No Rest For The Weary

Oh. My. Word.

I think my boys have made a pact, a vendetta of sorts, and I'm the victim. Their goal is to push me closer and closer to insanity. And they are succeeding.

According to Wikipedia, the definition of sleep deprivation is as follows:

Sleep deprivation is the condition of not having enough sleep; it can be either chronic or acute. A chronic sleep-restricted state can cause fatigue, daytime sleepiness, clumsiness and weight loss or weight gain.^[1] It adversely affects the brain and cognitive function.^[2] Few studies have compared the effects of acute total sleep deprivation and chronic partial sleep restriction.^[2] Complete absence of sleep over long periods is impossible for humans to achieve (unless they suffer from fatal familial insomnia); brief microsleeps cannot be avoided.^[3] Long-term total sleep deprivation has caused death in lab animals.^[4]

I fear that I may die from lack of sleep. Or at least be thrown in the loony bin. The sad thing is that the loony bin sounds pretty appealing right now! I mean, it would be uninterrupted sleep!!!!!!! And people would probably bring me food and medicine. And I could read in peace.

You see, the last few weeks have been a doozy. My boys are not sleeping. It's not all their fault. Christian is sick. He has a cough. So this is a sample of what happens at night:

*cough cough cough* (pause for 5 seconds) *cough cough cough) (pause for 5 seconds) *COUGH COUGH COUGH WRETCH AND DRY HEAVE* (begin crying) And this goes on All. Night. Long. Since Josh is gone Christian inevitably comes into bed with me shortly after I get in bed, so I listen to him coughing all night. And I just don't know what to do about it because I give him both his inhalers and cough medicine. But it doesn't stop the coughing. It's driving me insane.

Then, we have Owen. Owen who has perhaps been having nightmares. Because I'll tuck him into bed, pray with him, and 30 seconds later he's coming out of his room crying that he had a bad dream. Except, he clearly hasn't even fallen asleep yet. So then HE joins me in the bed. And let me tell you, a queen size bed is not big enough for me and 2 restless, coughing sleeping boys who are all elbows, knees and fingers poking and smacking and pushing me.

Then, at 5:30a.m. it's like an internal alarm goes off (no matter that I've been up since 3a.m. and don't fall back asleep. No matter that the boys have had maybe 7 hours of interrupted sleep.) and the boys are raring to go, bouncing on the bed, screaming and laughing. And it's sheer torture.

Sleep is beckoning to me, calling me. I feel like I'm in quicksand, sinking into the depths of slumber and then every 2 minutes the boys are jarring me awake. My brain feels like it's in a pinball game. My head is going to downright explode. The clutches of nausea have a firm grip on my throat. I'm fighting off sleep while at the same time all I want to do is succumb to it and sleep for 12 years straight.

SHEER TORTURE. So I start my day by wading through the quicksand of sleep, my brain is all cobwebby, my head is pounding, I can't even think straight, my stomach is threatening upheaval and I'm supposed to be getting my kids breakfast, dressed, Kate off to school, keep the house in some kind of order, keep the laundry moving, etc...

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I think I'd rather take the loony bin. :-D