To Sleep, perchance to dream...

Apparently Ethan has signed up for some sort of scientific research that he failed to tell us about. The experiment seems to have something to do with sleep deprivation and it's effects on two parents who were just starting to believe that they would actually get an entire night's shut-eye before their child went to college. I guess we will actually be waiting until we are empty-nesters to luxuriate in 8 hours of uninterrupted, blissful sleep. Now I know why Keats wrote an ode about sleep. As someone who's only slept in 3-5 hour increments for over a year, I can assure you that peaceful sleep truly is ode-worthy.

But I only imagine sleep these days, remember the good old days of those 3-5 hours of snoozing at a time. As I mentioned, there is this experiment. It involves taking one okay-ish nap in the morning and then kicking and screaming and fighting the afternoon nap until Mama is a beaten down shell of her former self and gives up, letting him remain awake for up to 8 hours between nap and bedtime.

The first time this happened, the stinker lolled us into a false sense of security because after refusing the afternoon nap, he was so tuckered out that by 8pm, he smiled at Husband, rolled over and was asleep in a hot second. We dared (foolish, foolish fools that we are) to think that maybe he was done with the second nap and would become an example of the perfect nighttime sleeper with this whole, "No, daddy, don't worry; I'll put myself to bed!" routine he had going on.

HA. FREAKING. HA.

That didn't pan out to be the case. I guess in the description he received from the evil sleep researchers, he was supposed to make us think he had taken a giant leap forward in his sleep habits when in fact, he was really going back to about, oh, 4 months of age or so. This was, I suppose, to enhance our shock and disappointment when the next time he refused the afternoon nap, he didn't actually jump up at 8pm to change his own diaper, throw on his jammies and bid us goodnight as he sauntered up the stairs to bed.

No, yesterday, when he refused his afternoon nap, he also refused his bedtime. Over and over and over again. Joy.

There was *some* sleep, but it was restless and fitful and punctuated with random crying jags. I know I was awake from 2:30-4:30 am pretty consistently. Not much happening at that hour, except the sound of my own internal voice saying, "It's fucking late!" or, alternately, "I'm so fucking tired." It was a pretty deep monologue.

So of course, after no nap and craptastic nighttime sleep, he HAD to just pass out for his morning nap today, right??? Um. No. Nor did he sleep for more than ten minutes this afternoon. It defies reason. I am tired just thinking about how tired he must be.

I don't know what the outcome of this little experiment is going to be. There is no way to know. Maybe tonight we will all be sleeping like angels on a happy puffy cloud of dreams (can you feel my sleep deprivation, people? I said a "happy, puffy cloud of dreams". Help me!) Or, Mama could be digging out the Benefit makeup she got a month post-partum to hide the deep dark circles of exhaustion under her eyes. Good times.