Writing vs. Sleep, Part 2

I wrote a few weeks ago about the ongoing battle between writing and sleep: juggling three kids (including a baby), a paying job — where I am also at the executive management level, I may add — husband, household, and writing. Somehow writing always manages to fall behind the other requirements on my time.

Tonight. It’s 8:00 pm. I was unloading and reloading the dishwasher, and actually timing myself to see how long it took (twelve minutes, including handwashing two pans). I thought to myself “It’s early! I could easily squeeze in an hour of writing.”

But then my brain said “No. No way.”

I’ve been up since 5:45. Usually for weekend breakfast we do pancakes on Saturday and eggs on Sunday but somehow the system broke down this morning and we ended up doing both, plus toast with peanut butter and jelly.

I had a professional photography session scheduled, a Mother’s Day present, and had to get everyone gussied up and into nice outfits. Mine required ironing, which felt like a foreign concept since my regular day-to-day attire is athletic wear. Also required makeup, hair gel for my big kids so that they didn’t look like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals, and the promise of candy for good behavior.

After the session, I had to print out a bunch of materials for a conference that my paying job is hosting next week. Lunch. Then I played with the baby while my husband and big kids attempted naps (only the husband managed to sleep…) I tried to read It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok by Megan Devine, but likely only managed a few pages before someone interrupted me. I started reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to my 8-year-old son after explaining to him that Harry is a moody teenager and that this is my least favorite book in the series.

Then I ran to Target to pick up a black sweater for aforementioned conference (shockingly, I do not own a plain black sweater), dropped off a Zappos return at UPS, and picked up some photos I had printed at Walgreens for my six-year-old’s Star of the Week poster.

I stuffed over fifty folders with conference materials and assembled the same number of lanyards. Managed to rope the six-year-old into helping me with the lanyards and when we were all done he said “I think I accidentally put two name tags in one pouch.” A quick count showed that he was correct and then I had to dig back through to find the one with the doubled-up name tag.

We ate dinner and my 8-year-old ate more than his share of fish tacos, so I left the meal hungry. Tucked the baby in. Put laundry away. Unloaded the dishwasher, which brings me back to the beginning of my story….

I could write for an hour, yes. The book I am working on has 90% of the content done, but only 2% of the editing needed. However, when I thought about it, my brain recoiled a bit.

The lack of sleep… The baby usually wakes up every morning around 4:00 a.m. She manages to put herself back to sleep within a few minutes, but hearing her through the monitor wakes me up in a much more permanent way. Even if I do fall back asleep, which doesn’t always happen, it is usually at least an hour later.

I cannot write productively on so little sleep. Pushing myself to do so would be a disservice to my writing.

I have been maintaining writing in my blog a few times per week. I do some form of writing every day.

For now, I have to be ok with that. The rest will come in time.

To read the writing that I do about pregnancy loss and grief, you can head over to my blog, Musings Out Loud.