Define Sleep Deprivation

Ryan left Monday morning for a training in Engelberg, leaving me flying solo with both boys. All last week the sheer mentioning of it would send me in to tears. Ryan's been so helpful that I just can't seem to grasp the thought of doing this all by myself but to my amazement the days have been going off without a hitch. Probably cause of all Ryan did to get us ready for the week.

Did I mention I have the best hubby in the whole world? This past weekend he cleaned, he cooked, he laundered, he laid out Chance's clothes for the week, he tended to me and held the baby way more than me. He even got peed and pooped on numerous times between the spit up that would color his shirt. He came home Tuesday night to help out, and luckily just got pulled home on another job so he had to leave the training early (darn!).

Sunday night at 11:30 I fed the baby, changed him twice, rocked him to sleep and put him in his bed to have his eyes pop wide open. It was baby party time and I was having none of it at 12:30 as I lay in bed listening to the grunting and protesting going on in the other room, wondering as I lay there...is he bored, does he need a diaper change, maybe he spit up all over himself and has wet clothes. So at the thought of having to get up again at 3:30 I nudged Ryan out of bed to deal with the situation. Please just make the noise stop. Do I need to call the cops to put a stop the late night partying? Aren't my college days over? So my mind continues to stay active and I can't fall asleep to save my life. I decide to get up around 2 to find Ryan laying on the hard floor next to the crib with a tiny blanket covering himself. I wake him sort of and ask what he is doing....and he slurs something about needing to keep putting the pacifier in his mouth so that he won't make noise so that I can sleep. I am suddenly brought to the story of my mom saying she'd lay on the floor next to my crib early in the morning and toss cheerios in to the bed so that I'd stay occupied without seeing her, so that she could just get another 10 minutes of zees.

Which leads me to the current hot topic of the day.....DEFINE "SLEEP DEPRIVATION" the funny thing about this is that I have wanted to write on this for days, but I can't even find 10 minutes to sit and write.

So I googled a definition and found several to choose from. Basically it boils down to the fact that at this rate I might be getting more sleep as a prisoner at Gauntamo Bay.

1. a form of psychological torture inflicted by depriving the victim of sleep. Does averaging three 1.5 hour stints of sleep per night count? I think when it's broken up like that the equation changes to something like 3 x 1.5 = 0

2. Sleep deprivation is the partial or near partial act of depriving the needed amount of R.E.M. sleep to an individual or organism. Dreams? What dreams? I am not asleep long enough to even start to dream. The only dreaming I am doing lately is dreaming about one day dreaming again.

3. The condition of forcibly (by someone else, or by a sleep disorder) being kept awake, to the point of noticeably lower alertness. A dangerous amount of sleep deprivation can cause fatal vehicular accidents. You think? Actually this is so serious and I am such a hazard right now to myself, my kids and others that I am no longer allowed to back out of our driveway, or back out of a parking space at school. After almost killing a pedestrian yesterday......well not really, she saw me but I didnt see her and she banged the car with her hand and yelled Swiss obscenities at me as I was trying to BACK out of our driveway. This was a wake up call, no pun intended, and now I will be doing a 25 point turn everytime I want to leave our driveway so that next time it's not a kid I run over.

Other examples of "lower alertness" might include cutting off half my thumb with a newly sharpened kitchen knife. We have fingernails for a reason, otherwise my whole finger would be gone, not just half. Or does wearing your shirt inside out half a day after having numerous public encounters count? Or what about having the doctor ask me if I am getting enough sleep and I say "yes, I am sleeping quite well". Hmmmmm, I must have been asleep sitting up when I said that.

4. A chronic lack of sufficient restorative sleep. RESTORATIVE would be the key word here. I no longer have sympathy for people that tell me that they are tired cause they didnt get much sleep. If you are getting more than 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep at one time, please don't come knocking at my door. There is no sympathy here at the moment.

5. A general lack of the necessary amount of sleep. In science, sleep deprivation is used in order to study the function(s) of sleep. Anyone want to pay me to be their guineu pig? I could use some cash at this point to pay for the 20 diapers a day we are currently using. And at Swiss diaper prices, we may all be having to soon drink breast milk, it's the only free food around here.

Ok off to nap, hopefully.