When people find out we had a baby nine years after our next-youngest child, they can't seem to resist joking about how tired I must be. They seem to want to relive their baby-days, looking back at what they recall as endless sleepless nights with what I can only think is schadenfreude.
The truth is, I am tired. But not necessarily because of Baby Three.
While some babies never want to sleep through the night, she's been enjoying seven to eight hours straight of peaceful slumber since she was about three months old. Sure, there are occasional night disturbances. I chalk them up to teething, or growth spurts, or whatever other nebulous cause comes to mind.
But by the time she's ready to sack out -- usually between 9 and 10 p.m. -- I'm about ready to join her.
Unfortunately, that's about the time my 12-year-old, Kid One, comes awake and wants to talk or walk or the dog or do anything but think about going to bed.
I know lots or research shows that adolescent brains are just wired to keep later hours, staying up late at night and sleeping later in the morning, and she's entering those years. I know she's not trying to make me feel bad for having to stifle yawns as she tells me about the plot of the book she's reading, or the latest friend drama, with nearly every sentence ending in "y'know?" in an attempt to keep me paying attention.
I feel like I should apologize for being tired, for not being grateful that she wants to talk to me at all these days. Then I remember when I was about her age, and my mom had just had a baby and made a nightly habit of falling asleep on the couch before 10 p.m. Now I know where she was coming from.
And I remember saying to my mother after Kid One was born, "Does this mean I'm going to be tired for the next 18 years?" She was one of those never-wants-to-sleep babies.
My mom said, "I think it's going to be longer than that."
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