To sleep, perchance to dream...

To sleep:
Setting aside for the moment the suicidal meaning which Shakespeare first gave this quote while not belittling how wretched sleep deprivation makes a person feel, I thought I'd share some of the many sleep issues that we are having in this house.

Issue 1: Medman
Medman is in his internship year of residency.  "Intern" is from the latin "to deprive of sleep" and resident is from the greek and roughly translates to 'live in the hospital".  Stay there all day.  Stay there for call over night.  Spend your weekend there.  The extra sucker punch of internship is that since you are technically a doctor, albeit one with very limited experience, you are constantly being either condescended to as though you know nothing or berated for not knowing everything.  So the few hours of repose you are allowed are spent staring wide-eyed at the ceiling above your bed wondering if anyone bothered to check the meds you prescribed for Mr. Heart Failure and was he the one that was on the blood pressure meds that would cause a lethal reaction?  Or how long it is going to be before you get to sleep again?  Or how can you fake a hunting accident to take out a few of your more aggravating superiors?  Or what other career you are suited for besides medicine so you can just drop out?  And sleep.

Issue 2: Belvedere
Actually, I am ecstatic to say that Belvedere has in the last several days completely ended her sleeping problems.  Up until then she was waking up 3-4 times a night with at least one time being over an hour of chatty I-would-like-someone-to-play-with-me time.   The only thing that saved her life is that when she wakes me up some sort of instinct must kick in.  It tells her "If your room is pitch dark and mom shows up looking disheveled and taking deep breaths as though to calm herself from being woken up AGAIN, smile a ridiculously big smile and reach out to her.  If she so much as reaches back, squeal in delight and grab her hand.  Continue rolling around as cutely as possible until she smiles.  Then you are out of danger."   Bel has had a magical transformation though and now sleeps straight through the night.  No idea what happened, but I love it.

Issue 3: Big D
I've always had this fear in the back of my mind that potty training isn't really a good thing for the parents.  I mean really, changing a diaper isn't that big of a deal.  Getting up twice a night with a disoriented, crying 3 year old who has to pee but doesn't have the wherewithal to get himself to the potty is a big deal.  Not that I want him to get up by himself, really.  He has no regard whatsoever for getting his pee in the potty at night.  None.  It takes constant reminders.  "Make sure the pee goes in the potty.  Aim for the water.  DON'T LOOK BACK AT ME--LOOK AT THE POTTY!"

Issue 4:  Mommy wonders why, even though she is the only one in the house with no sleep problems, she is up the most of everyone?



Perchance to dream:
Big D has started talking about what I assume must be dreams.  For instance last night while he peed in the general direction of the potty he looked over his shoulder at me ("WOAH!  WATCH WHAT YOU'RE DOING!!!") and said, "The big fish came towards me.  It talked to me.  It said everything to me and I said something back."

Ok.

More questioning at breakfast revealed that the big fish did in fact come out of a fish hive.  Which I had suspected all along.  Oh, and D and the fish had a big problem because there were no car tables there.

Me: Where were there no car tables?
D: (blank look)  I don't know.  Do you know?
Me: No, it was your dream.
D: Can you tell me?  Can you?
Me:  In the hive?
D: No. Mommy, you are silly.
Me: ???

For having a three year old with a vocabulary of a 15 year old, its amazing how little actual communication happens sometimes.