Why I Do Not Get To Sleep Even After Working 14 Hours Overnight

All of this occurred during a twenty-minute phone call Husband was taking. I am now resigned to staying up until bedtime. 


Vlad (seeing me curled up on the sofa in a post-shift fuzz): "Hey, are you sleepin'?" (taps my face). "All the way sleepin' or just kinda?" I choose to ignore him at this point. He might just get bored. 


Vlad (making himself comfortable with his butt wedged up against my neck): "So how was work? Did you get to take a nap or was you just havin' a lot of fun?" Me: "Well, no. I didn't get to take a nap." Vlad: "Oh, RIGHT! You was doin' shots and pokin' people and takin' their temperature under their arms and inside their butts!" Kind of. 


Vladimir gets inspired.


Vlad: "Hey, lemme get you a blanket so you will have a nice nap!" (Finds a not-too-stained throw. Tucks it carefully around my feet, shoving it so that it's wrapped snugly around my chest and neck, and winds the remainder around my head and pulls it over my face). "There you go!" Again, an inspiration: "HEY. I hope you don't have the SICK. Let me check." Yanks cocoon from around my head, shoves hands behind my neck. "Well, you do not have a cold, because you feel hot." Pleased with his diagnosis, he again cocoons my head. 


A few minutes pass. I begin to think that he's wandered into the playroom to watch the iPad. 


"CHIEF." Again I am de-cocooned and a large brown eye is pressed up next to my eye, which he is now prying open. "HEY. I AM GONNA GO PEE." Thunders off down the hallway. A second later I hear the telltale sound of a five-year old enthusiastically releasing his water. Thunders back into the living room. 


Just as I realize that 1). I heard no toilet flush, and 2). No sounds of hands being washed, a finger is wedged into my mouth. Me (coming rather fully awake): "VLADIMIR YOU DID NOT WASH YOUR HANDS." Vladimir takes my face and cradles it in both his hands. "Mommy. These are the peein' germs. They make you the peein' sick. They do not make you face sick." Vladimir carefully re-cocoons my head, leaving a small breathing space for my nose. After a few seconds I begin to doze again. 


Vlad (rewedging himself with his butt against my neck, elbows resting comfortably on my head and my side): "So at work. When you're workin'. Do you ever see Doctor House and talk about MRIs and Streptococcus?" Me: "Um. No. Not really." Vlad: "Maybe you should take a look at that leg for him. Tell him to just shake it off." Me: "I might do that. Once I'm rested." Another comfortable silence, during which I slip into a half-dream imagining that I'm trying to re-cannulate an infant. 


Suddenly the pressure on my head, neck, and side are relieved, only to instantly be replaced by approximately 50 pounds of five-year old wrapped around my head with his knees slammed into my chest. "VINCENT IS IN HERE AND HE'S GONNA THROW THAT STUPID BALL AT MY FACE AND IT WILL HURT WHY WON'T ANYONE STOP HIIIIIIMMMMMM!!!!!" Which is actually a rather legitimate complaint, as Vincent has an arm like Sandy Koufax. 


At the sound of Vincent's ball hitting its mark, I shove a wailing Vlad to the floor and realize that a nap is just not going to happen today. 

The List of Stuff I Should Be Doing, But Am Not (because)...

I am messing around on facebook.

1. Studying up on ventilators and tracheostomies for pediatrics (workshop all day Wednesday. Which means I'll be reading like mad at midnight on Tuesday).

2. Taking Vlad to get his 'hawk re"hawked". He's starting to look fluffy.

3. Laundry. I may have to start delegating to Husband. Laundry blows.

4. Drawing up my anniversary/birthday/Christmas list for Husband. He needs to be prepared.

5. Decide on a surgeon for the revamp on Mary Kate and Ashley (Ashley needs a touch-up, but I'm thinking of going to silicone. Yays? Nays?)

6. Do a fall clean on the house before the MIL comes for Thanksgiving (which means this will get done approximately two hours before we pick her up at the airport. If I'm lucky).

7. Prepare a write-up on why you shouldn't be delivering a baby into fecally contaminated and Pseudomonas/E. coli/etc- laden pool water. Water birth is disgusting. Plus I want to see how many times I can work "fecal" into a five-page essay.

8. Math homework with Big V. Need I say more?

9. Epidemiology discussion for biostats. Yeah, I don't think it sounds like fun either.

So what's so captivating on facebook that I can't tear myself away? Well, as some of you know, I'm banned from a few pregnancy/childbirth pages; namely Birth Without Brains, Made to Blather Incessantly  (warning: this chick abuses capitalization, grammar, and exclamation points like no other), and The Madly Misinformed Mother (ignorance and an internet connection; can't get much better!). Why am I banned? Oh, for pointing out things like shoving garlic in your yoni to "treat" GBS colonization does nothing but make said yoni smell like an Italian eatery and can result in a horrific birth outcome, and for commenting that breast milk does not, in fact, elevate your little boob nosher to a position of reduced obesity, no illness, and enhanced intelligence (want to discuss this with me? Learn how to analyze scientific studies, then we'll talk; in the meantime you might start with Joan B. Wolf's "Is Breast Best" for a non-wooful take on breastfeeding mythology; The Fearless Formula Feeder has a great interview with the author, and Jessica Valenti has a hilarious reply to The Feminist Bleater's confusing analogy comparing breast augmentation to formula marketing).

So why do I still read these pages, even though I can't comment? Probably for the same reason football fans scream at the television during the game; it certainly doesn't affect the outcome, but there's always that hope that at least one self-proclaimed "birth junkie" will check herself and realize that what matters in pregnancy and childbirth is that you have a happy and healthy baby at the end - not that you get "natural" childbirth bragging rights.

And do not get me started with the anti-vaccination idiots. That's another post, for another day, for another session of procrastination. Back to facebook :).

Sh*t My Vlad Says

That's right! Thing 1 finally has his own facebook page! Go give him some love!