As we were eating dinner last night, I asked Becky if having children means "there's always something"; the monkey wrenches like changing what and how much she eats, when she will have separation anxiety, diarrhea, an obsession with cups, etc. She said "Of course." I can't help but thinking, however, that we have more of a "there's always something" experience with Grace than most parents have with their children. There are, of course, her medical issues, but what can you do about that? It's something we just have to deal with and a long time ago I got over the "Woe is me" tendencies and got it together because I have to be there for her. Travelling to Philadelphia once every three months for a MRI with sedation and Jersey every once in awhile for visits to the neurologist are our normal; we don't know any other way.
The most frustrating, sometimes agonizing, thing about this child is her sleep pattern, or lack thereof to be more apt. We can attribute the fact that she has never been a good sleeper to her reflux she had as a newborn. She was in such pain - la pauvre - that instead of sleeping throughout the day, as most newborns do, she screamed. Literally 16-20 hours a day, screamed. We couldn't put her down in a bouncey chair, swing, or crib. She would finally pass out at about 11 PM and sleep until 7 or 8 the next morning in a bassinet, but other than those 8 or 9 hours, she was being held. This persisted and Becky ended up having her in a sling all day. But, she barely ever slept during the day.
She evolved to fight sleep and needless to say, we weren't all that surprised, once we actually got her on the semblance of a sleep schedule, when she dropped her second daily nap at 9 months. I guess Mother Nature, puzzled, gave up and said "Fine, if you don't want to sleep, don't." We got over the loss of the second nap because, really, did we have a choice? But, since 9 months,we've been stuck in a VISCIOUS pattern, over which we have no power. Currently, you have some days when she doesn't even take one nap. I have assigned a scientific term for these days: sucky. Then, sometimes you get a combo punch where she won't nap during the day and then wakes up in the middle of the night. This pattern persists, getting a little worse each day, and when we finally get used to it and expect it, she sleeps through the night and - shocker - wakes up rosy-cheeked and happy. Before this good night's sleep, she was a crotchedy, ornery, little runt because she was so freakin' overtired! Everyone we know has said things like, "They go through phases. They do. Mine went through one, too. But, I've never seen them do this over and over. That's really weird." Well, you've been tremendously helpful...
As you can probably imagine, Becky and I are also crotchedy, ornery runts when this is all happening. Mornings just suck. We're zombies. My brain is like an outdated computer, my CPU crunching as it limps along; thoughts like "I need milk for my coffee" have a little hourglass in my brain. I can't wait to get to work where at least I have some freakin' control over something! Poor Becky, in turn, has to deal with Christina - the name I coined for Grace's pissed-off alter-ego - all day. And if she doesn't nap, I can bet that I'm going to get a desperation call.
On these days, I think we're both working for bedtime. 5:30 rolls around and you're like "OK, all I need to do is get her through dinner. I can do this." After she's down - and she takes sometimes 2 hours to fall asleep after we put her in her crib - we have dinner in front of the TV and get in bed and finally, praise God, drift...off...to sleep...ONLY TO BE AWAKENED AT 12:30 or 1:00. Rinse and repeat, as desired.
There are 5 stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance - which I think also hold true for sleep deprivation at the hands of a child. I would say I'm at depression and Becky is at acceptance. This last bout has been ebbing and flowing for about 3 weeks. At one point, 6 out of 7 days, Grace was up for 3 hours in the middle of the night. When this was happening, I was definitely in the anger and bargaining phases. When she was up from 12:30 to 2:30 last night and then up again at 5:00, I was just sad. Especially at 5:00. Because light was creeping through the blinds and you knew there was no going back to sleep. So sad...
I've gotten to the point, however, that I'm mostly sad for her. It's not like she's not tired. Sometimes she just stares at me and it's like she's asleep with her eyes open. She's exhausted and overtired. At night, when I'm awake listening to her squawking and singing on the monitor, I ask myself what's going on that wakes her up. Is the reflux back? Is she having nightmares? Is she teething? Are her circadian rhythms just in outer space? It's enough to make you crazy. But, you're too tired to be crazy.
I'm sure this will pass. And when it does something else will pop up. It's like raising a child is a game of whack-a-mole.
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