Good thing I'm going to the spa this weekend

In high school I went to bed at nine o'clock every night. I would crash in bed with a book and get through maybe a paragraph before I was out. I was so tired. I went to school, then I went to basketball practice. Practice went till five and the buses to take you home left around 5:30. I'd get home in time for dinner, which I would scarf down before camping out in my room to do my homework. There was only one TV channel, so by definition there was never anything good on, and I was slowly plowing through Agatha Christie novels. Slowly, because, one paragraph at a time.

In college I thought I'd never been more tired in my life. Seriously. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could be so tired, why I was so tired. I wasn't one of those students who partied all the time (you: OBV) and I wasn't even one of those students who stayed up late. College is when I found out I was a morning person. If I had a paper due the next day and I hadn't written it, I knew I was better off waking up extra early than staying up till 2 or 3 in the morning. (Ask my roommates, each and every one the type to pull all nighters, I can't imagine how they put up with me.) I wasn't enough of a morning person to choose those godawful 8 am classes, I took them because I had to work in the afternoons. (Tangent: I knew, like, THREE people who had jobs in college. Jobs to pay tuition rather than "jobs" to put on future resumes. WAS THAT NORMAL?) Anyway. I attributed my fatigue to school, work, schoolwork and the demands of the Non-Denominational College Fellowship, which were 99% social and therefore rarely anything I turned down. It was the kind of tired you feel in every limb. Just beaten down, worn out.

My nine to five jobs, by contrast, were a freaking DREAM. That Double-Income-No-Kids thing? What a racket. You have money and the energy to spend it. Do not waste these days, DINK readers!

Then I became a mother and my God this is an entirely new world of tired. A new GALAXY of tired. I remember sitting in my dorm room thinking I had never been so tired and it's all I can do not to reach through the time-space continuum and give myself a nice stinging slap.

Today, for example. Today was not especially exhausting or draining or special in any way. My kids woke up at six which is regrettable, but also normal around here. Molly took a decent morning nap. We went to the wading pool. We had lunch. We came home and napped. The nap was only an hour and a half long. Jack used to sleep three glorious hours in the afternoon and stopped when we moved Molly in. I don't really know what I can do about that, so I just deal and it's been that way for a month or two, so it's not like I had this bummer of an afternoon because they only slept and hour and a half. Then we went to the library and the park and had dinner and tore every book out of the toy bookshelf and went to bed. The end. And now I have to clean up the kitchen and pack our bags because we're going away for Thursday and Friday night, and fold three loads of laundry piled on my bed and pick up the living room and I CAN'T because I have only enough energy to TYPE.

I guess that sounds like we were out and about, which DOES make me more tired, but get this: my sister was here ALL DAY LONG. Arrived around ten, left after dinner. Getting out the house was 1) fun and 2) 1000% easier than doing it by myself. We had a great time. I think I need to repeat: I HAD HELP ALL DAY LONG.

And yet: I am so unbelievably propping-my-eyelids-open-with-toothpicks tired.

I don't want you to think I'm complaining, per se. I'm actually just trying to make an Objective Observation. This job is so much work, people. The feeding and dressing and cleaning and occupying, just the BASICS are enough to entitle you to twelve hours at the spa. This job is so much work, even when you have an aunt in tow, the next best thing to Grandma.

My husband, whom you know I adore, went to some important Work Function this evening and while I am trying not to envy the dinner that someone else cooked and then cleaned up for him, I am feeling a bit despairing about the fact that he will be walking in the door any minute and our house appears to have been ransacked by Fisher-Price obsessed paper eaters. I feel like I need to at least APPEAR like I'm doing a decent job around here. Make it LOOK like I'm in control. But I am so tired I can't even be bothered to change the channel. And since Anderson Cooper thinks I'm dying to know whether Michael Jackson overdosed on prescription drugs and I most definitely do not care in the LEAST, so much so that I think my brain is starting to bleed out of my ears, I should really get off this chair and find the remote control.

