I'm just trying to sleep... or something.

I pause your regularly scheduled cross-stitch programming for a little glimpse into my life.

Just a quick recap. I'm a cross-stitch artist, wife, mom, and nurse practitioner. I have four kids. I'm busy and I love it. My oldest is 8 yrs old... my youngest is almost 2 years old. So, to say I am experienced in the infant/toddler/young child sleep-stuff is an understatement. We are not out of the trenches yet. Nope, we aren't.

"Sleep when the baby sleeps," they say. "Get up before the kids," they say. {Insert any other parenting quote here}, they say. Well, I'm here to tell you that none of that ever works for me! Nope. Why, you ask? Because I swear to whoever-is-listening that my children are sneaky-sneaky and ALWAYS know. Always! I'm not sure how they do it, but they always know that I have planned something for myself. Something like a little extra sleep. Something like actually finishing a warm cup of coffee. Something like 30 minutes of mindless television. They just always know exactly when I have plans to do something without them.

Sometimes, when I've had a couple bad nights in a row, the word exhausted doesn't even describe it anymore... my mind starts playing tricks on me. I have visions of them conspiring together... maybe something like... "Mom thinks she's going to enjoy some time by herself. Ha! Let's show her who's really in charge." Or maybe... "Hey, did you hear? Mom thinks she's tired from doing all the things. Let's show her what tired REALLY feels like. I'll get up at midnight. You take the 2 o'clock hour. And you... make sure you're up about 4 o'clock. We don't want her sleeping too long at one time."

Anyone else? Anyone?!

And how about those mornings when you want to get up a little before the roost? Like this morning, for example. YES! This actual morning! Let me tell you the USUAL routine:

• Kid #3 always comes to my room about 6:22am, everyday, like clockwork.

• Kid #2 and #4 are up about 7am.

• Kid #1... sometime after that.

So today, I planned to get up at 5am to enjoy a hot cup of coffee and write this blog post. Seems like enough time, right? ... NOPE, they knew.

Seriously, here's how it went: Kid #4 wakes at 4:45am and it takes 2 tries to get her back to sleep. No time to snooze... it's now 5:15am, so I head to the kitchen to brew some coffee and I'm still determined to get in some "me time." I take my laptop back to bed and just get settled with my steaming cup of Joe when... Kid #4 is at it again. Thankful that she settled herself after a few minutes... next up is Kid #3, who wakes early today... at 5:37am. Seriously guys, you can't make this up. And at this very moment, I'm desperately trying to distract Kid #3 on my iPhone all the while, Kid #2 is awake and nearly hanging over my computer. I guess "me time" has come to a close for today.

But as the sun rises, morning comes as it always does... each day as I wake with tired eyes, I am greeted by their smiling faces. Each of them give me the biggest good morning hugs and kisses... like they haven't seen me all night. When the fog lifts from the night before, I am brought back to reality. They aren't the little-evil-children my mind made them out to be the night before. No one planned to torment me or conspire against me. Nope. They just love me without conditions. And I love them, more.

-Amanda