O sleep, O gentle sleep

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one.  ~Leo J. Burke

When you are a new parent, you spend almost all of your time and energy focused on your child's eating and sleeping habits. In fact, you become so obsessed with it, it becomes completely normal and common to have entire adult conversations about how long your child is sleeping at night or how many ounces of milk your child is consuming.

You have this conversation with your spouse/partner constantly, with other moms all the time, but when you start regaling random Target check-out ladies with the details of your precious child's latest nighttime sleep habits, you know you've officially lost it.

Check-out Lady: "Awww, your baby is so cute!"
You: "Thanks!"
Check-out Lady: "How old is she?"
You: "She's 5 weeks. But, she still is not sleeping very well at night. I'd always heard that bigger babies slept longer earlier, but that is just not that case for her. Although, she did sleep for five hours last night. But, that was the first time she's done that. But, it seems like she's really started getting the nursing thing down. She's getting faster, which means it's quicker between sleep sessions at night. It's really been in the last week or so that she's gone any more than three hours, so I've been pretty zombie-like for most of the time. It's just so great that we can actually get out to Target and talk to another adult! It's amazing what five continuous hours of sleep can do for a new mom, isn't it?"
Check-out Lady: "Um. Ok. Here's your receipt."

Not that that ever happened or anything. Yeah.

Anyway, so, one of the fallacies in this parenting thing is the phrase "sleeping through the night." When your child finally starts consistently sleeping through the night (which for my girls was around 3-4 months), you think you're home free. At least, I did. I figured that was it. The sleepless nights were done. I could get back to being a normal semi-well-rested adult.

I laugh at my own naivete.

See, it turns out, that even though your infant starts sleeping through the night, that doesn't mean your toddler will. Or that your preschooler will. Every stage begins the sleep training and sleepless nights anew.

Currently, we are in the Charlotte-2-year-old-parental-sleep-deprivation stage.

A couple months ago, Charlotte started climbing out of her crib. We would wake up at all times of the night with a crying child in our face begging to be let in bed. Or, we'd wake up and see lights on in the kitchen or living room or Molly's room - wherever she'd decided to go exploring at 2 in the morning. This was around the same time that Molly was creeping out of her toddler bed to sleep on the chaise in our bedroom. (Yes, Molly was still in a toddler bed. My husband is frugal, what can I say.)

All this moving around during the night, started to affect Charlotte during the day. She was so tired from her nocturnal meanderings that she started falling asleep when we went to pick Molly up from preschool at 11:00. And, as any mom knows, a child falling asleep in the car ruins the actual nap time. With a 20-minute "nap" under the belt, Charlotte thought she was raring to go, refused to take her actual nap and was a cranky, whiny mess by 4:30. Ugh.

Car naps, while adorable, wreak havoc with my day.

"A day without a nap is like a cupcake without frosting." ~Terri Guillemets

True parent moments

Last night, my deep slumber was interrupted with cries. Poor Molly has been fighting a bug for a while, and it was getting the best of her. So, at 1:56 this morning, while holding my feverish and puking little girl, a thought slowly (my brain doesn't exactly move at lightning speed in the middle of the night) dawned on me. Sitting on the bathroom floor, cradling Molly, it hit me: This was one of those times when I truly feel like a mother. It's not to say that I don't always feel like a mom, but there are just those moments when the feeling is crystallized and so clear. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Cory was not having this revelation, being too busy cleaning up the puke from the floor. Props have to go out to him for that. But cleaning up puke is exactly what I'm talking about. Only a parent would be cleaning up someone else's puke from the floor at 2 in the morning. (And, I'm going to say college doesn't count, because no one actually cleans up the puke until the next morning.)

Being a parent is about so much more than just creating and delivering a baby. It's about all the other stuff you do to bring these crazy kids up in this crazy world. So, in honor and celebration of a dear friend of mine who, just this week, was finally able, through adoption, to open her arms to a little boy and call him her own, I've compiled a list of the top times I've felt like a parent. Times that have had absolutely nothing to do with actually giving birth.

Rearranging our plates

A couple weeks ago, I was in the grocery store with Molly and Charlotte. I'm pushing the cart around. I was actually picking up food with plans to prepare meals at home. This is a big deal for our house. I'm feeling pretty good about myself as a mom. So, we reach the bread aisle. I need to pick up some bread for sandwiches. I'm standing there and another mom comes up with a girl, a little older than Molly. Our girls wave to each other and smile. I give the other mom that "Aren't our kids so cute?" smile. Just a normal, Wednesday morning interaction in the grocery store. I reach down to pick up our bread. The other little girl reaches to pick the same kind. All of a sudden, I hear it. The other mom saying, "No, no! We don't eat white bread at our house, little miss Sally Mae goody-two-shoes."

Ok, so I added that last part about Sally Mae. But, I was annoyed. And, the rest was true. I'm going to go with the assumption that the mom didn't know I had my hand on that exact same type of bread when she said such a condescending thing in such a loud voice. And, I know, I know, everyone from Joy Bauer to that Eat-This-Not-That guy says that you don't eat white bread. I just cannot get on board with wheat sandwich bread. I don't like it. And, to be fair, I always get the whole grain white bread with lots of fiber and no high fructose corn syrup. That's gotta be at least somewhat better. Right? Maybe?

After being made to feel like a fairly horrible mother right there in the grocery store, the government decided to pile on. Has anyone else seen this new food "pyramid" that's out there? It isn't actually a pyramid. They've changed the shape. It is now a circle. Or, a plate, as it were. I've got to admit, it does make a lot more sense for it to be a plate. I mean, that is the vehicle from which we actually consume our meals. Well, most of the time. Unless it's from a bag (Chick-Fil-A), box (Noodles), aluminum foil (Chipotle), or chinese take-home container (Pei-Wei). What? Am I revealing a bit too much about my food consumption habits? Anyway, here are the new food recommendations, on a plate:

Great. Now I have a very visual, very colorful guilt trip.