i'm watching through my own light as it turns the shade of you

I have never known sleep deprivation like I do as a mom.

I love being a mom. I love my son more than I ever knew was possible. But there are days, like today, when I would love to get back into bed and just stay there for five or six hours.

When I was pregnant, I hated it when people would tell me to make sure to get sleep because I wouldn't be able to later. First of all, once I hit the third trimester, I couldn't really sleep all that well anyway. I would just lay in bed next to my husband and listen to him breathe or snore and read blogs and whatnot on my phone. Secondly, even if I was sleeping 20 hours a day, it's not like I was storing it up in some sort of bank I could make withdrawals out of now. Thirdly, as a pregnant lady I intensely disliked when people would tell me what I was in for because I knew from my nieces and nephew that no two babies are alike, no two moms are alike, and no two home situations are alike. It just got on my nerves to have someone so knowingly tell me what things would be like especially because the most likely people to share these kinds of things didn't know me all that well.

My whole goal every night is to be in bed myself at 1 am to be able to watch/fall asleep to Friends on tv. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don't. Sometimes, like last night, I was actually in bed several hours before 1 but just as I drifted off to sleep, the baby woke up. I walk a fine line when that happens. I want to make sure I'm awake enough to figure out what he needs but stay asleep enough that once I get him settled back in his crib I can go back to sleep myself. Sometimes that is super tricky. And some nights when I have him asleep in my arms and I lay him down in his crib and he pops right up, I pick him up with tears in my eyes because I am really that tired.

In most ways I am really glad that I waited awhile (at least compared to my family history and sister and cousins) to have my first baby. I have a lot more patience and understanding now than I did ten years ago. I have a husband who has a lot more patience and understanding of me than he did five years ago when we first met. But sometimes I wish that I still had the same energy and ability to stay up ridiculously late and get up early and be just fine. I know I could figure it all out if I was working full-time, but right now I'm thankful I'm a stay at home mom and can take naps when S naps sometimes.