The Happiest Baby on the Freaking Block

There are days where I feel like a horrible mother. I have read so many books on parenting, yet I feel like all the information has overloaded me and has become so diluted, that I can't put anything into action.

The Happiest Baby on the Block. Own it.

On Being Babywise. Own it.

What to Expect the First Year. Own it.

Secrets of the Baby Whisperer. Own it.

1-2-3 Magic. Yup. You guessed it.

See a trend? I keep Amazon in business.

I have friends who have successfully employed the methods of each of these books. So I, of course, read all of them and then forget which approach goes with what and am all over the place. I am no closer to being a babywise baby-whispering fool and my children are still not the happiest kids on the block.

I look around at my friends and their little angel children and wonder what I am doing wrong. Not that there is anything wrong with Shaila and Nico. I fully acknowledge that the problem here is me, the parent.

For the past few weeks, I have lived in an extreme state of sleep deprivation. I know there are mothers out there who do this, but I am not one who functions on less than 6 hours of sleep. I may be able to pull it off for a few weeks, but there comes a point where my punch drunk state lands me in trouble. I can't walk straight, my eyes glaze over when John tells me something and friends need to repeat statements multiple times before it clicks with me.

“Kiran will you please pass the sugar?”

“Sure.”

“Kiran, why are you giving me your Safeway Club Card?”

“Oh. Sorry. What do you want again?”

Yeah, like that.

We have been sleeping Nico in the same room as us, as we weren't quite ready to transition Shaila to her “big girl room” and didn't want to put up another crib. So we kept a bassinet and swing in our room and thought we would get Nico on a schedule from the comfort of our room. What better way to get him in a routine if he is so close to us?

WRONG.

Anytime he would make a sound, I would run over. Since John was working and I was on maternity leave, I felt like it was my duty to ensure my husband had some sleep so he could go to work the next day and also handle Shaila in the early morning when I would be absolutely dragging. So Nico would cackle and I would be there.

Suffice to say, my son cackles, snorts, cries and yells a lot – so I was running over to him quite often. I would want to quiet him down quickly so that John could sleep uninterrupted but it wouldn't work, and I was a little defensive about it.

“Waaaahhhh!” This was Nico, not me.

“Is everything ok over there?” John would ask. Um, does it sound ok husband?

“It's fine. Go back to bed.” I would say.

“Do you know why he is crying?” Wrong question. Especially since I so clearly did not know the answer .

“IF I KNEW WHY HE WAS CRYING DO YOU THINK HE WOULD STILL BE CRYING?” I asked very rationally and calmly (please don't be thrown off by the caps).

“Can I help?” Now, this is just my husband trying to be nice and helpful. But in my exhausted state, I read this as a very clear jab at me and my incompetence.

“Waaaahhhh!” This is now both me AND Nico.

So, all in all, I would say things weren't going that well. But I allowed them to continue as I didn't know how to do anything else.

But the realization that I needed help came the other day. I woke up on a Saturday morning and was scrolling through my messages on by Blackberry when I saw several Facebook messages.

Felicia has commented on your status.

Gaetza has commented on your status.

Melissa has commented on your status.

Huh? What status?

I was looking at my friends' and families' responses to my so called status and was getting more and more confused. I hadn't even been online the previous night. But I had too many things to get done and no time to log in so it would have to wait.

But by the end of the day, more friends had commented on my status. And something about the tone of their comments had me a little concerned.

So I logged in and checked what status message everyone was responding to. I have to admit, I was so mortified that I instantly deleted it, so I can't put it verbatim but the status went something like this:

“Kiran is pondering how her eyelashes are existential extensions of her existence and so tired and want what everyone #%! else is having what's that oh yeah.”

And there were spelling errors!

(FYI - I hate when friends have spelling errors in their Facebook statuses. I always want to comment and make sure they know that “great” is not spelled “grate” Because that's just the kind of friend I am.)

I spoke to my friend Glennon yesterday and the topic of my strange Facebook status did come up. When I assured her that I had not gone off the deep end, she did admit that she was actually worried about me when she saw it. I had either officially lost it or I was writing really some really weird form of poetry and how was she going to tell me how badly it sucked.

The truth of the matter is, I HAVE lost it. I think we can all admit that once you are sleepwalking and writing Facebook statuses (who does that? I mean, REALLY – WHO DOES THAT?!) something is off balance and needs to be corrected.

So that's it. Shaila is in her big girl bed in her new room. And last night, Nico slept in his crib for the first time. Granted, it's Shaila's old room and I haven't gotten all the butterflies off the wall so for now, he'll have to deal with the girly décor but I can not risk another sleepwalking Facebook status message. If my son has issues later in life because of his temporary overexposure to the color pink and Hello Kitty, I will deal with that then, but for now I need to get some z's.

And everybody knows REAL MEN can handle pink, so ponder that Nico during your more circumspect moments in your bouncy seat.

So, next time you see a Facebook status from me and you are not quite sure what I am saying, cut me some slack. I am not writing weird, experimental haikus. I mean, that would be totally weird! No, no -I am just sleepwalking.

And we all know that is TOTALLY normal.