.
I don't think I can accurately describe how absolutely fantastic it felt to lay down. I fell asleep almost immediately. Ten minutes later Austin woke up from his nap. I laid there praying that by some miracle he would go back to sleep. I vowed that I would not go into his room until he was screaming my name. At least my body would get to rest even if I couldn't actually sleep anymore. Within about 15 minutes there was silence and I thought for sure that I got my miracle. About 30 seconds later, only about half an hour into her nap, Mia woke up. I really was on the brink of tears I was so tired. And, it turned out that Austin was not asleep, he was just quietly playing in his crib. Nap time was officially over!
I got out of the bed, I think even more tired than before, and retrieved both kids. I am not even sure my eyes were completely open as I walked back to my room. I had an errand to run before the end of the day so I changed their diapers, threw on some clothes, took a look in the mirror to make sure there was nothing unsightly about me that would scare other people and walked downstairs to gather my stuff to leave.
As I exited the garage to pop the kids in the car, I saw my next door neighbor and my neighbor across the street standing there talking. They greeted me and I did the same. We made small talk as I put one kid in the car and then the other. I said goodbye and headed to the post office. I knew that my small local branch would close before I could get there so I headed to the large branch about 10 minutes away. I passed no less than 6 people on the way in and once inside passed another handful. I stood in line with some other folks for about 5 minutes. Finally, it was my turn. I headed to the counter, did my mailing and headed out. Again, passing a good number of people. As we were driving out of the parking lot I felt what I thought was a piece of hair or something tickling my chest. I reached down to extract it from the v-neck area of my shirt. But, instead of feeling skin, all I felt was material. I slid my hand toward my neck and still I was touching cotton. I think to myself, "Maybe I didn't put a v-neck shirt on." So, I pulled the shirt forward and got my answer. It was a tagless shirt, so the "tag" was printed on the material and I could have read every word. The v-neck was on my back!
I had looked in the mirror, apparently with my eyes closed, and had not even caught it. There is no way that people didn't notice. To make matters worse, when I got home and turned the shirt around and looked in the mirror with my eyes open, I noticed a rather large spit-up stain on the front of the shirt. Which, of course, I hadn't seen because it was on my back. What a lovely fashion statement I made to my neighbors and a load of strangers!
So, I submit this as my evidence of desperately needing a nap. Now I am off to bed early to hopefully start tomorrow a lot more rested!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain! Seven months and still sleep deprived!

watson said...

hilarious! hopefully you'll get some good rest soon!