Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Baby Borrowers and family relationships

When I saw episode two of Baby Borrowers, it made me want to be really nice to my wife. Seeing the teens sleep deprived, irritable, and fighting with each other struck a cord. Just the night before, my wife and I had had a terrible night of getting up with our little Daphne, who, as they told us in the hospital when whe was born seven months ago, is "very alert," and "loves to be held." Yeah, we noticed: when does that kid ever sleep? Anyway, the night before seeing episode two, I was up until 3 a.m. with her, trying to rock her to sleep and put her down, then I couldn't take it anymore and woke my wife up to take over. In my sleep deprived state, I got it in my mind that it was some kind of affront to me that my wife was sleeping while I was up. I don't remember, but I think I wasn't that nice to her when I crashed. Trying to get a baby to sleep when she doesn't want to is incredibly frustrating. It is absolutely not the baby's fault, and in Daphne's case, she just wanted to lay on our shoulders, not in her bed. Further, there's nothing you can do if she doesn't want to sleep. It's a complete loss of control. Add to that to a happily snoozing spouse (so it seems to a sleep deprived brain), and it can kind of feel like everyone's against you, like it's not fair somehow. I'm amazed that Cory did as well as he did under those circumstances, with Alicia just checking out altogether.

Update: Daphne doesn't like it when I grade papers late at night--that makes her not want to sleep. So I'm planning ahead better during the day...and remembering to be nice to my wife!

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