Sunday, August 30, 2009

Last Night's Dirty Dishes

I stumble back to bed after the 0600 feeding. I'm hoping to get just one more hour of sleep so that my cumulative total will allow me to function today without depression.

Life with a newborn has taught me that I can survive on 6 hours of total sleep, fragmented though it may be. If I get at least 6 hours I can function. I can deal with my toddler without wanting to scream and pull my hair out. I may not be happy, but at least I'm not crying.

If I get less than 6 hours I am a bear. I feel out of sorts, depressed, angry, tired, and become just an all-around unmotivated grump.

If I get more than 6 hours, I feel like myself. I'm in total control. I'm happy and content.

Fortunately I get 6 hours most of the time and slightly more than 6 occasionally.

Unfortunately (for both me and my children) I get less than 6 hours occasionally as well.

This has been one of those nights. One of those Zzz<6.>

The clock reads 0630. My husband is just getting back from his morning run. Please don't wake up the baby; I try to send him my message through ESP.

Of course the "one more hour, just one more hour, please oh please, just one more hour" I try to get doesn't happen. The husband has to get ready for work and is moving around the bathroom and kitchen. How come the baby can sleep through that and I can't? I doze. I lie there with my eyes closed and whimper.

0730. Husband is still rattling around. Baby is crying. I drag myself out of bed, grumbling all the way across the room and down the hall. I carry crying baby to the diaper changing station I've set up on my bed.

I change diaper.

Baby squeals and grunts.

Baby smiles.

Mommy melts.

We coo at each other for a minute.

Suddenly everything feels good. It's okay that I didn't get enough sleep because I have the most gorgeous, smart, amazing, and perfect baby in the world. Have you seen those dimples?

Baby is lying happily on the bed for a few minutes, so I figure I can go get a bite to eat before the toddler wakes up.

That's when it happens (like it happens almost every morning).

I walk into the kitchen and am confronted with Last Night's Dirty Dishes.

Depression instantly sets in. I'm back to grumbling.

Why is it that I am incapable of cleaning the kitchen up the night before? Yes, I'm tired. That's always my excuse. But it's so much WORSE to clean up a dirty kitchen when I'm tired in the morning than when I'm tired at night.

I should think I would have learned my lesson by now, but there's ample evidence sitting on the counters proving otherwise.


5 comments:

Just what is a Clair? said...

For the FIRST time in our almost five years of marriage we are actually getting the kitchen clean at night before we go to bed. It is pathetic I guess, but the truth.:)Personally I enjoy doing the dishes during naptime after lunch.

Lissa said...

Every night I say, "I'll do the dishes in the morning" because I just can't face them at night. Most nights while I'm in the tub taming the pain enough to get some sleep, my husband quietly washes them for me. I love it when that happens.

shelley said...

I remember with new babies thinking that if I could get just one thing done during the day (something not for the baby) that it was a good day. Maybe your one thing is dishes before bed. Who cares how messy the house is during the day. If you do that one thing, maybe you'll actually get one other thing the next day because you feel happy and motivated when you wake up.

Alternatively, you could just throw all the dirty dishes into Brent's bathroom until he decides to do them. :)

Sorry it's hard.

Jennifer said...

Go paper for a month.

Susan said...

Maren, I can't understand any of this. Didn't your mother provide a perfect example of both housekeeping AND exercising???