No Sleep, No Coffee, No Car

I feel the weight shifting on the bed before I hear or see anything.

I’m not sleeping; not really.

I can count on one hand the nights I’ve really slept in the past six years. I’m just…resting. Perched in the hazy twilight between asleep and awake; just lying in wait for the world to come back to life, for the task list and color-coordinated calendar to repopulate.

“Mommy, my ear hurts.”

“It’s ok, baby. Mommy will fix it.”

Bleary-eyed and blinking at my phone - 1:03am - I get up out of bed, get the medicine, grab my pillow and head to my son’s bedroom.

Moving our old king-sized bed into his room when we got a new bed was one of the smarter decisions we’ve made but still - sleep is not in the cards tonight.

Will stays awake until about 3:30am at which point, he falls into a fitful slumber.

I don’t sleep at all.

Will is a restless sleeper, inadvertently kicking and flinging his arm across my body.

The bed is pillow-topped and too soft and the small window shines too much light into the room and I’m used to the comforting weight of my dog by my side, but none of that matters because who sleeps when their kid isn’t well?

The next morning is tough.

Will is awake at 6:00am and doesn’t have a fever, isn’t throwing up and isn’t complaining of ear pain, so he heads off to school.

It’s soccer day. He loves soccer day.

He looks exhausted and he’s a little weepy. I can’t remember the last time he was weepy at drop-off. It must have been a few years ago when he still had those wild, sweet baby curls in his hair.

He dutifully trots into the building and I head home, exhausted myself and second guessing my decision to send him to school.

Motherhood takes this shape sometimes. Making a decision and second, third, fourth, fifth guessing yourself.

You send texts to the Mom Group Chat and your sister and the Mom WhatsApp group and your best friend and your own mom, but anxiety has made a home in you and knows exactly where to clench.

An hour later, my husband has taken my car to the mechanic.

Twenty minutes after that, the school nurse calls.

Will is asleep in her office and I should come and get him.

Right. No car but we can figure this out.

I call my parents who are happy to come and help and I have never been more grateful for the decision to move back home.

My dad asks for a cup of black coffee and it’s a simple request but nothing’s ever simple, is it?

I can’t find the filter for the moka pot.

Fine. I’ll just use the French press.

There’s no ground coffee.

Fine.

I’ll just grind the coffee fresh and put the kettle on to boil.

While I’m grinding coffee - the noise rattling the back of my molars and serving as the rhythm section to the mounting cortisol levels tangoing in my body - I see the water in the kettle is cloudy.

Fuck.

Dump it out. Try again.

It’s cloudy again.

My phone buzzes - movement on the driveway.

My parents are here and the coffee isn’t ready and Indiana explodes into a cacaphony of barks and I’m running on two hours of sleep and I am about to burst into tears.

But I can’t.

Because I have shit to do.

The coffee will have to wait. Just as my son is waiting. Just as my inbox is waiting. Just as the sink full of dishes is waiting.

When I go to pick him up, I physically pick him up as he is curled up in the nurse’s office and sleeping deeply.

I’m 4’11” and Will is quickly catching up, measuring just over three and a half feet tall at his last check-up. His feet dangle at my shins and I shuffle and shimmy, juggling my ID, phone and his warm, hibernating body as I attempt to sign him out.

He wakes up as I try to jostle him into his car seat and lets out a plaintive wail - a sound I’ve heard a thousand times but haven’t heard in the past few years.

Trying to get a sleeping child in or out of a car requires the tactical dexterity of a bomb defusing technician and today, I simply do not possess this skill.

He comes back to life on the way home, still drowsy but happy for this unexpected visit with his grandparents.

I change him out of his school clothes, get him situated with his cozy soccer blanket and stuffed tiger and my child - a noted non-napper, according to his pre-school teachers - sleeps hard and heavy and doesn’t wake up until 2:00pm when I decide I should rouse him for lunch.

I never do finish making that cup of coffee for my dad and my own coffee, sits on the counter, ice slowly melting into the glass.

I work, I get up every fifteen minutes or so to check on Will, I call the pediatrician to make sure his prescription went through, the pharmacy to check on when his prescription will be ready and the ENT to get the first available appointment for him.

It’s in mid-November.

The nap works and Will’s energy level improves enough to beat the Moaning Myrtle mini-boss in Lego Harry Potter, but my energy level is in the dregs.

We have plans tonight - celebrating my nephew’s birthday - so an early bedtime isn’t in the cards but I’ve done this dance before and know all the steps.

You’ve just gotta keep on moving.

I put on lipstick, drink a grapefruit cocktail and make sparkling conversation and when I come home, I scrub myself clean and collapse into bed.

And I sleep.

Well, not really.