This is a public apology to anyone I’ve been short with and / or asked confusing questions to which I should have already known the answer in the past month or so. But here’s how I’ve been sleeping at night: After my daughter goes to bed at 7:30 pm sharp, my 3.5 year old son reads books and draws* and eats snacks and watches this weird guy named Blippi on YouTube and then plays some songs on his little guitar for about 3 hours, until he finally gets tired enough to start the process of thinking about beginning to fall asleep. Then around 11 pm, he crawls up on my bed where I’ve usually already dozed off a number of times, says, “Sleep is too long for me” or “I’m not tired” or “Remember when that picture fell off the wall?” (that was in our old apartment and I have no idea how he remembers it. But he was 6 months old and kept crawling over and pointing to where it was supposed to be until I hung it back up), or “Do you remember that green car I had when I was a baby?” Then I answer, “Maybe…the wooden one in your room?” And he says, “NOOOOOOO the GREEN one!!” and I say, “That one IS green.” Then we have an argument and I tell him that mommy can be nicer in the morning after she gets some sleep. At that point I’m awake enough to start googling things that have been on my mind, such as:

– How much coffee is too much?”
– How much Febreze is too much?
– Does the show PJ Masks encourage kids to stay up all night?
– Die from lack of sleep
– Die from lack of sleep science
– Can 4 year old safely eat whole bag of dried mango in 2 minutes
– Sugar bad for you science
– Sugar bad for you fake news

Then I text my husband from the other room and tell him I’ve made some horrible discovery from googling things. He tells me to get off the google. Pretty soon after that my son crawls up on the bed and after tossing and turning for around 20 minutes, climbing inside my shirt, giving me 584 zerberts and making me tell him a story (but not one in a book, one I make up on the spot), he finally gets tired enough to fall asleep. I call my husband in to carry him to his bed. My husband is now speaking in tongues. Then around 3 am, our son comes back into our bed, sprawls his tall little body across the entirety of it, and goes to sleep, sort of. Then every 10 minutes or so, his arm spazzes out and he hits me directly in the eye. That goes on until my alarm goes of at 5:50 am. In summary, my child only requires 5 hours of sleep a night in order to be a thriving, energetic little boy and that is way less than a normal adult requires and someone help me.

*Last night he brought me this drawing and said, “Mommy, I made some mermaids for you.” So everything is forgiven.