Wednesday, November 07, 2007

I think I might be tired

I actually had this conversation with another mom I met the other day:

“So, you’re Angela, and your daughter’s name is…um, Ella?” I said to her.

“Madeline”, she replied, smiling.

“I’m sorry. Madeline, right.” I said.

“Yup, Madeline, Henry, and Kasey. Those are my kids,” she said.

“Then why did you say Ella?” I asked her.

She gave me look, and said, “I didn’t. You did.”

“I did?”

I don’t think she and I will be going to lunch any time soon.

While driving the other day, I stopped in the middle of the intersection to stare at the oncoming car, wondering vaguely if he had a stop sign. When his frantic honking made me start from my reverie and realize he didn’t have a stop sign, I sped off, passing the turn I wanted to make in my total embarrassment at being an imbecile and my relief that I hadn’t caused an accident.

Dh and I no longer finish sentences when we speak. Nor do we actually use nouns. And we lose stuff. We frequently have conversations that go like this:

“Did you, um, see where I put the, uh, thing?”

“Thing? What thing are you talking about? I need more than ‘thing’”.

“You know, the thing, the thing that picks up dirt from the, um, other thing.”

“The vacuum? Are you looking for the vacuum? It’s right there, over by that thing.”

“Yes, that thing. Thanks.”

My baby is almost 5 months old, and after a few tired days of jetlag from a mini vacation to Arizona, she has pretty much settled back into a routine where she basically sleeps through the night, with just one feeding around 4 or 5am, then back to sleep until 8. (Yeah, J NEVER did so well). She is cheerful, my son is cheerful, and yet DH and I still feel like zombies. I don’t remember it being this hard last time, either because I recovered sooner, or I have blocked it all out entirely. I’m voting for the latter.

It amazes me that anybody survives infancy while being cared for by such tired parents. Really, it must take a village to raise a child, just so that everybody can get enough sleep.

Anybody else have zombie parent stories?

The other day I found a cereal box in the fridge. I think we all need a nap.

4 comments:

susan said...

Hi there,

I just wanted to thank you for your informative (and entertaining!) insight into life with PKD. I'm a medical student...I was doing some research on PKD for a class tomorrow when I came across your blog -- and I read the whole thing. I'm going to recommend it to my group tomorrow (hoping that's OK).

Best of luck with everything, and hoping you get that nap sometime :)

Heather O. said...

Glad you liked the blog, isolde. I'm not sure how informative it is, but I'm glad you are at least entertained!

susan said...

I find that we don't get nearly enough of a sense of how patients live with their conditions, and how they manage them. It's a big missing piece. Your blog helped fill that in for me. :)

Anonymous said...

I also am enjoying your blog. Linked to it from Julia's. I am a mom to a 2 1/2 year old with ARPKD and a 5 year old with healthy kidneys. I have a dog that wakes me up now that the kids are sleeping. I was the Des Moines Walk for PKD coordinator and I know what you mean about those who are not affected - my husband is a teacher and one of his co-workers husbands was one of our top fundraisers. Love warm fuzzy feelings of people bonding over a cause, especially this one which seems close to having treatments to prolong the failure.