At Parenting tomorrow/today: I take a page from 'Outliers' and congratulate myself on having been born in the appropriate era to take advantage of social media. Pretty far behind on my 10,000 hours though.

Comments

[Lindsay]

I took 8 am classes so I could go there and sleep. Like I figured I'd be sleeping no matter what at that time, might as well get a class out of the way. So now that I have a nine to five job and less stuff I am actually more tired than before because I can't sleep at my job. It is such a downer I tell you.

And I think the mom job looks exhausting. My husband and I babysat our nephew (ratio of 2 adults to 1 toddler) one day and after about an hour and a half the kid's mom came home and then WE had to leave and take a nap.

[Crystal]

I am so right there with you. Seriously. Right down to picking up a few things before the husband gets home just to make it look like presentable.

[Elsha]

My mom has made the same observation about being busy. She says every time she reached a new phase in her life she looked back on what she thought was busy before and thought, "that wasn't busy, NOW I'm busy." She says it never ends.

P.S. I am also the girl who would get up early to finish stuff because my brain/study skills are pretty much worthless after about 10:30 pm.

[Kels]

I work as a nanny from 7am-5pm daily and then go to school every night and do online classes. I feel you on the tired thing. The fabulous thing about being a nanny is that at least we get paid! Although I would definitely do the job without pay, I just have to pay my bills.

[Jenny Ryan]

I so admire you, and everyone who is a mother. You guys are amazing.

Hope you have a great getaway!

:) Jenny

[Becky aka StinkyLemsky]

I had a job to pay tuition as well (though I'll still be paying student loans off until I'm 45). My friends in college used to think I was such a jerk, abandoning them to go hang out with my boyfriend all weekend. Uh - no. I really actually did work thirty hours every weekend.

[Christiana]

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Of course, if you paid someone as a full-time maid/nanny you'd consider it a full-time job for her, right? I'm very tired, too. I think it's the perpetual state of motherhood under the kids are married themselves.

[Jess]

You know, on the college thing? Now that you point it out I remember quite clearly how tired I was there, and how I was also better off getting up really early to finish something than staying up late to do it. At the time I thought that maybe it meant I was a morning person, but now I think it was just because I wasn't coherent when I was that sleep deprived.

[Carrie]

When Daniel walked in last night, I was on the couch, holding the baby, while Ethan ran around yelling. Every surface of the floor and every shelf/table that Ethan could reach was covered with toys. I just looked at Daniel and said "he won". My goal yesterday was to walk two blocks to the grocery store. We didn't make it. I agree, this parenting thing is SO exhausting. I have never been this tired! Good thing they're cute :)

[Tara]

I am SO with you on the "one of three people I knew who had to work for tuition money in college" thing. I don't know if it's normal (I HOPE not), but I ad the same experience!

And if it's any consolation, we consider 1.5 hour naps "long" around here. Sigh.

[Angela Noelle]

I think this right here is the main reason that I keep putting off the kid thing. I really, really want them, and part of it is just the selfishness of enjoying being able to put ourselves first for a bit longer, but I'm already SO TIRED all of the time, I don't even want to think about the level of tired that will come with children. I know that they're worth it, it's just such a daunting prospect...

[Jen]

Do you know that my baby woke up after yours yesterday and that is in real time, not including the time change? But she doesn't go to sleep at night and spends those "sleeping in" mornings sleeping on my arm so that I cannot move, so it is kind of a trade off.

Why is it that everyone asks me if I am "just" staying at home or if I don't work? I mean, I get it, but we need a better term.

[A'Dell]

Last week after work I accidentally fell asleep on the living room floor while Claire was playing next to me.

I woke up when she started banging a toy on the glass doors of some furniture. I think was only out for a few moments. It was that sort of, "Snort-snort-HUH?" wake-up.

I think the phrase, "a new GALAXY of tired" is quite appropriate - and I only have ONE child.

[chrystal]

I started a blog a few weeks ago entitled "A new kind of tired", but I was too tired to keep it up and write on a regular basis, so I deleted it.

Oh well, I'm tired dangit!