Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Not-So-Sweet dreams...

The summer after my freshman year at the Y, I worked at Fiesta Texas, the Six Flags park in San Antonio. It was a lot of fun! I met some interesting people, had a free pass, rode the Rattler a ton, and, honestly, how many times do you get to wear liederhosen for an entire summer???

I worked a lot that summer. I know, not because of the piles of money I made, but because I would wake up several nights a week either standing in the middle of my room trying to man the big swing ride, or looking for the key to the kiddie bumper cars, or, on lucky nights, lying in bed just talking about work. (One night I realized I was "sleepworking" when I actually had to reason with myself that the swings don't run in the pitch-black, there's always some light to see by.) My sister, Erin, and I shared a room part of that summer. She didn't appreciate my little escapades into Fiesta Texas Dream Park and took to either yelling at me or, *gasp*, even punching me a little.

Anyway, I bring all this up because it's happening again! Well, I'm not kicking kids out of line for being too short, but having babies is so all-encompassing that I wake up during the night holding my squishy green pillow that my grandma made, convinced it's Nuala or Bran.


"Oh no!" I'll think, "I fell asleep with a baby, is he still breathing?" Panic sets in even as I realize it's just my pillow, because my brain still doesn't quite get the message and I fumble around under the covers for the baby I'm certain is tucked into bed with us. Eventually, I'll wake up Z, at which point he assures me the babies are in their own bed. This exasperates him somewhat. I think because we no doubt had been awake half an hour earlier, and probably will be awake again very shortly. Also, we never sleep in bed with the babies (the couch is a different story), if only my brain could process and retain that fact. Strangely, my pillow has recently been banned from the bed.

This didn't stop the episodes, just changed them a little. Now I just wake Zachariah up asking where the babies are and should we put them back in bed. He's not all that innocent either. The other night, I brought Bran downstairs, and Zac was supposed to follow with Nuala. What does he show up with? A random package of wipees. He had to stare at it for a second when I told him that wasn't our daughter.

Sleep deprivation. The ultimate entertainment.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

well id like to say it gets better but honestly i think it just changes to new worries. dont start beating z in your sleep though

Anonymous said...

You two are keeping me in stitches. I need it after the nightmares I get when I sleep. This is so fun hearing about your parenting adventures. One time I totally forgot we had Zac. We were in Lake Tahoe visiting my uncle. Time to load up the car and leave. Terry kept asking me if I had forgotten anything he kept asking and asking..I kept saying no no no Where is our baby Rose? eeeek I had left him asleep upstairs in his portabed. He was only 5 weeks old and I had totally forgotten that we had a baby. I still feel guilty.