Late night angry musings of a sleep hoarder

I remember insomnia from years ago - lying in bed growing more and more awake, body growing twitchy with the need to give up, get up, even though I knew it meant a long hard day. I remember late college nights spent frantically typing next-day-due papers, cursing myself for procrastinating again, feeling my words get clumsier as sleep pulled harder and harder at my eyes and brain. I remember, more vaguely, getting up with my first son during his first few weeks, and not minding at all - he seemed such a miracle, I couldn't get enough of him, and my brain was rendered pretty much useless by that point anyway, so sleeplessness didn't make me noticeably more fuzzy. Of course, he started sleeping through the night at two months, just in time for me to go back to work, proving himself to be the miracle I thought he was.

Then there was my second son. The one playing happily next to me right now, at 2:36, while everyone else sleeps. The one who is almost two years old and who is darling and sweet and good except when it comes to sleep. He has never been a reliable sleeper. For his first eight months, he literally never slept in stretches longer than two hours. And neither did I. I know, all mothers have sleepless horror stories, but this nearly killed me outright. I couldn't speak clearly, I certainly shouldn't have been driving (but did anyway, of necessity - questioning in my moments of lucidity how it was even useful to anyone to force new mothers back to work before they have any hope of being productive), I was mean as a snake and hated everyone - the baby only slightly less than myself.

He finally did learn to sleep, and I slowly, grudgingly forgave him for almost destroying my sanity, but ever since those awful long dark nights, I have a new relationship with sleep. I am jealously protective of my rest now in a way I certainly was not in those days of insomnia and overdue term papers and college parties. I bitterly resent any and all interruptions of my sleep, even though I know rationally that the occasional nighttime visit from my children is unavoidable and anyway not going to do me any permanent damage. I feel awful about this, because I'm not nearly nice enough to my poor four year old when he does wake me up - once I'm fully awake, I can think clearly enough to disguise my anger and frustration, but in those first few blurry moments I must seem to him a mommy monster, and that breaks my heart. In my regular life as a mother, I try so hard not to make him feel guilty or bad about himself - he's very sensitive and easily upset - but I undo all my good intentions with a few angry words at 2am.

Worst of all are nights like this one - the four year old couldn't sleep and woke everyone else up (well, everyone except my husband, who for the sake of this blog entry you should just assume is on another planet and therefore unavailable from bedtime until his alarm goes off in the morning). I was unforgivably nasty to the poor little thing and sent him back to bed feeling worse, I'm sure, than he had when he got up. By then, of course, the baby was wide awake - my same sweet baby who didn't need sleep as an infant needs it less as a toddler, and if he's awakened at all he's pretty much done for the night. So here I am, approaching 3am, trying to outlast someone who can sleep whenever he chooses. To be so jealous of a baby.

My idea of a perfect vacation is a dark hotel room with a deep soft bed, and silence. I used to dream of seeing the world, learning new things, now I dream, when I can, of sleep. That's actually true - often when I am asleep, I dream that I am tired and am not allowed rest. A therapist would have a heydey with me.

Sorry for the self-pitying ramble. The baby is cuddling up to me now (thank goodness he's so cute), so I'm going to go try to salvage the last few hours of night.