sleep deprivation

Send help! My kids are trying to kill me!

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Last night, Riley wouldn’t go to sleep. By 9pm, she had graduated from pretend crying (because it was wearing thin and she could see how cranky Mummy was becoming with every jaunt upstairs to attend to her) to calling out with pretend reasons for still being awake.

“My foot hurt. Want some cream on it.”
I gave her some cream.

“My nose! My nose!”, followed by a long pathetic-sounding pretend snuffle.
I gave her my Vicks inhaler.

“Don’t want Lamby in cot.”
I removed her highly offensive cuddly lamb toy.

“Lion’s coming! Lion’s coming!”
“Oh for goodness sake, Riley. There is no lion coming. There are no lions wandering about. They live in Af-ri-ca. This is Au-stra-lia!”
“Want sleep in Mummy’s bed.”
“Fine.”

After a dozen or so treks up and down the bloody stairs within a half-hour span, she had broken me. I went downstairs, chugged the remains of my glass of wine, made the all-too-familiar trip back upstairs, collecting the complaining girl-child on the way, cleaned my teeth and climbed into bed, laying Riley down beside me.

“Mummy, I want lamby”.

I swear to God, my kids are trying to kill me.

After an hour or so, I was rudely awoken by the boy-child, screaming at the top of his lungs. Actual proper screaming. Like he was being attacked by a vacationing African lion. My husband (who had been downstairs watching TV) and I reached the hallway at the same time, but since Mike’s eyelids weren’t welded together like mine, I let him attend to Flynn and I stumbled back to bed. The screaming continued. In fact, I’m fairly sure it increased in volume and pitch. I lay there, wondering what the hell was going on, trying to comfort Riley, who was also now awake and insisting on going to see what was wrong with her brother. I let her. I figured that Mike would appreciate the back-up. I continued lying in bed. Don’t judge me. It was cold. I was tired. Surely the father of my children was more than capable of calming down his distraught offspring? Then Mike rushed in, stating “He’s freaking me out! I’m not sure if he’s awake or not!”

No, but every other f*cker is!

“Just pick him up and bring him in here” I replied from underneath the doona.
“He wont let me” Mike said. “He’s doing that thing he used to do when he was a baby and had reflux. He’s making his body stiff as a board!”

And so that’s how we all ended up in Flynn’s room at 11pm. Even Bundy.

Sleeping with an adorable twin snuggled cozily at either side of me sounds like it might bring back fond memories of my pregnancy when they were snuggled cozily in my womb, right? Wrong. It was like being in the ring with Tyson. I was kicked, I was hit, I was headbutted. Mike probably thinks he drew the short straw by having to sleep in the guest bed because there wasn’t enough room in our bed, but I would’ve happily swapped places with him in a heartbeat.

Morning rolled around all too soon, and I was awoken by Flynn patting my head and asking me “Where’s Dad?”. Riley was next to wake with a loud complaint about not having enough of the blanket. Flynn then demanded that I find his projection torch. I told him I was trying to sleep and he could go and find it himself. Lots of banging and running sounds later, he came back into the bedroom exclaiming indignantly “It’s up high, Mum! Can’t reach it!” 

I suddenly realised exactly where it was. Where I’d left it last night when I’d tidied the play room – on the bannister, just out of reach of little hands. I quickly weighed up how dangerous it would be to let him climb up and get it versus how cold it would be getting out of bed to get it for him. Decision made, I said “Get your stool. Then you can reach it yourself.” Don’t judge me. I’d had very little sleep and was covered in fast-forming bruises. I was, however, quickly rewarded by Karma herself (she’s a bitch sometimes!) when he returned excitedly, torch in hand, and shone it directly into my eyes. My retinas will never be the same. 

We are all so bloody tired that today is simply about survival. I still haven’t washed the breakfast dishes and it’s afternoon now. The house looks like it’s been ransacked because I am basically letting the twins do whatever they want. Except have lollies for breakfast. They must have sensed my complete lack of parenting ability today because Riley did ask that very thing. And I won’t lie, I actually considered it for a minute or so, but then I reasoned that I didn’t have enough energy to put up with the chaos caused by the ensuing sugar rush, and so I summoned my inner adult and declined her request. 

I wonder how Mike is surviving at work?

Bundy is asleep in her bed. She has the right idea. Would it be wrong of me to give the twins the container full of Lolly Treats and crawl in beside the pooch for a nap?  

I said it before and I’ll say it again – my kids are trying to kill me!

Pray for us. Send help. Send wine. 


This is pure exhaustion. I bet she secretly wants to be put back on a plane and returned to my in-laws’ house where there were no such things as toddler twins roaming free. 

 

Hardest Job in the World!

