Collapse and Recovery

I don't know how other parents deal with prolonged sleep deprivation. I generally do this: Go, go, go as much as possible, powering through the low energy moments to clean up the house, get to events, see friends, etc. Then, I collapse dramatically, feeling so sick I have to cancel plans at the last minute and clear my schedule completely for more than a week. I thank God for the technical gadgets available to entertain my older son, and focus entire days on the moments when I can close my eyes.

After recovering, I begin scouring the Internet for things to do, places to go, ramping up for another few weeks of powering through. Technical gadgets morph from angelic saviors to evil tools I have to ban and limit, lest they steal my son's brain or turn it to mush.

Having once again reached the recovery stage of one of those cycles, I have learned a few things:

Apparently, I'm not one to pace myself. I thought I was pretty good about this, and maybe I am in my own personal life. But when managing other lives (ie. those of my kids), I'm not pacing myself enough. And I have to be better about it. Thus, the schedule I created today that includes rest time for me.

When it comes to technical gadgets, they're not disproportionately bad (as the American Association of Pediatrics would have you believe, with its unreasonable recommendations for limiting screen time). They're not entirely good either (as I believe when I'm excessively tired). It's all about perspective and balance. Even if the AAP has a point, I have to think that if allowing kids extra screen time actually saves the life of the parent taking care of those kids, then there has to be some wiggle room on this issue.

With these lessons on mind, we begin the last two weeks of summer before school starts.