SLEEP? WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING SLEEP!

Earlier this week

Max (2 years old) comes into our bedroom at 1:20 am saying, "I wet, mammy, I wet, mammy, I wet..." I’m so drowsy I don’t know what’s going on. I just say, “What? What?” repeatedly.

Brendan (husband, age undisclosed) finally interprets: "He says HE'S WET."

So, I get up and change Max’s diaper, then try to put him back into his own bed—a futile effort. The diaper change has roused him. I bring him into our bed, stick him in the space between our pillows. This usually works.

Toss, turn, toss, turn. No one sleeps.

Around 2:30 AM, Zach, the almost 5 year-old, shows up from out of nowhere on my side of the bed. I mumble: "Go to daddy's side of the bed." He does.

Still from - Treasure of The Sierrra Madre

Over on that side, I hear Brendan say, "There isn't room for four people!" Zach gets into our bed, and Brendan goes down the hall to Zach's bedroom, to sleep under the Diego comforter and John Deere tractor blanket.

My head sinks deeper into my pillow thinking: ‘I’m sleeping with my children instead of my husband. I don’t care. I just want to sleep.’

Twenty minutes later, Max sits bolt upright, crying: "My bed, my bed!" I lift Max, start leaving the room.

Zach lifts his head, groggy, off Brendan’s pillow: “I’m really tired.” I pat his head, tell him to close his eyes, go to sleep; I’ll be back in a few minutes after I settle Max into his bed.

I take Max down the hall to his bedroom. Now, Zach is in our bed alone; Brendan is in Zach's room; Max is in his bed; and I am on the sofa in Max's room. I’m only around 5’3” tall, and the sofa is too short, even for me. I don’t care, I’m lying down. I close my eyes. Sleep approaches me, gives me the once over, considers enveloping me in its sweet oblivion. It then recedes, rejecting me, because--

http://www.whme.com/Admin/images/greenacres1.jpg

--Max won't sleep. Toss and turn, toss and turn. He gets up and joins me on the sofa. The two of us are now scrunched together. I don’t care: I’d sleep in a cage, loaded on the back of a flatbed pickup as it went down the road at 50 miles an hour, kicking up dust, blasting the theme tune to Green Acres repeatedly from its speakers, if that was all I had. I’m a mother of two boys under the age of five; I know about sleep deprivation. I try to drift off despite the discomfort (baby legs in my belly, no pillow under my head).

That’s when Zach gets up. I hear him leave our bedroom and go down the hall to his own room. He evicts Brendan from the Diego bed. Brendan doesn't realise I’m in Max's room with Max--so instead of going back to our bed, he goes down to the living room and crashes on the sofa, with no pillow.

So, now, to recap: Brendan is on the sofa downstairs; Zach in his own bed: Max and I are on the small sofa in Max's room; the marital bed is empty. Our big, lovely, comfy, memory foam and spring combination mattress is empty.

People start falling asleep. Zach sleeps in his own bed. Brendan, downstairs. Max finally falls asleep around 5 AM, in his bed (having decided the sofa wasn’t for him). I tip toe back to my bedroom and fall asleep by 5:30 AM--praying to the gods of baby sleep that these people I gave birth to crash out until 9 AM.

At precisely 6:59 AM, Max comes back over to my side of the bed (where this all started 6 hours ago), asks me to come back to his bedroom. I take him back to his bed. He tosses and turns and can’t sleep.

Zach wakes up around 7:30 AM. The circus starts again with the bed hopping, except now it's time for Brendan to go to work. I give up on sleep and everyone is downstairs in front of cartoons by 7:45, and I’m staring at the kettle, blurry-eyed, nauseous from lack of sleep, willing it to boil.