For weeks now, I’ve been averaging 4-5 hours of sleep a night. Why the twins insist on waking every few hours to gorge on milk is a mystery to me, and though I am tempted by suggestions of medicating them to sleep with baby cold medicine, I cannot help but feel that would be wrong. So, I wake, make bottles (after they have been breast fed), feed, burp, change, and lull one or another kid back to sleep two (sometimes three) times a night. Good times.
None of this would matter save for one tiny detail – I don’t function well on less than 7 hours of sleep a night. Go ahead parents, laugh at the notion, but I’m just being frank here. I don’t expect it, but my body does. Come to think of it, my brain probably does too. Nonetheless, I will not be seeing sleep like that for quiet a while longer.
Thus sleep deprived, this week it did come to pass that my body’s defenses, weakened by fatigue, did give way to a stomach-born illness and a fever crept over me. With a tinge of guilt, for our ayi was also in the hospital this week for something entirely unrelated, I did excuse myself from daytime baba duties and blissfully crawled into bed for the longest uninterrupted sleep I’ve had in weeks, all the while ignoring any thoughts of food.
After two days of living in fever-induced, food-deprived haze, I awoke feeling rested, hungry, and ready for baby duty. This made me realize that getting sick is a great way to catch up on my sleep. It also made me realize that I should volunteer in some capacity in the sick child clinic at the hospital. Heck, I could just spend more time in my daughter’s kindergarten for that matter. Easier still, I’ll simply never wash my hands again.
Photo by VARF
