Adventures in sleep deprivation part III

I know you've all been waiting with bated breath to hear my latest whine about being tired. Wah. I know. So here's the latest;

Friday came and went very very slowly. I was working on very tedious administrative duties at work (cleaning up user ID's on the security module. Just shoot me). I have to remember to put this off until I find myself unable to sleep again. It has to be an instant cure.

I did, however, get the Unexpected Urgent Support Call from a user. In England. I'm getting ahead of myself. First; some background. I was working from home on Friday as is normal and my wife had to go to a parent/teacher conference for #3 to discuss whether or not he's ready for Kindergarten (long story short, he is). The meeting was about 15 minutes and it was a 10 minute drive each way to the school. For those of you who are native to Delaware that'd be 10 + 10 + 15 = 35 minutes. For those 35 minutes I'd have to watch both kids. It's easy to watch #3 as he largely plays with his toys and leaves me to work aside from the occasional request or question. The baby, however, is another matter. He's 13 months old which means you can't let him run about on his own and expect to get anything done. No big deal because the meeting was smack in the middle of his nap. Wife leaves, #3 is building a Thomas track of truly epic engineering proportions. If this were built to scale it would be a multi-billion dollar project. Replete with engine sheds, unnecessary bridgeworks, curves, splits, merges. I took a picture of it and emailed to Amtrak who immediately replied they'd like to retain him as Senior Designer for Unnecessary Projects.

Roughly 12 minutes after my wife left, The Baby decided Sleep Time was over and Crying Time had most certainly begun. In a display of spectacularly bad timing, my user in Slough is desperately pinging me for help. Not good. In a fit of improvisation, I grab the laptop, run downstairs with baby and laptop in tow. Put baby in backpack baby carrier and put laptop on higher kitchen counter (it's like a bar almost so I can type while standing). This placates Crying Child and now User is asking me to call him. Um, no. You're in England and at the office. You can call me. Phone rings and it's User. He is, of course, looking for what he thinks is a simple fix to a simple report. He is, of course, flat wrong. After much ado and juggling to keep The Baby placated through various forms of bribery (including but not limited to, chew toys, Fruit Wheels and shifting my weight from side to side) I explain to User that this is a complete rewrite and he surrenders and since it's past 5:00 PM in Slough, he throws in the towel for the weekend and kips off to the pub for a pint. Victory! Wife calls and is gently urge her to get home to take care of child before more calls come in.

Anyway, back to the story....so Friday night Eldest went to sleep as always, without complaint. He's usually tired and ready for bed and lets me know by taking me by the hand and leading me up to his bed. (Contrast this with my other "typical" kids who engage in more negotiations for bedtime than your average Israeli/Palestinian Land for Peace deal.) The baby went up next with little complaint for reasons noted above. By 8:30, all are sleeping and I'm fading fast. Eat, digest and watch a bit of Dexter and off to bed by 10:30. I'm asleep in about 9 seconds. Baby is up at 2:30 for a brief bottle and back to sleep by 3:00. I sleep the sleep of the damned until 6:15 when Eldest and Baby double team us for early wake up. After some spirited negotiations, I lose agree to get up in exchange for a nap later. I hold out until 9:30 when wife and I trade. Back to sleep until nearly noon and wake up feeling like a million bucks. At this point, we're full tilt boogie into Birthday Party Mode for #3 (which is occurring off premises). Eldest and Baby are dropped off with relatives and off to the party. Set up, party games, pizza, cake, more games, pack up, pick up siblings, home, playtime, dinner time, bath time, bedtime. Whirlwind day to be sure. Lather rinse repeat my evening routine and everybody slept until 6:45 AM. God is indeed merciful. I think he saw that I had filled out a form to legally change my name to Job and I had also mentioned in my last prayer that if He would not grant relief I would consider quitting Christianity and becoming a follower of Hypnos. Add to that His roles have been diminishing of late so He relented. (Just kidding Big Guy! Please don't smite me for insolence)

I think we're finally over this insomnia thing and I am well and truly grateful. It's amazing that two days of uninterrupted sleep can bring me around so quickly.