Sleep peels and heals, I squeal

You should count yourself bloody lucky.

You know that, don’t you.

So, you lay your weary head down to sleep night after night and, hey presto – guess what?

You do actually sleep, don’t you?

So your blankie might sneakily slip off your legs as you languidly change position, mid REMs, causing you momentary chill and to momentarily stir to replace it; and so your poor sleepy little head might be roused, just briefly, by the breeze blowing the blinds against your window sill...

So what?

You go back to sleep. Literally, in the blink of an eye. And you stay that way. Don’t you. Until the day’s first light pierces the dim that has enveloped you and your sub-conscious so deliciously and in dreamy reverie for, oh, at least seven hours.

Sometimes it’s light for HOURS before you actually stir, isn’t it? Sometimes, those damn birds are out there chirping, as they have been since 4.02am – and you know NOTHING about it.

Why?

Because you have slept like a dead rock-shaped baby log on Valium. Yes you have.

And I hate you. Do you hear me. I HATE YOU!

No one, no one I tell you, has the right to complain about being tired unless they are A) pregnant or B) a parent to a child under the age of five.

Some younger, child-less people I work with often complain about being exhausted and I have to grit my teeth. Into a powder.

If you haven’t already got the gist, I am having trouble sleeping. Enormous trouble. I love my sleep. Enormously.

I know, I know – this is good practice for the express train to Zombie Land taking a massive detour past Sleepy-byes that all mums catch when they bring home a newborn.

But, seriously, disgustingly high night-time humidity, a four-year-old who has just started kindy and has now taken to waking in the night – often – for drinks of water or because of a scratching sound, a suddenly snoring partner not coping with the sudden outbursts of pollen in the air and my bladder demanding to be emptied up to four times a night DOES NOT A RESTFUL NIGHT MAKE!!!!!!!

I can understand now why the authorities say being tired can be as dangerous as being drunk behind the wheel. I understand why sleep deprivation is used as a torture tactic.

Luckily I am someone who adores the gentle art of napping. It is something I indulge in as often as I can.

Unluckily, I am someone who is still at work full-time. And while it has been mightily tempting to flop prostrate onto my computer keyboard for a 30-minute power nap, my office is open plan and no less than 58 people would be witness to my antenatal-narcolepsy.

Sweet jesus, I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to finishing work. It has been a bloody nightmare to lose so much sleep during the night, firstly, and secondly, not be able to just close the curtain on the dawning day to catch up.

Instead I have had to get up at normal time, shower, breakfast, makeup, get dressed and arrive at work at some sort of respectable hour.

All the while reminding myself that the closer I can work up to my due date, the more time off I will have with our baby.

It’s quite an incentive.

But I have only one more week at work to go. Hoo-to the hell-ray.