Awake

Most co-sleeping parents know this: In an effort to make your little punkle fall asleep, you have to feign sleep yourself...but sometimes you pretend so well, you—well—fall asleep.

This usually happens with me and Lucia, except that a few minutes after she falls asleep, I usually wake up. Something about naps in the middle of the day makes me uncomfortable. I'm afraid of midday naps. Because (deep breath):

If I nap, I think I won't be able to fall asleep at night. I have insomnia (without my meds, I can go about two days on two hours' worth of sleep) and so if I'm un-sleepy at night because I had a nap, it makes me panic. And when I panic about not being able to fall asleep, I won't fall asleep, and when I don't fall asleep, then I'll be grumpy. And when I'm grumpy, I become hyper-aware that I am so I'll be friendlier/more hyper than usual at work to overcompensate. Which will exhaust me. Which will make me want to take a nap. But I know I can't, so I won't. But it'll frustrate me, so I'll be grumpy. And then <insert loop>.

Lucia's a fidgety little thing and she likes to mindlessly prop her leg up on my leg or snake her hand into my shirt's armhole (I know, it's strange) or put our noses together until she falls asleep. I coo and hold her tight and stroke her head or back and all this quiets her until she falls asleep. But her fidgeting actually soothes me, too, and so I end up falling asleep.

Then I wake up minutes after, in a panic, checking if I'm too un-sleepy for tonight's bed time.

That's where I am at this point. I still feel tired and I would like to take that nap, except...there's work tomorrow and I know I have to sleep properly tonight so that I can do the ten million things I need to do tomorrow, for the coming week.

And so now I'm thinking of my lists and sub-lists and tangential lists and oh-by-the-way lists, and I'm already exhausted. I'm thinking of the people I need to contact, the people I can't avoid (but want to, desperately), the people I want/need to speak to but can't and how I'll need to handle that, and I'm already exhausted. But I can't sleep now because if I sleep now, I won't be able to sleep later and if I don't sleep later it'll be SO HARD to do what I need to do this week. Because there are people and things that I want to be rid of (but can't) and...I'm already exhausted.

—

Pardon me. It's the long weekend, I think. Coming out of a long weekend is always tough.

Meanwhile, Lucia needs to wake up in about 35 minutes or else she'll be too un-sleepy to sleep by tonight's bed time which will mean I will have to stay up along with her and when I'm up past a certain time I get grumpy in the morning and <insert loop>.