Two stories of sleep deprivation

I remember the good old days, when I used to think I knew what sleep deprivation was. Back then, sleep deprivation was cramming all night for a final, or going on a bender over the weekend. But here's the thing about that kind of sleep deprivation: You could always catch up the next night.

Nowadays, catching up on sleep means being able to take a cat nap for 45 minutes on a Saturday afternoon while my son Matthew plays with his feet in the crib. It's amazing how fast you can slip into REM sleep if you really need it (more on that later). So here are two stories of sleep deprivation, one each for my wife Bea and me.

Story 1: Where's Matthew?

It was about 11pm on a Saturday night, my wife and son asleep in bed. Matthew woke up and, don't you know it, he started crying. It's kind of odd. Whenever Matthew wakes up, he starts crying. I wonder when in the development of a human being this phenomenon stops. After all, if I began bawling every time I woke up in the morning, it's fair to say that Bea would give me some funny looks. She most certainly wouldn't offer up her boob every time like she does with Matthew. Am I jealous of my son in that regard? Perhaps.

I was in the other room and heard Bea pick up Matthew and take him to the living room area. But she forgot to shut off the Babysense, which is a sensor pad you put under your child's crib mattress to detect small movements. It's supposed to help prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and gives us some peace of mind when Matthew's asleep.

Anyway, when the Babysense senses no movement, an alarm goes off that basically sounds like Mariah Carey caught in a bear trap. Not the most pleasant of sounds, but hey, there's a reason why carbon monoxide detectors don't play Barry White music.

So Bea had taken Matthew out of the crib and out of the bedroom, and the alarm went off. So I went into the bedroom to shut off the Babysense. No problem. I went back the computer to see how the Red Sox were doing.

A few minutes later, Bea speaks up. She's still in the other room.

"Where's Matthew?" she asks.

Hmm, how to respond to a question like this. Let's see, you just picked him up and took him into the other room. If you can't find him, we're in trouble. I started worrying that Bea had lost our son in the same way people lose car keys. But just when I was about to say something, she chimed in.

"Oh nevermind," she said. "I'm holding him."

Um, what? I realized my error. Bea hadn't lost our son in the same way people lose car keys. She lost our son in the same way people lose their sunglasses, only to find out five minutes later that they're on top of their heads. At that point, I decided that it was time to give Bea a little break from Matthew.

Story 2: The windowsill

Here's my gem. Middle of the night, don't remember if it was during the week or not. Bea and I had been asleep for a whole 90 minutes or so when Matthew decides to play a little practical joke on us by, you guessed it, waking up and crying.

My sleep deprivation, however, had started to resist such efforts. Kind of. I ended up in this half-awake, half-asleep stage where I was still dreaming about something, but also somewhat aware of my real surroundings.

In this case, my dream had something to do with Bea planting some flowers in a window box out on our deck. So here's how it went:

Dream world: Bea is putting together flowers for the window boxes.

Real world: Regarding Matthew crying, Bea says to me, "Can you get Matthew?"

Dream and real world: Carrying on conversation in both universes, I say, "Just put him on the windowsill."

Real world: Bea says, "What?!?"

Real world: I wake up fully to the real world, realize what I said and how stupid it sounds, understand why I said it, and reply, "Yeah, I'll get him."

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Mark Fontecchio

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