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You’ve all heard people say it, right? In a number of ways, I imagine.

  1. “Seriously. You have no idea. Parenting is the hardest job in the world!”
  2. “Forget brain surgery. Parenting is the hardest job in the world!”
  3. “No doubt about it. Parenting is the hardest job in the world!”
  4. “Sure, being a Landmine Remover wouldn’t be easy, but parenting is the hardest job in the world!”

Before I had children, I thought people who said any of the above sentences, or similar, were exaggerating for effect. I just figured they had previously not experienced any real difficulty in a job role. How very naive of me. I now realise that they were simply stating a fact.

In my experience, parenting truly is the hardest job I have ever had. I’m not just talking about the basics of it, either. Yeah, sure, there is a lot to do. Things we possibly haven’t ever had to tackle in our previous child-free, get-to-lie-in-on-Saturdays-with-a-hangover life. When our children are tiny, we find ourselves stuck in a continuous loop of feeding baby, burping baby, changing baby’s nappies, bathing baby, dressing baby, putting baby down to sleep, doing copious amounts of laundry (none of it our own infant-vomit-covered-clothing) and comforting baby. Over and over. And over. I originally started to type ‘sleep, eat, repeat’ after that long list of baby-related chores, but ‘don’t sleep, eat biscuits, repeat’ is probably closer to the truth! And for mothers who breastfeed, that mundane (let’s be honest here – it gets boring!) routine intensifies due to the fact that nobody else can really help with those 3-hourly feeds, unless you express some breast milk, but that takes time as well. And when you are a mother of multiples, you can definitely add on some more ‘awake’ time! ‘Double trouble’ = double the work = double the sleep deprivation. And let me tell you in no uncertain terms, sleep deprivation is an absolute bugger! No wonder it has been used as a form of torture by some military groups, who have broken the will of a prisoner by simply keeping them awake for days. Not sleeping can cause psychosis, a deterioration of cognitive functions and a breakdown of the immune system. No wonder new parents can lose their temper, cry, feel depressed, suffer memory loss, possibly become ill and experience a general feeling of malaise. I certainly did. Quite frankly, I was SO crazy with bone-aching tiredness in the first six months of the twins’ life, I’m surprised that my husband and I didn’t divorce! I still vividly recall (and with a fair amount of embarrassment) the time that Mike and I had a screaming argument, in which I dropped the C-bomb with gay abandon. While my mother-in-law was visiting. Not my finest moment.

Then, as our babies start growing, we get more used to the daily grind routine. We get better at it. In fact, we may even begin to relax a little. That, my friends, is a mistake. Why? Because the little darlings lull you into a false sense of security and then they move the goalposts! One day, you’ll leave them lying peacefully on the living room floor, gurgling away quite happily at the toys dangling from their baby gym mat, while you sneak off for a much-needed poo, and when you return, they’ll be halfway to the bloody front door! God knows how they got there, but they will have graduated to moving when you least expect it. And that changes everything.

If having a baby is a steep learning curve for some, then having twins was positively perpendicular for me!

The Penman Twins are two-and-a-half years old now and I am still learning. Every. Single. Day. Learning which aspects of parenting work for me and which don’t. Learning new ways to handle the issues that arise from being a parent. Learning how not to react to a tantrum-throwing, psychopathic little person. Learning how deeply I can actually feel the love for said little people. I suspect that I will never stop learning.

The daily responsibilities of parenting don’t concern me as much as other aspects. I am more than able when it comes to feeding, clothing, entertaining, teaching and, of course, loving my children. But it’s a scary thought that I am wholly responsible for raising a person who can show empathy, share love, express feelings, know how to be happy. This is the part that I find the most difficult. The emotional side of parenting. My emotions, yes, but more importantly, their emotions. I want them to be happy. I want them to have a great childhood. I want their memories to be good ones. I want to ensure that they know how to manage their own emotions. I want to lead by example. That’s why I currently go to see a psychologist. How can I teach my kids to be zen, when I am so highly strung that I could string Christmas lights for Jesus? But that’s a topic for another blog.

I don’t know if other parents can relate to the things I have shared. I sometimes feel like I’m the only one who struggles. Other people seem to breeze through this parenting gig. I continuously struggle my way through. Sometimes I feel so lonely. I feel so tired. I feel so unqualified. But then, my kids will cuddle me, and I feel so blessed. Or someone will tell me how beautifully behaved the twins have been, or how clever they are, and my heart swells with pride, and I dare to say to myself “Maybe you’re getting better at this, Liesa?”.

Time will tell.

*THIS* is what sleep deprivation looks like. The twins were two weeks old here. Flynn on the left, Riley on the right. I may look tired, but I love this photo. I still think of life as a miracle when I look at this picture.