Sleep Torture

Infants, toddlers and preschoolers, while at times deceptively cute and innocent, are torture machines. That may sound harsh, but ask any parent who has been forced, against their will, to read a really annoying book or watch an incredibly stupid movie over and over again (I still bear mental scars from when Chloe had Mike Meyers' The Cat In the Hat on a repeat loop three years ago). It's a fact of life. Their tactics can vary from misuse of bodily fluids to creating piles of laundry so large they cannot be fully dealt with until 2012. I have even heard of a woman who was forced by a 3-year-old to listen to Hootie and the Blowfish's "I Only Want to Be With You" on repeat every time they took a car ride. And this went on for several months. But for me, the absolute worst form of abuse a child can inflict on a parent is Sleep Torture.

This week has been especially rough in that department. A child crying out in the night, forcing me up out of my warm bed has happened at least once a night. On Sunday, I was actually awakened in the pre-dawn hours by someone barfing on me, right there in my bed. I thought I had endured the worst they could do, but really they were just wearing me down so that last night's carefully plotted maneuver would inflict maximum suffering. Chloe started at 1 AM, with a seemingly legitimate 45-minute coughing jag that ended only when I took her a glass of water and moved her to a room that didn't share an air vent with mine. An hour later (just enough time for me to drift back to sleep and be cruelly yanked out again), Piper began screaming like someone had cut off her foot. The reason? The water glass by her bed was empty. Thirty minutes after THAT, it was Sadie's turn. The only thing that could make her stop crying was pulling her into bed with me. Then, in an alarming show of loyalty to the existing brood, the new guy hit me with a bout of "morning" sickness so severe that I spent two hours with my jaw locked, holding perfectly still in the fetal position, to keep from puking out all of my internal organs. It may have been the paranoid delusions of an exhausted mind, but "They got me! They got me good!" kept repeating in my head. One person cannot stand up against that kind of team work.

I believed I was fully prepared for sleep deprivation going into motherhood. After all, I had survived another type of sleep torture known as Early Morning Seminary for four years. Though I struggled the entire time, by the end of my senior year I was dragging myself out of bed, driving 20 minutes to the seminary building in the pitch black coldness, and managing to do nothing more than glare at the sarcastic high councilman who would greet me with a "Good Afternoon!" if I was more than three minutes late. While that certainly was a test of the will, I was a fool to believe that would help me survive my current form of punishment. That's like standing up to a second grade bully at recess and believing you're now prepared to go head to head with Jack Bauer. Silly.

I'm up against trained operatives here. My kids begin working on their torture skills in utero, practicing keeping me up with scorching heartburn and swift kicks to the bladder. The newborn waking/feeding schedule is also an excellent warm-up for them. But the actual torture doesn't come until they instill a false sense of security in you. They do this by starting to regularly sleep through the night, giving you the idea that you have "sleep trained" them. While this step seems like a big improvement, that's when the actual torture begins. Because as soon as night wakenings come with the sense that "This Shouldn't Be Happening," they have you at their mercy. You can develop some coping skills. After years of practice, I can breastfeed, change a diaper, or strip wet bedding in a state pretty close to sleep (literally with my eyes closed). And there's a reason why three of my five listed beauty miracles have to do with hiding the ever-darkening circles under my eyes. But those are completely useless against the group effort I endured last night.

I'm trying to figure out what they want from me. I suspect they believe they can push me into serving Ramen noodles three meals a day or doling out unlimited packages of fruit snacks if I'm tired enough (the non-comatose version of me attempts to serve dishes that actually contain nutrients and limit gummy consumption to 1-2 packets a day). Perhaps it's information they want. Do they want to know about the facts of life or my "in" with Santa? If so, I'm ready to sing like an American Idol contestant during Hollywood week. Anything for six hours of sleep in a row.

I know that more advanced methods of sleep torture are coming my way. Sadie has been experimenting with what I call "The Reverse Sleep Torture." This involves giving up her afternoon nap so that she can act beastly from the hours of 3 pm until bedtime. And I've heard of the teenage version of sleep torture, which involves being two hours late for your midnight curfew with your much older, tattooed boyfriend. I'm thankful I have a few years to gear up for that. Hopefully by taking a couple of naps.