a main ingredient has been lacking


I believe I have a charmed marriage. I believe I married the absolute best person to fit my jigsawed personality. By nature, we are 80% different. I yell; he keeps quiet. I fight; he loves. I rebel; he obeys. I swear; he laughs. I wave, he hugs.

We are an ideal couple--and not only in marriage. Tim picks up all the pieces I drop on this parenting ride we are on. It is no wonder the girls adore him. I call him the "girl whisperer." He can calm a troubled heart in five minutes flat. It's amazing. If you don't believe me, call him. I bet he'll help you without even uttering a word.

Before I get away with gushing about my husband, I want to get back to the point of this entry. Tim really is my perfect mate. Thankfully, I have fooled him into believing the same about me (even though we all know I can be an ornery old bear when I want to be). We have a great marriage. But...and here is the point...it is not perfect. Especially when we are lacking one key ingredient: sleep. And let's be honest, we haven't slept for five months.

There are moments I look at Tim and wonder, "Is it ever going to get better?" At the moment, all three of our girls get up at night at varying times. Obviously Elle is the worst contender, but V and Mya have woken us up a great deal too. We are exhausted. We both work long days and are completely void of energy come 8pm.

Tim copes with the lack of sleep better than I do. I have been extremely snappy and grumpy and have been known to say, "You don't know what it's like to feel the way I do" when heeellllooo...he totally does. He just doesn't let the exhaustion get the better of him. I have yet to figure out how to do this so I completely fail in this area.

This past weekend I chose to be mad at Tim on and off for three days. It started on Valentine's night when after a fun-filled night at Disney on Ice with the peanuts, I had a small, but romantic evening planned for the two of us. I waited patiently downstairs flipping through channels while Tim put Mya to bed. I waited and waited and continued to wait in vain (I say vain because Tim never arrived, but I have to admit Chelsea Handler was a fairly adequate date for the evening). I stomped upstairs and into our room to find my poor, tired husband passed out on my side of the bed with Mya nuzzled into his armpit.

I may or may not have freaked out at that moment. I'll let you decide what happened. Tim apologized and tried to make it up to me, but for me the moment had passed. I rolled over and ignored him until we both fell asleep. I let that night and some other things weighing heavily on my zonked mind fester until I just blew up at Tim several times throughout the weekend.

Whenever there was a calm moment between us I'd say, "I don't want to be mad at you, but I don't really know how to get passed what I'm feeling." Not knowing what to say he'd mumble, "I'm sorry. I really am." Inside, I knew he was.

By Sunday night, things were as they should be. I don't like not sleeping. I don't like what the lack of sleep does to us. We really need to figure something out, but we are without answers as to how to get our kids to sleep. We let them cry it out--doesn't work. We go to them and wipe their tears and lay them back in their beds--doesn't work. We scream (okay...I scream) at them--doesn't work. We sing lullabies to them--doesn't work. We give them Tylenol from time to time--doesn't work. Ugh. Sometimes parenting is so hard. It really puts a damper on marriage.

I know we'll get things worked out soon. We always do, but this waiting period is so dang long and tedious. For the rest of the moms or dads reading this blog and totally identifying with some part of it, just know we understand you. We get it. We feel for you. Not sleeping is not cool. It's a cruel joke. But it will get better. Or at least that's what they say. We just might be 40 before it happens...and then we'll just be awake for different reasons (like spying on first kisses and such.)

2 comments :

  1. We are going through similiar situation with my 2 yr old. He use to sleep thru the night but lately has been getting up in the middle of the night for milk. We have put a stop on giving him milk (per the dr's recommendation), but I wish there was a way to train them to sleep through the night!!

    I can't imagine having three little one's waking up at different times. That IS exhausting and it takes a toll on you and your marriage. I'll be curious to see if anyone else has any advice. Good luck!

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  2. If only I lived closer! I feel like we should go out for coffee and chat while our girlies play and make a mess out of sugar packets and stir-sticks - I feel EXACTLY the same without enough sleep, and my husband definitely gets the brunt of it!

    As for sleep, there's a great book I read called "The no-cry sleep solution" that helped us a LOT when trying to get Dorothy to sleep - it gives a lot of different solutions to try, and we ended up with our own take on one of the methods that worked fairly quickly - of course as soon as she gets sick/is teething it goes back to square one...don't know if it's available over there but I definitely recommend it!

    Anyways, feeling for you and your lack of sleep, and hoping your girlies start to appreciate how lovely sleep can be soon - though I'm still waiting on my girlies to do the same! x

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"Be kind and considerate with your criticism... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book." Malcolm Cowley