These are the days

that I most likely will not remember. Why - you ask? Because I am utterly sleep deprived.

I remember sleep. The refreshed feeling: the ability to move, to function, to speak coherently. I fondly recall all of it. There is a reason that sleep deprivation is a form of torture. I believe it. And I have no doubt of its effectiveness on the recipient.

Now, couple of things here ; I have brought this on myself. I'm aware. I chose to have kids. This is my own doing. Got it. But still. DAMN ya'll.

For the last several days I have not had more than 1 hour of straight, uninterrupted sleep. ONE hour. I have literally seen each hour during the wee morning times tick off on the clock.

I have a 7 month old baby. And she is going through some sort of developmental leap/growth spurt. This means very bad sleeping for the parental units - or in my case - the mommy. Also - she likes to eat; this, too, because of said development leap/growth spurt.

I also have a 3 yr old son. He has decided he will no longer sleep in his own bed in his own room. He must sleep in our bed in between us. Sideways. Kicking. Often times randomly slapping me in the face as he flails his arms around.

So - not much sleep for mom. Interestingly enough my husband seems to have NO TROUBLE sleeping through any of this. I'll let you all chew on that a bit. I digress.

I need sleep people. Not just so I can properly function and parent these here kiddos - but also because of all these here freaky ailments. One of the MAIN things the Bell's Palsy sites will tell you is that to heal and heal properly (read to NOT have residuals) - you must sleep. Sleep they say - rest they say - as much as possible they say. They talk of rest/sleep for 12 - 14 hrs per day.
*bawahahahahahahahhaahhahahahahahahaahahaaa* *snicker* *snort*
Sorry - please excuse the sleep deprived hysterical laughter.
So...Wait, uh. Where was I? Oh, ya.
Ok. *slaps face*
I need more sleep or at least better quality sleep. I fear this may not occur for some time though. See it's just not real likely to happen when you have kids and virtually IMPOSSIBLE when you just gave birth.

Yesterday was bad. I noticed the first clues to just how bad at 2:30am yesterday morning when I woke up to LET THE DAMN MEOWING CAT OUT and noticed how dizzy I was - just sitting up in the bed. Dizzy: like being too high up and looking down dizzy: room spinning dizzy: omg I may hurl dizzy. It did not get better. I was lightheaded. My head hurt constantly and I was just slow/punchy all day long. (yes, more so than usual - shut up.) I'm actually surprised I was able to string enough words together on my blog to inform you all of my non-writing. AND I had zero patience. ZERO. NOT a good thing when you have a 3 yr old whose very existence is one that is hell bent on testing said patience.

I need to have patience and understanding with my children but when I am *this* tired - I honestly can't. I feel like I do not know how to even relate to them. Then I read this* :

The link between sleep deprivation and psychosis (psychiatric disorders) was further documented in 2007 through a study at Harvard Medical School and the University of California at Berkeley. The study revealed, using MRI scans, that lack of sleep causes the brain to become incapable of putting an emotional event into the proper perspective and incapable of making a controlled, suitable response to the event.

So it wasn't just in my head. I feel validated and depressed all at the same time.

It was a bad day.

So I got a wee bit of sleep last night. I slept two different times last night for 2 hour stretches each. The rest of the time I was up about every hour. But it was a little better and I feel slightly more human today. I can function a bit. I'm not standing in the center of the room screaming today.

I am aware this is not a riveting blog post but it's all I'm capable of right now. Write what you know. Well, what I know intimately right now is sleep deprivation. This too shall pass. And it will most likely pass in a sleepy, foggy haze.

I'm out for today. Off to try and sleep while the short people nap.


*The quoted material is from Wikipedia's page on Sleep Deprivation.