killing me softly

I shouldn’t complain.  I should just be thankful that I don’t have to get up at 4:30am anymore.  But on the rare days when the baby sleeps past 6:30, I want to be sleeping too. These days, 6:30 in the morning is the time that Eli likes to talk to me and have conversations, and I just wish he would tell me things at night before bed, or leave me a note on the table.  This is an example from this morning:

Eli: Jaem…Jaem…
Jaeme: mmm…?
E: The baby’s still sleeping…
J: You woke me up to tell me that?
E: No, go back to sleep
J: okay

(Eli goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth and I fall back asleep…until he comes back to continue the conversation)

E: I just wanted to let you know I’m taking your car to work
J: mmm…
E: …because I don’t have enough gas in my truck to get there…
J: mmm…
E: I’ll put the carseat in the truck in case you want to go anywhere
J: mmm…
E:  It’s still in four wheel drive, but I’ll leave it because it might snow later
J: mmm…
E: Did you hear what I just told you?
J: mmm…yes…
E: have a good day
J: mmm
E: …and I’ll call you later on…
J: OH MY GOD GET AWAY FROM ME!  I AM TRYING TO SLEEP HERE!

And then I’m awake and aggravated.  I hate all this whisper whisper business in the mornings and it is becoming an all the time thing.  I don’t understand how there could be so much to talk about when we just saw each other before we went to sleep.

I’m partially bitter because I am the 3am lovey retriever so I feel like I’m always being woken up by one of the boys in this house.  Joey has started a new game, yet another brilliant test he’s created to torture us with, to see if he can get us to play with him in the middle of the night.  For his entire life we’ve never played with him in the night, so I don’t know why he thinks we would start now.  But every once in a while, he will wake up in the middle of the night and throw his lamb out of his crib, across the room, and then he will shriek until we go to him.  Actually, until I go to him because Eli always plays dead. 

The first time it happened I thought a cat got into his crib and he was being clawed to death.  I flew out of bed, bolted down the hall ready to snap the neck of the cat that dared mess with my helpless baby in the middle of the night, and when I arrived cribside, Joey was standing there in his crib, smiling and laughing and beaming at me like, Hi, ma, you’re fast!  Now get me outta here, so we can PLAY!

There was nothing wrong with him and no cats in sight. 

So I gave him his lamb and he went back to sleep.  He has tried it a few more times, and now I barely even have to wake up to do the lamb retrieval.  I stumble out of bed, follow the screams down the hall, walk into his room to where his lamb is always lying in the middle of the floor, pick it up and give it back to him.  Though I’ll be honest, the last couple of time I’ve just chucked it across the room in the direction of the crib.  Then I turn around and walk out.  Never making eye contact (never really opening my eyes at all) and never doing anything exciting that Joey might want to see again.

Between the two of them, I’m constantly being woken up and all I want is to be left alone while I fucking rest.  I have a sleep disorder that I’ve only recently started to get under control, and I don’t want to return to the psychopath days when I became so sleep deprived I couldn’t sleep and losing my mind followed shortly after.

I don't expect the baby to understand this, but Eli knows better.