Tired

Before you have kids, I don’t think anyone can appreciate the true meaning of being tired. How does one really operate on a few hours of broken sleep every day, day after day. I mean I just couldn’t comprehend how anyone could function. Surely, they must be exaggerating.

I consider myself blessed with good sleepers. I followed the Baby Wise principles and both my babies slept through the night pretty early. Which is all relative because everyone has a different definition of sleeping through the night and of what age early is, right? And just because they were good sleepers, does not mean I did not experience the burning sensation behind my eyeballs for months and the total and utter reliance on caffeine to make it through the day.

Now, my kids are 3 and a half yrs old and 21 months old and we all have been sleeping through the night for quite some time except for the occasional cry out in the middle of the night for a blanket or to go to the bathroom.  I say all that to say, how is it I am still tired? Most nights, I get my blessed 8 hours of beauty rest and usually fit in a short 15 min. power nap every day and I am still tired! I have bags under my eyes to prove it.

I heard that you never sleep the same again after you become a parent. I am starting to see why. It is a 24/7 job with little breaks and no paid vacations. It takes all of you, all of your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual energy all day, every day. It is draining, demanding and down right dirty at times.

I don’t see any reprieve over the next 18 years or more. I hear the older they get, the later you stay up talking with them or praying for them if they are out for the night. What the heck did I sign up for? A life long sentence of little sleep?

No one can fully warn you about parenthood or else no one would do it. I wouldn’t have believed anyone anyways. To give all of myself away on a daily basis, to lay my life down for them, to live my life for them. To love them with an unconditional, unlimited and uncontrollable love. Starting to sound a little like someone else I know.

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for others.”    1 John 3:16 paraphrased

If being a parent makes me more like Jesus and lets me understand his love that has no limits in a greater capacity, then I will gladly remain this way the rest of my life. Tired.