...to sleep, perchance to...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

but there's little likelihood of sleeping, is there? I tried, honest I did, to take naps twice yesterday, but the first time Julia woke up and even though Bill had her I could still hear her screaming and wailing while she waited (HURRY UP!!!!!!!!!) for him to get the bottle for her, and in the meantime, her cries woke up Alex, who only wanted MOMMYYYYYYY because he wasn't feeling well, so I had to get up, couldn't ignore him calling for me like that. And the other attempted nap after that - well, I managed to sleep about an hour and a half that time, but then Bill's Aunt Ruth and Uncle Don dropped by to see Julia, and so Bill came to get her - she was sleeping in the room with me - and I had to get up to be sociable...so there went that opportunity. And of course Julia got hungry while Aunt Ruth was holding her and started crying and my BODY responded and I carred her into the kitchen (Julia, not Aunt Ruth) to get a bottle warmed up and noticed that on the left side I had leaked so when the bottle was ready I handed Julia and the bottle off to Aunt Ruth and went upstairs and changed into drier clothes and came back down to smile politely through my desperate need to be sleeping. And last night Julia only slept for an hour and a half at the longest, which was the first stretch - from ten to eleven thirty. After that it was half an hour to an hour at most each time. I watched the beginning of a movie (As Good as it Gets), went to bed, and was back up with Julia in time to see the last fifteen minutes of it. Then she was completely awake from three til four thirty

we had Alex's birthday party on friday - just family, which includes Emily, because she is kind of uber-family in a way, and earlier that day I had gone to Toys R Us to get a few last things and saw Bill's cousin Kristin, who I haven't seen in over a year or longer...her younger son is half a year older than Alex, and we were talking, catching up, and I noticed that my sentences were rambling all around in circles and other shapes and it took every bit of my concentration to bring them back to the original topic...

and I remember another time in my life when I was very very tired...and it was at a baby shower for Betsy, and I'd made a baby quilt, by hand, and, true to my procrastinating nature, I'd stayed up all night finishing it and had about two hours of sleep...my mother came to the shower too, my sister was living out of state and unable to...and because Mom had recently had surgery on her foot I had to drive, which was probably not the safest option, but it was the only one short of hiring a chauffer...and I remember sitting there with all these other people in this church basement, and I felt like Alice in Wonderland - very distorted, and BIG. And when Betsy got to the quilt, she unwrapped it and held it up for all to see and announced (in what seemed like an enormously booming voice)

"Jayne made this!"

and pointed at me and all heads turned, it seemed, to stare at the Clifford-the-Big-Red-Dog-sized person teetering drunkenly on a folding metal chair behind them...I smiled back stupidly, politely, red with embarrassment and horror at the sudden attention...a balloon character rejected from the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade...just hovering there, leering at people...

I was at my mother's and my sister's houses today earlier (not at the same time, of course) and especially at my mom's I could just feel myself ABOUT. TO. SNAP. from being tired and humorless and did I say humorless? I meant it, but despite the VERY CLEAR WARNING SIGNS my mother thought it would still be fun to tease me...I just worked really hard on keeping my mouth shut and my VERY STRONG URGE TO SCREAM AND SWEAR AND RUN AWAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY to myself...and so we are all still on speaking terms...and now I am home and Alex is asleep and Julia is asleep and I just had a piece of pizza that Bill picked up but NO, I can't really take a REAL nap because Bill is finishing up a 15 gallon batch of beer for our third annual clambake/cookout/beerfest this summer (next month) and so I have to be READY so if Alex wakes up I can keep an eye on him until the brewing is done and the beer is in carboys and the propane flame is out. And then, after I feed the chickens and gather the eggs, I WILL be taking a nap. I don't care if it's at dinner time, either. I'm taking a nap.

Gotta go, Julia's awake again.

This is one way people go insane, isn't it?

Comments

[Betsy]

I have that blanket in Chelsea's baby box and if I were to pull it out, and you were present, I would still point out that you made it. (perhaps with a more quiet voice...)

[Jayne]

Hopefully I wouldn't be feeling so tired and BIG either! I'm so happy you still have it. The awful thing is that I've made quilts for Mere's kids too - but so far not for my own! Alex is using a wall quilt I'd made years ago...but I don't really have anything yet for Julia...maybe this winter I'll get back into all of that. I miss it.

[Ken Hall]

You have chickens? Neat! I'm sorry about the sleep deprivation, though.