*I DON’T EAT BABIES! Sleep Deprivation Part II

When will it stop? When will I be able to have a solid night of rest? This past weekend, my girlfriend gives me the answer to this lingering question of mine. Her answer was, “You have 18 years to go before you get any good sleep, my dear.”

Are you frickin’ kidding me?! 18 years, really? I don’t know if I can hang that long. I’m already losing my mind. My poor husband thinks I’m going to pull an Andrea Yates and drown our kids! So, I had another rough weekend. It doesn’t mean that I’m an unfit psychotic parent, or a post-partum monster, unworthy of caring for two little boys under the age of two.

My youngest is 4 months old today, but looks as though he’s 6 months. What can I say? We breed big babies! His teeth are finally in, so I thought maybe he would sleep through the night. Fat chance! This kid wakes up in an utter panic, crying like …uh, well, a baby. Does he stop crying once he’s been changed? No. He shouldn’t be hungry because mommy just made  a wicked concoction of formula, with a sh*t load of rice cereal. His nightly beverage was milkshake thick. So thick, I thought it would put him in a postprandial somnolence, (another term for a food coma; that drowsiness state following a meal). I tried giving him another bottle, but he didn’t want that. Impatiently, I looked him in his little sad, soaking wet eyeballs and asked him firmly, “What’s the problem? What do you want?” hoping to get some sort of telepathic response, even if he is only 4 months old.

He just wailed even harder at my lame-brained effort to read his little mind. So I went through the checklist: He’s not wet, he’s not  hungry. Maybe his bowels are in a knot since he hasn’t pooped all weekend. But wait, a minute. This little boy is spoiled and I was pretty sure I knew what he wanted at that moment. Boobs!!! So I sat in the infamous glider, that hallucinogenic rocking chair and put him on the boob. His crying stopped instantly. He was in paradise, in heaven if you will. Unbelievable! I just rolled my eyes. The breast fascination with men begins at an early age, I see.

Many times, my husband has had to come and rescue me from the midnight feedings. At the time, I think he’s rescuing me, but I’m sure he’s really rescuing my son from his delirious, annoyed mother. One night I was downstairs with our baby boy as he was yelling at the top of his lungs, totally dissatisfied. Nothing, made this little boy happy. Not the swing that usually rocks him to sleep, not a pacifier, bottle, boob, or dry diaper. I was in an absolute trance, staring in the darkness, looking like a institutionalized mental patient in the funny farm with this crying baby on my lap. I must have looked like the biggest crazed freak, especially to my husband when he realized the crying was getting increasingly louder. I’m sure he heard me yell, “Go to sleep already! I can’t take this anymore!” My patience was skating on thin ice. Come to think of it, my patience had long cracked the ice and sunk to the bottom, hard.

Out of nowhere, and in complete darkness, my husband traipsed down the stairs very carefully, rather unsure of what lurked at the bottom. As he neared the landing, he found his white-eyed-vampire-looking, wife with wailing baby in hands. He didn’t make any sudden moves, but rather looked at me hesitantly, for fear that I might pounce on him and puncture his neck with my ivory fangs, hoping to re-energize myself by sucking his sweet crimson blood.

Understanding how his wife functions on very little sleep, he  ordered firmly, “Go upstairs, right now and get some rest.”

But he was really thinking, “This crazy trick is off her damn rocker, he’s only four months old! What the hell does she expect him to do?!”

I followed his orders, which is rare because according to this man, I don’t  listen to him often enough, but I was at a point where I was on the brink of absolute insanity. Besides, I knew staying up in zombie mode would not benefit me or little man one lick, and he’s in pretty good hands with my-oh-so-patient-husband.

I guess as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out and out for quite a bit. I just remember waking up and feeling as though I had slept for an eternity. My husband, also awake and in jovial spirits, decided that now we could laugh about the incident in question since it was technically behind us, even if the event just took place a few hours ago. He decided to make light of the situation and said laughing, “Man, you sure were crazy last night. I didn’t know what to expect when I heard you yelling. I thought you were going to put him in the oven and roast his little ass and eat him!'”

