Currency

Currency can be anything that is coveted in a situation. In college, beer was currency, wherever it was, we'd go. More beer = better, After college, career and location became currency, whomever was succeeding there seemed to be in the best place. Ironically, once my career came together and I loved what I was doing, I had Declan! Now, my currency is different than I ever imagined it would be: sleep. Rich and I count our sleep hours every morning and the person who got the least sleep wins. I've always been a sleeper and many nights I clocked in ten hours. Declan, however, does not seem to need sleep. I go to bed at 10pm and get up at 9am and am lucky for eight hours. Last night, for instance, Declan got up every hour and a half. When he was eight weeks old he was sleeping five to seven hour stretches, but we haven't even had four hours of solid sleep for a few weeks now. Even though he's tired, he refuses to sleep! You can see in the picture above that Declan has huge bags under his eyes, but he's wide awake, ignoring his tiredness because he's so excited to experience the world.

This brings me to my second point about this new currency in my life: lies. Moms are proud of their children, as they should be. I've found though, that moms also want their children to appear perfect. This starts as early as the delivery "Susie came in three hours! I pushed once and she popped out!", "I had no pain in delivery, it was perfect". These all create the myth of the perfect baby (who will then become the perfect child "Jennifer has an IQ of 5000!"). Most moms I talk to or moms that post on babycenter.com say that their kids sleep through the night, yet every book I read and every mom I talk to who currently has a little one say that sleep problems are very common. So, what gives? Lies! Or we'll call it softening of the truth. Why do they do it? Because they want to seem like successful mothers, I think. But the kicker is that kids seem to have their own agendas regardless of what adults find appealing so I think it's a bit silly to exaggerate the truth about your little one's sleep habits. I've never been a liar, if anything, I should probably soften the truth a little bit more. So, I'll tell the truth about my precious boy: that kid does not sleep well. It's a struggle to put him down for naps and to keep him asleep at night. He's not sick, he's not hungry, he just wants Mommy and Daddy to put him to sleep.

I'm sure this won't be my last posting on this topic because I anticipate problems in the future, but for now be aware that I may seem just a little bit slow when we talk. When you see me, I might look like I just rolled out of bed, because I did. My house might be messy, and Declan may not be dressed up in a cute outfit. These are my daily challenges. I'll get there (I hope) but for now, I'm often a hot mess.