"Fondness" is not the term I would use to describe the emotions that well up within me when I think back of the time after Alex and Simon, my now 11-year-old-twins, were born. It was a time of desperate exhaustion, and I am not ashamed to admit that I even once rented a hotel room by the hour during those days, on my way home from work, just to squeeze in 60 minutes of uninterrupted Zzzzs! (And yes, I had a lot of explaining to do at home when the credit card bill arrived with such a suspicious charge!!!)
So why, you might ask, would I be writing about sleep, at this time when our twins are finally old enough to sleep through the night without waking up screaming or crying to be fed at 2 a.m., or having a nightmare at 1 a.m. that repeats like clockwork at 2 hour intervals, or crawling into our bed for no other apparent reason at various odd times throughout the sleep-intended part of the 24 hour period we call one day?
Well, now it's the dog.
You see, we seem to have gotten a dog intent on destroying our lives by diminishing the amount of sleep we get each day, until we are zombies, former shells of ourselves, unable to function at all. She's either sick or whining or some combination of factors that impede our ability to get any more than two hours of sleep at a time, it seems.
Her latest trick is wandering about for 15-20 minutes on the evening walk, considering various places to do her business, then turning up her nose, and insisting to go back inside. She then happily goes into her crate for the night, until about 3 or 4 a.m., at which time she decides she's got to poop. Immediately.
So why, you might ask, would I be writing about sleep, at this time when our twins are finally old enough to sleep through the night without waking up screaming or crying to be fed at 2 a.m., or having a nightmare at 1 a.m. that repeats like clockwork at 2 hour intervals, or crawling into our bed for no other apparent reason at various odd times throughout the sleep-intended part of the 24 hour period we call one day?
Well, now it's the dog.
You see, we seem to have gotten a dog intent on destroying our lives by diminishing the amount of sleep we get each day, until we are zombies, former shells of ourselves, unable to function at all. She's either sick or whining or some combination of factors that impede our ability to get any more than two hours of sleep at a time, it seems.
Her latest trick is wandering about for 15-20 minutes on the evening walk, considering various places to do her business, then turning up her nose, and insisting to go back inside. She then happily goes into her crate for the night, until about 3 or 4 a.m., at which time she decides she's got to poop. Immediately.
Taking the dog out is no two-minute task: We live on the 8th floor of an apartment building, so we have to get on our clothes, shoes, find a leash, wander down the hall to the ancient (read: "slow") elevator and wait... the truth is that by the time all is said and done, a half hour has passed, and one is wide awake.
The walker -- after installing the relieved dog back in her crate -- then goes back to bed, but sleepless; she begins to check email or just toss and turn in bed for a bit. The disruption causes her partner to wake up, and now both of us are wide awake. Panic about the too-little amount of time left until the alarm rings soon sets in, and now we really can't get back to sleep!
The other night, just for good measure, Sneakers decided that a middle-of-the-night whining session to go out and do her business was not quite exciting enough, so she developed a severe case of kennel cough. So severe, in fact, that she was coughing and barfing continuously the whole night!!! Two hours of sleep seemed like luxury compared to 0 hours, accompanied by the melodious strains of a gagging dog, poor thing.
Last night, thankfully, was Saturday, and our earliest commitment Sunday morning was at 10 a.m., so we did eventually manage to fall back asleep after the dog woke up at 3 a.m. (Due to the marvels of modern veterinary medicine, the coughing had been reduced to a minimum, and the barfing had subsided completely).
No sooner had we fallen back asleep, however, then the door opened, and one little boy tiptoed in to shake me and whisper that the other little boy was sick and needed my help.
I patiently rose to spend the next several hours lying with, rubbing, holding the head and cleaning up the barf of the sick twin, while the other munched his St Nicolas Day chocolate in the next bed.
The walker -- after installing the relieved dog back in her crate -- then goes back to bed, but sleepless; she begins to check email or just toss and turn in bed for a bit. The disruption causes her partner to wake up, and now both of us are wide awake. Panic about the too-little amount of time left until the alarm rings soon sets in, and now we really can't get back to sleep!
The other night, just for good measure, Sneakers decided that a middle-of-the-night whining session to go out and do her business was not quite exciting enough, so she developed a severe case of kennel cough. So severe, in fact, that she was coughing and barfing continuously the whole night!!! Two hours of sleep seemed like luxury compared to 0 hours, accompanied by the melodious strains of a gagging dog, poor thing.
Last night, thankfully, was Saturday, and our earliest commitment Sunday morning was at 10 a.m., so we did eventually manage to fall back asleep after the dog woke up at 3 a.m. (Due to the marvels of modern veterinary medicine, the coughing had been reduced to a minimum, and the barfing had subsided completely).
No sooner had we fallen back asleep, however, then the door opened, and one little boy tiptoed in to shake me and whisper that the other little boy was sick and needed my help.
I patiently rose to spend the next several hours lying with, rubbing, holding the head and cleaning up the barf of the sick twin, while the other munched his St Nicolas Day chocolate in the next bed.
RSS Feed