I couldn’t help but to laugh at what just came out of his mouth! Not only because he cracks my sh*t up, but because I could actually look back and see how the situation looked from his perspective. I wouldn’t go so far to say that I would have roasted the kid! I told him that I couldn’t do something so grotesque to my own flesh and blood, even if babies taste like chicken!

But seriously, as parents, most of us have to endure sleepless nights for several months until the child gets the swing of things. It’s not easy, but I have realized that my boys mean the world to me and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for them, even if it means giving up a few hours of sleep here and there. I know I may have my moments and complain, but it’s all in good fun. I love my little boy, even if he doesn’t get seven hours of continuous sleep. I know there will come a time, when he’s Mr. Grown Bones and I will wish he was that little teething, 4 month old crying in the middle of the night for his mommy.

* I had found this unfinished story in my saved drafts and realized it needed to be finished because it was a tale that needed to be told. Looking back at the incident, I’m glad I did!

THIS LITTLE JUNKIE WENT TO REHAB, THIS LITTLE JUNKIE SAID NO!

 

I am a bonafide, self-prescribed addict. I might as well have a belt or nearest shoe lace I can find, tied tightly around my bicep, just above my elbow, producing a raised and enlarged road map of throbbing green veins, that are more than ready to invite the sharp jab of a cold and filthy heroine needle. Okay, so I don’t use drugs nor have a tried to shoot anything in my tiny veins, unless you count the time I honestly considered pumping my veins intravenously with Dreyer’s Limited Edition-Slow Churned-Mud Pie ice cream.   Mmmmmmm… (drool). I’m no drug addict, but I almost know how such an addict feels!

My addiction or obsession, some may say, is absolutely and without a doubt ridiculous. But don’t be quick to judge me until you’ve been in my size 9’s. I bet sometime in your earthly existence that you have also had an obscure or radical obsession. You may think I’m talking about food since I’ve mentioned by weight issue, and it more or less deals with food, but I’m not the one consuming. I am ashamed to say this, but I am addicted to Cafe World hosted on Face Book! 

It all began, when I started a Face Book account at the impatient requests and snide remarks of my friends. I was still involved with My Space like the rest of my friends, which is more known for appealing to the much younger crowd as of late. I was getting tired of the overall dealings of the My Space site and eventually weaned away from it and all the incessant friend requests from utter strangers. I wasn’t about to get myself caught up in a similar site just to find long lost peers one week, only to never hear from them again the next. Well, my husband and I, together, joined the Face Book world and reconnected with long distant friends we had communicated with using My Space.

After I familiarized myself with the ins and outs of this new site, I began getting quite comfortable and actually liked it a whole hell of a lot better than that whack-ass-teeny-bopper-spam-filled My Space crap. Browsing through my “wall”, I came across a brightly colored Cafe World notification from a friend, mentioning they had learned to cook French food and she needed friends to try some of her newly crafted French onion soup. Hmmm…. this perked my food-loving interest, so you know I had to see what this was really all about! No sooner had a designed my cafe the first day, had I been hooked and trapped in this endless charade.

This crap had me so damn involved to the point that I would get up in the middle of the night, between nightly feedings and grab my husband’s laptop, hide in our closet and make sure my cafe was running smoothly. That meant making sure my food hadn’t spoiled, serving a variety of dishes to hungry and waiting customers and preparing more mouth-watering meals from the available choices in the virtual cookbook. Sounds a little overboard, I know, but this horrid little “game” slowly started to take over my already hectic life!

Now some addicts, whether it’s alcohol, drugs, porn, or food, may like to suck other people into their compulsive hell so they don’t feel alone in their self-destructing habits. It’s almost a buddy system, if you will. That old saying is definitely true; Misery loves company! So you know I recruited my husband to join me in this new found addiction. It was almost as if I was the drug dealer and he, some loner, junior high kid looking for an edge over his peers. My conniving, smooth-talking “dealer” ass sucked this fool right in – hook, line and sinker! His immediate thought was that he could prove to me that he could run a cafe successfully and much better than me, his little old wife. Oh hell no! Who did this fool think he was?! I am extremely competitive by nature, but even more so when it comes to this man and I will stop at nothing to beat him at whatever sport, board game or contest we participate in together. So by him challenging me, it only pushed me further and deeper into a chronic abyss, making it that much harder for me to ever return to the “sober” world.

