Failure

I've been trying really hard to be positive lately. I lead a charmed life and I do appreciate it, but when the sleep deprivation worsens and I go from merely debilitated to nearly paralyzed, it's hard to see the color and joy of life. I love staying home with my kids and do not miss working. It's hard not having any external definitions of success, though. If my main role in life is that of mother, and one or more of my children is chronically miserable, doesn't that make me a failure?

My youngest, my boy twin, has spent such a huge percentage of his life crying. Screaming, more accurately. He is still, at 10 months, the worst sleeper ever, and it makes him cranky and me horrible. I just can't be nice, I can't be human, with less than 2 hours of consecutive sleep in a night and less than 6 hours total for months on end. I can't. I think those words so many times every night between 10 and 6. I can't, I can't do this any. more. It's not possible that my heart keeps beating and my lungs keep breathing when I feel like I may combust or shatter at any second. I want to be a good mother and a good person, but this is so awful.

Why is he so unhappy all the time? I dread his toddlerhood, I've suffered through his infancy, and what kind of mother feels that way? When I tell my 6 year old stories from when he was a baby, I wonder what on earth I'll tell boy twin. You were terrible? I wanted to run away from home?