No Sleep = No Joke

All moms have their "things".

You know what I mean. Some moms really worry that their kids will get fat, so they over-obsess about only giving them healthy foods. Some moms really worry that their kids won't succeed in school, so they sign them up for every possible tutoring-academic-organization imaginable. My mom's main worry had everything to do with sleep.

I still remember my mom's face when I would ask to go to a sleepover. "You know you will come home the next morning totally grouchy and it will ruin the rest of your Saturday," she would point out, not altogether incorrect. And each night, during our back scratching-prayer ritual (this was a huge hit in our house . . a duo that created in me a deep affinity for prayer), she would negotiate with my alarm-setting for the next day: "Do you REALLY need all that time to get ready? How about sleep in just a few more minutes??"

Thanks to mom, I've been a pretty good sleeper throughout life. I'd get made fun of during college, as I dutifully headed off to bed by 11pmish each night, ensuring at least eight hours a night. But then I became a mother. And, even more shocking, I decided to become a mother a second time.

In many ways, once you become a mother you realize the multitude of ways your own mother wasn't such a dummy after all. Well, here's one way. Forced into living a life of sleep deprivation, I have found the first months living with a newborn as delightfully fuzzy. I can't recall my address, my passwords, or, sometimes, my husband's name. I drive slower, but I feel like I'm zooming down the highway. I have to focus, REALLY focus, to hear and comprehend words when there is any other background noise (aka the TV). And, most pointedly, my ambition for any expenditure of energy beyond the necessary things (eating, sleeping, nursing, feeding my kids) is remarkedly low. Yesterday I sat in amazement at all of the young, energetic, motivated grad students surrounding me. (I used to perhaps be one of them just a few months ago.) They literally competed to answer questions better, use larger vocabulary words, get their criticism of the author out there. I sat there literally amused, thinking, "how CUTE. They all really CARE about this stuff." Uh oh.

I'm praying I get back in the swing of the academic world just in time to, oh, I don't know, write a qualifying exam and a dissertation proposal. I'm praying all of this is about sleep deprivation and not a totally brain melting. And I'm praying I can remember my husband's name again.

But most of all, I've got to say: "Mom, you were right. Sleep is pretty much the most important thing ever. I promise I will attend NO sleep overs for the next decade, and I will set my alarm for the latest possible time." It's really too bad baby Zander doesn't come with a snooze button.