This thing I have with Cafe World is a got-dang compulsion and a sick one at that. At work, I would periodically desert  my desk in a *clandestine manner, with my net book in its perfectly concealed black carrying case gripped tight by my cold, lifeless grip and escape to my secret hideout in order to dull my equally satisfying and unrelenting craving. Sounds like some poor, itchy crack-head, fien’ing frantically for a much needed hit of a delicious, taupe colored, juicy-nugget-shaped crack rock, doesn’t it? Picture me in some cold and dimly lit stairwell, trying to find a decent wi-fi connection, scrambling to find, in a brief amount of time, Face  Book’s, Cafe World. Once I prepared the necessary cuisine and served it to my waiting customers, my longing, itchy craving was put to rest and I was well enough to return to work, or at least until that freakin’ craving resurfaced. 

My husband was, and still is a lot smarter than me when it came down to this sad situation. He realized that Cafe World became too much for him, that it became too high maintenance and definitely too damn time consuming. He no longer liked the fact that he got up at two, three and four in the morning just to take food off the stove and prepare more meals  for the day. He also felt that if he were going to put a considerable amount of time into this “game” that he should at least get paid for it! My husband is smart because he understands that he joined Face Book to reconnect with out of touch friends and that Cafe World has no end and it will continue as long as you invest the time. Am I am idiot for not seeing this? This Cafe World crap is not a game! A game has an end and a winner is declared, even in that long-ass, seemingly never ending game known as Monopoly! Games are not classified as having an infinite amount of levels! But this sh*t? This is more of a psychotic hobby, which is a bit of an understatement. Calling it an obsession is simply too nice for words. I have become obsessive and compulsive with finding more neighbors, expanding my walls to make my cafe larger, holding more patrons, making more money,  getting to the next level to unlock another menu item, counter or stove, and leveling up quicker than my fellow Cafe World junkies.

I’ve mellowed out a bit. I used to ask my husband to check my cafe, which I have named “T-Licious”, while he was at work because I was no longer able to find that wi-fi connection that had worked so well before. I would call him in the middle of the day and tell him before he left for work, “If you get the chance, can you please check my cafe at 11:52 am. My Spitfire Roasted Chicken will be ready by then.” It finally got to the point, where my husband looked at me with this slightly annoyed pity in his eyes, shaking his head as if to say, “Hey dummy, when are you going to learn? Just give it up and get out while you still can! This isn’t what you signed up for, remember?” Almost everyday, he asks me what my goal is and what I’m trying to accomplish with this so-called “game”. I think it’s just my extremely competitive nature and the strong desire to continue because apparently, I’m not too tired of it, just yet. As my dad always told me growing up, “Never give up!”, although I’m sure my dad wouldn’t apply this motto to this particular situation!

So why do drug, alcohol, food, sex, and Cafe World addicts continue their respective over-indulgent patterns? It’s a vicious cycle: the need to feel good and comforted during the perfect or attainable high, only to hit the bottom and have that strong urge creep back to the surface and suck our weak minds back into the compulsive hell.

My advice to you, is to stay away from Cafe World or anything like it!! Don’t even try it, whether you think you can handle it or not, for fear you will be sucked into the meal prepping nightmare! You will dream about it, think about it 24/7, you’ll be calling your available spouse to go online for you to check your cafe, you’ll devote all of your free time and your not-so-free time to this horrid obsession! I should really follow my own advice, by checking into the same “rehab” my husband checked into and re-establish my Face Book priorities, but… Nah!  It’s always easier said, than done.

*Thanks Dad, for introducing me to that $10 word!