Welcome To My Padded Cell

Getting up at 5am is an ass-kicker. I remember my life as an insomniac, back before I got pregnant and suddenly couldn't get enough sleep and not even the thought of Bush becoming president could keep me up past 9pm. Now I don't sleep as much as I should be but it's because I don't want to go to sleep. I fight it like toddlers do. I feel my lids growing heavy by 10pm and I prop them open with eyelash curlers so that I DON'T EVER GO TO SLEEP AGAIN.

It's truly ridiculous. I want to stay up late because I need to do what I call "unwinding" which consists of drinking beer while watching television episodes on DVD until I literally pass out on the bed and have to wake up later and get into my pajamas. I usually crash out between 11pm and 12:30am. My "unwinding" time is the only time I feel I can sit in a catatonic state not talking to anyone or doing anything besides drooling and pretending not to be half asleep every time Philip comes to gawk at his dozing crazy wife "not sleeping". It's almost as though I need to spend time in a padded cell, but there being no access to one, I do my best to improvise.

Max is not a good sleeper either. Never has been consistently a good sleeper, though for the last year and a half there's been a lot fewer night wakings from nightmares, and he's been getting up later (between 6:30am and 7am instead of 5:30am.) Now he's having a really hard time getting to sleep so he comes into my room to interrupt my very important catatonic state to announce for the thirtieth time in the last hour that he is still awake.

He waits for my response. I'm a solutions type of mom, I almost always have some solution to suggest. In this case I come perilously close to apologizing to him for passing my sleepless genes to him and telling him that there will come a day when the only thing that will interrupt his awful sleepless cycle and prevent him from going mad in a very traditional delusional way will be an extra strong dose of codeine.*

I once went three weeks with no more than one or two hours of sleep a night. I can tell you from personal experience that this is a very unhealthy experience. It is said that if humans go too long without sleep they will go insane and then die. We need to turn our internal computers off. Mine doesn't have a very good off switch. Apparently, neither does Max's. Now, why couldn't I have given him some gene upgrades? What's the use of being capable of building a human being if we can't build them better than ourselves?

I have only experienced one serious bout of insomnia since I had my kid. It was also a three week intense stint. I don't recommend it. I have come to value getting at least seven hours of sleep. Even if it's not quality sleep. There was a guy named Gerard in my dream the other night but don't worry, I didn't dream cheat on my man. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But what the heck?

To be perfectly honest, I like getting up at 5am. It is nicer to see the sun rise after having slept through some of the dark than to stay up through the dark until the sun rises.

So, obviously, the trick is for me to be like my own parent and give myself the sleep smack down: GET YOUR PIG-ASS TO BED OR ELSE YOU WON'T GET TO EAT ANY CHEESE ALL DAY TOMORROW!!!!!! Nothing scares me like a lack of cheese.

It seems I should go to sleep at 10pm. But that's only minutes after my kid has finally stopped interrupting my evening drool-fest.

Suddenly I see our real future: the kid lives at home until he's 43 (that's when he's says he's leaving home, I didn't tell him that only serial killers and/or virgin men live at home until they're middle aged, there's plenty of time to bust that bubble) and the three of us (Philip is unshaven, wearing a "wife-beater" tee and I'm in a Mrs. Roper style Muu Muu and have an impressive perm) and we're all three watching the Price is Right at three in the morning. Eating cereal with no milk. The only non-drug addicts up at that hour.

*For anyone who's suddenly on high alert- I never have taken more than a few sleeping pills in my life. I don't propose or desire that my kid take any unless he ends up experiencing the involuntary extreme sleep deprivation I experienced. I don't advocate a careless or frequent use of sleep aids. But I also don't advocate a sleepless life which is similar to experiencing torture and for any person who experiences routine sleeplessness I think they deserve to do what they need to do to get some rest. Even if they end up hooked.

I also would like to take this opportunity to mention that before any time I have resorted to manufactured sleeping aids I have exhausted all the natural remedies at my fingertips. Except for warm milk drinking because I think milk is gross by itself or with honey or whatever. Yuck. I have tried nearly every herbal, supplemental, physical, and spiritual method of obtaining sleep.

Aside from the times I haven't slept much at all, I generally don't have a good quality of sleep when I get it. Even now.

How sad. Huh? Are you crying yet at this dismal tale? Are you sorry yet that you read my sleep saga today?