Baby Boot Camp: Week Two; Day Two

As I begun this adventure in blogging, I stated yesterday that I needed to practice what I preach. Yet, I wrote yesterday's entry without prewriting or revision. Bad Nana Vicki! I chastise my students for that sort of sloppiness. In my haste to get this venture started, I didn't even proofread!

So, today I will try to be more centered, more conscientious about my writing, and more focused on a thesis. Today's topic for consideration, a topic which has been on my mind quite a bit during this boot camp experience, a topic to which all can relate - whether interested in babies or not - is simply... sleep. Ah, sleep, that elusive necessity. Sleep, according to the sleep-deprived, maniacal Macbeth, "the innocent sleep/ Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care." The bloodiest of kings goes on to say that sleep is "balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,/Chief nourisher in life's feast." I have become obsessed of late by sleep, naps and resting.

As I create today's musings, I am lulled into a near-slumber state by the background noise of Luke's sleep sheep.  I am seriously considering purchasing one for my elderly mother who is having sleep issues. She sleeps better at night if she takes a Tylenol PM, but she often will not because she's afraid of becoming addicted. This from the lady who calls me at 5:00 every night so I can hear her clinking wine glasses with my father at "wine time." But, how did we parents of a previous generation ever exist without a sleep sheep? Yesterday, Luke and I napped while the sound of the ocean wafted over us in the background. Sleep sheep has an amazingly soporific effect. Unfortunately, Luke slept for over three hours, which transformed him into a night owl - up at 3:00 AM, when Natalie most needed her sleep.


So, what does "sleeping like a baby" really mean? Here's what one baby website has to say: "Believe it or not, you don't really want to sleep like a baby. Why? Babies' sleep, especially in the early months, is typically full of interruptions. Their sleep cycles are much shorter than an adult's, and it takes time for those cycles to get longer and for your baby to learn how to fall back to sleep on his own if he wakes up in the middle of the night." And, when I most need a nap, because of trying to keep Luke awake last night, so that he'd sleep uninterrupted for several hours, I need to go and hold my little tyrant since he's not napping right now, but wailing at the top of his lungs. Ah, sleep - how I covet you. Ah, Morpheus, how I long for you (the god, not the drug). There's always tonight.