When You're Too Tired to Function, Not Tired Enough to Use a Precious Sick Day

My baby woke up five times last night. I sent in my husband for two of them, which only caused said baby to cry louder until I came into the nursery, lifted up my T-shirt and nursed him. Yeah, it's probably time to sleep train, but until that difficult weekend, I'm struggling to cope with the weekdays.

After he wouldn't go back to sleep at 5:30 a.m., I start my morning routine. I nearly put the plastic bag that contained a bagel in the toaster. I really do put facial cleanser on my toothbrush. I realize it just in time, laugh at myself, wash it off and proceed to squeeze my 4-year-old son's PAW Patrol toothpaste in its place. Hey, at least it's toothpaste.

I choose a bright-yellow dress to wear hoping the dayglow hue will startle me awake throughout the day. It's extremely wrinkled, but after the toothpaste fiasco, I don't trust myself to steam or iron clothes without burning off my skin.

I don't step fully onto the first stair outside of my house as I walked out the door, my happy baby kicking away in his stroller. There goes a layer of skin off my calf. As I stride away to make my train, I call to my husband who is staying behind to steam his clothes, “Is there a lot of blood?” He assures me he doesn't see any.

I arrive at daycare and am relieved my child is still in the stroller and is fully clothed, despite a sock that seems desperate to detach from around my son's foot. I drop him off, load his bottles into the correct refrigerator bin, but I can't recall what time it was when I last fed or changed him when his kind teacher asks. Then, I remember, but I can't add two hours to those times because even simple math eludes me when I don't get enough shut-eye.

My husband gets to the center before I leave and puts away the stroller in the closet. Thank goodness because I honestly don't think I have the strength to fold it up, let alone hoist the behemoth of a carriage into an out-of-the-way corner.

We climb the stairs to the train platform and a fresh wave of exhaustion runs over me. My nose runs. A couple of tears sting my eyes. And then I'm crying. Maybe it's related, maybe it's not, but I remember that I failed to take my pill for postpartum depression.

I choose a bright-yellow dress to wear hoping the dayglow hue will startle me awake throughout the day. It's extremely wrinkled, but after the toothpaste fiasco, I don't trust myself to steam or iron clothes without burning off my skin.

I don't step fully onto the first stair outside of my house as I walked out the door, my happy baby kicking away in his stroller. There goes a layer of skin off my calf. As I stride away to make my train, I call to my husband who is staying behind to steam his clothes, “Is there a lot of blood?” He assures me he doesn't see any.

I arrive at daycare and am relieved my child is still in the stroller and is fully clothed, despite a sock that seems desperate to detach from around my son's foot. I drop him off, load his bottles into the correct refrigerator bin, but I can't recall what time it was when I last fed or changed him when his kind teacher asks. Then, I remember, but I can't add two hours to those times because even simple math eludes me when I don't get enough shut-eye.

My husband gets to the center before I leave and puts away the stroller in the closet. Thank goodness because I honestly don't think I have the strength to fold it up, let alone hoist the behemoth of a carriage into an out-of-the-way corner.

We climb the stairs to the train platform and a fresh wave of exhaustion runs over me. My nose runs. A couple of tears sting my eyes. And then I'm crying. Maybe it's related, maybe it's not, but I remember that I failed to take my pill for postpartum depression.

So I post this, not for sympathy (unless sympathy will get me more sleep, in which case, woe is me! Feel badly for me!) but in hopes that the many other sleep-deprived working moms out there feel a little less alone in their plight and a little bit content in the knowledge that this, like nearly every stage of working motherhood, is temporary.