Sleep Deprivation

Many of you who know me well can attest to the fact that my mind doesn't react favorably to being tired (or on heavy medication). When it gets late, I tend to lose that filter that usually rests somewhere between my brain and my mouth. This makes it possible for me to say things that I normally wouldn't on any given afternoon -- nothing cruel or nasty, just different from my normal self.

Now that Harrison is here, I have many more opportunities to be filter-less. In fact, my lack of sleep is even taking a toll on my actual sleep time. It seems that I have developed a proclivity to walking and talking in my sleep (ala Greg Rohlinger).

Here are two incidents from this past week that my wife told me about:

Heidi woke up at 1:30 and noticed that I wasn't in bed. She came out to the living room and found me laying on the couch in the dark and asked, "Babe, what are you doing out here?" My response was, "I'm just uploading videos! You wouldn't understand!" I remember nothing.

The other incident was a few nights earlier. Heidi had just finished feeding Harrison in the living room, laid him down in his crib, and crawled back in bed next to me. I greeted her by saying, "I don't know who you are, but I'm sure glad you're here." Just so you know, wives love to hear that from their husbands.

People always tell me not to wish away Harrison's life by looking forward to him growing up, but I believe that the day he starts sleeping through the night will be a glorious one in my life. I doubt I'll look back in 20 years and think, "If only I had never wished away that time in Harrison's life when I wandered aimlessly through the house at night and said strange things to my wife, my dog, and any inanimate object I ran into."

I love my son, but I need my sleep!