Tired dork

Sleep deprivation is a bitch.

But when I’ve had a bad night, or two, or twenty I only have to look at one of the many mothers (and oh, there are so many right now, it must have been rutting season last May in this part of the country) at the school-gate carrying a newborn baby with that flash of pride that only a new parent has, to remember that my sleep deprivation is never as bad as theirs.

Still, I get my fair share of it, but after twenty child-years of sleeplessness I would say have become vaguely accustomed to it in the way one becomes accustomed to their husband’s farts – unpleasant but tolerable. Unless it was curry night the night before, in which case ‘sleeplessness’ stinks. Literally. But after a bad night, or two, or twenty, I wake much the same as I would if I had had a whole night’s uninterrupted beauty sleep: ugly and needing coffee, so it seems irrelevant most days how much sleep I did actually get the night before.

This morning is no different: I drag myself out of bed when number two son whispers right in my ear that he needs a wee (why right in the ear? is it a joke to see my body flail in fright as I spend that nanosecond deciding whether I am about to die of a fright-induced heart attack or try and defend myself again a would-be attacker?). The baby slumbers on after our busy night dealing with his incredibly important teething pain,  so important it required me to be awake for most of the seven nightime hours to deal with it. I look at his baby sleep with a mixture of longing and jealousy.  I’m nauseous with tiredness and also the shock of being woken slap-bang in the middle of the three minutes sleep I had last night/this morning/whenever it was. But I stumble out of bed and dipstick wee, wondering how I will remember the relevant readings from the dipstick in my head long enough to write them down. I get the children up one by one, help them dress, look desperately at the coffee machine, help them get breakfast and then go back upstairs to shower. I think about finding clean clothes and decide there isn’t time, go downstairs to make sandwiches and find all the endless necessary faffy bits to go in lunchboxes, help everyone brush their teeth, look desperately – longingly – at the coffee machine, rush everyone to get coats, hats and gloves on and as I look out the window, I see it has started to snow. Thick, blizzardy snow. Thick, bloody-blizzardy snow.

Fun on the school run!

I hate the school run with a passion, even on the best of days. First day back after the half term break, feet dragging, snow falling, and it’s worse than ever. I drop one child after another at correct doorways, check they have what they are supposed to, pick up rancid lunchboxes that have been sitting unloved in a closed school for ten days and make sure I take away the requisite number of children with me  (once left the one year old in the class of six year olds – he loved it. The teacher? not so much). I pick up another child to take to preschool with us, creating added danger to my already precarious arrangements to get everyone safely to the correct place. I think about coffee. I try not to think about how tired I am.

At the last drop-off the baby wants to play in the playground. I think of everything I need to do that morning, the first of which would be TO MAKE COFFEE. It is still blizzarding so I haul his screaming, tired body home and put him on the sofa, where he continues to show me how indignent he feels. I share your pain, Son, I haven’t had my coffee either.

So tired.

I’m on autopilot now. The snow is falling. Must phone Matthew and warn him about the snow, tell him he’ll need to start making his way back home from the office or else risking being snowed-out, so rural is our village  – and our road – that he won’t be able to get back safely. I call his office and his secretary answers. Matthew must be in a meeting.  Hi Sarah, I say, forcing as much tiredness out of my voice as I can muster, could you pass on a message to Matthew? Could you tell him it’s snowing heavily here and he might need to make his way home soon if it carries on like this?

There is a pause.

And it is in that split second that I remember that my husband is five thousand miles away in America, and has been since yesterday morning. And I am a dork.

Tagged as: sleep deprivation