Sleep

I crave sleep like an alcoholic craves booze.
I'll take it anywhere, anytime. Standing up. Sitting down. In the shower with water streaming down my face.
I came to last night around 7:30 p.m. under Elizabeth's pink coverlet. She was patting both my cheeks with her chubby hands.
"Mom! Mom!" she whispered, "Wake up! Wake up! You stopped singing!"
Apparently, I had been lying comatose for some time, having ceased my alphabet lullaby somewhere around "L-M-N-O."
Frankly, I'm surprised I made it past the letter "D."
To my chagrin, staying up all night with my eight-week-old baby is making my tired.
This is hard for me to admit because I was all huff and bluster prior to giving birth.
"Oh, how bad can it be," I yodeled to my girlfriends, "I had twins the first time around!"
It's true that with the twins I averaged about three hours of sleep per night for about six months. It was miserable. It was insane. It was, in fact, the paramount reason we waited five years to even consider having another child.
But with "only" one baby--a singelton in the nomenclature in the world of mothers of multiples--I figured it would be better.
And it is.
I'm getting four and a half hours of sleep each night.
While the pediatrician promises me Charlotte's nights will get longer, I know from past experience there's no real promise in that.
After all, I was just last year asking Elizabeth's preschool teacher how to get her to stop the night wakings.
"Once you have children, you'll never sleep well again."
That gem came from my godmother who, I clearly recall, was once so exhausted in the early 1980s that she spread out her mink coat on my grandmother's living room floor and commenced to snore her way through an otherwise roaring Christmas party.
"Oh," she said sometime around midnight, "I just needed a little nap."
Well, I need a little nap, too.
I don't even need the mink: Just let me lie down on the brick kitchen floor and drape a napkin over me and I'll be thankful.
Oh, no.
It that crying I hear?
I may not be able to sleep but at least I can dream, right?

Family

It is essential that every kindergarten student draw pictures of their family.
And at Week 6, we've done just that.
William brought home his version yesterday.
It included Mommy (in clothing thank God vs. nearly naked...see previous post), Daddy, Sister and Baby.
There was a further unidentifiable person.
It didn't look like Papa.
Or Mema.
Or Dana, our loyal and beloved housekeeper.
The black stick figure had short black hair so I assumed it wasn't Grandma Nan who is, most of the time, a redhead.
The hair sort of fit Aunt Jamie, but given the lacking presence of Uncle Sean and Cousin Malachi, I figured it wasn't her.
Puzzled, I referenced William's tagline.
It read "Werkmon."
I guess that's how you know your new home is a lemon: Your five-year-old son includes your plumber in his family drawing.

Three

It was long understood that Baby Charlotte would change the mix in our house, but none of us really knew exactly what that would mean.
So when she arrived on September 18 at 8:01 a.m. at a hefty 8 pounds 1 ounce, we all waited with baited breath.
"Mom," whispered five-year-old Elizabeth, "Do you really think you can handle all three of us?"
I quickly dodged the question because, no, I'm not really sure I can handle this.
"Oh, Honey," I told her in a reassuring voice pilfered from an old episode of "Leave It to Beaver," "I have more than enough love to go around."
It is questionable, however, whether or not I have enough patience, time and/or cash.
Really, Elizabeth, all I know for sure is that I have a party-of-five Halloween trick-or-treat theme and that credential seems hardly the skill necessary to usher three fragile spirits from childhood to adulthood without any of us ending up in psychotherapy.
So, I'm going minute-by-minute here, from one poopy diaper to snack time to tempter tantrums to searching for a beloved lost teddy. Then suddenly it is 2 a.m. and someone is chomping on my boobs with the force of an automatic staple gun.
When you live this way, funny things happen.
For instance:
One five-year-old spends an entire weekend wearing a bike helmet. Mind you, her getup was enjoyed at playtime as well as at family meals.
Those family meals consisted of varying brands of cold cereal.
After one dinner, another child washes his Wii video games, literally submerging them and scrubbing them with soap.
The baby, meanwhile, meets the three-week mark without an actual bath.
I do shower--so I don't offend said newborn--and realize I literally have nothing to wear but a variety of nursing bras. I dodge around the house in them shirtless accompanied by ratty pajamas bottoms for several days.
My mother loans me a black T-shirt covered in rhinestone dinosaurs. I actually try it on.
Inspired by the shirt, I read the kids "Danny the Dinosaur" at bedtime while standing up nearly naked and nursing a fussy baby.
William decides he should be the one reading the stories instead. He insists upon a fourth-grade chapter book about the adventures of a mischievous wolf pup. It is two hours past bedtime.
Forty minutes later, he has successfully read said book (!!) and in doing so settled the baby down.
"Look Mom," he said triumphantly, "I read Charlotte her first book and put her to sleep! It's magic!"
As messy as it is, he just might be right.

Intercoms

I am 48 hours away from delivering #3 and, in an attempt to scratch one last thing off the list before becoming a shut-in, I waddled into the local Tom Thumb to receive a flu shot.
Despite my timing -- 2 p.m. on a Wednesday -- there was a line for the shots.
"Twenty-five minutes," the pharmacist said. "Come back then."
I dutifully filled out the legal forms then padded to the fruit aisle. I picked up strawberries, swerved to the dairy case for some milk then stood in the protein bar section for half a century while contemplating the benefit of adding fig paste to my diet.
But being in the last stages of gestation and tragically forgetful, I completely forgot about the one thing I'd come to get: the flu shot.
Checking the time, I rolled my now-full cart into the check-out line, chatted with one of my favorite clerks and asked for carry-out service.
Then, I happily conversed with the customer behind me. She noted that her own bulging stomach was post due. The shopper was looking forward to a home birth.
She was buying one lone carton of Ben & Jerry's -- double brownie supreme -- which I supposed would pass as pain management for women stronger than I.
Still, it was a lovely pint, so delicate there on the rotating belt. It spun like a ballerina again and again, its chocolate-y goodness floating towards the infra-red scanner to a soulful ballad only a pregnant girl could possibly hear.
Suddenly, there was a crackle as the all-store intercom went on. A loud voice boomed forth:
"WOULD THE HEAVILY PREGNANT WOMEN IN THE PINK-STRIPED DRESS PLEASE RETURN TO THE PHARMACY FOR HER FLU SHOT?"
Four aisles of customers began hooting and pointing at me.
I blinked.
I am, you see, so "heavily pregnant" that my ears are now apparently affected.
"That's you, Honey," said a nearby clerk, giving me a nudge.
"I REPEAT," the voice said, "WOULD THE HEAVILY PREGNANT WOMAN IN THE PINK-STRIPED DRESS PLEASE RETURN TO THE PHARMACY FOR HER FLU SHOT?"
I waved heartily to the throngs, parked my cart near the lottery vending machine and lurched toward the pharmacy.
Clearly, I should have worn another outfit.