9 out of 10 monkeys believe they are not behind glass

Oh sing me the blues, the motherhood blues, my beautiful wife laments.

“Sleep. That is all I want. Just some sleep. I am so tired, I could just cry.” she says.

I groggily look up from my post-nocturnal slumber session, eyes still blurry with the remnants of dreams, and I try to acknowledge her pain. I enjoyed a fitful session of sleep, with the baby’s cries sending jolt after jolt through my system throughout the night, but that doesn’t mean that I was the one that had to deal with the baby. I wasn’t the one that had to soothe the baby, feed the baby, change the baby, and in all respects, just handle our newborn in the myriad of all of her needs. I was the one that was just sleeping, even with the occasional shocks of cries, and that is much more sleep than my wife has seen in days.

For someone that hasn’t slept much in the last 72 hours, my wife is holding up remarkably well. Her eyes are clear, her face is surprisingly bright, and she isn’t moving like she is an extra from the Night of the Living Dead or Thriller. She has a calm about her that fits the situation.

She’s a mom. And even dog tired, she is still a dynamo of energy. Its a dichotomy that I still don’t understand. Since I lack the requisite mommy gene, I would die if I attempted to try the same thing.

I try to give her nights here and there. Staying up with the baby on weekends so she can get some shut eye. But it is little consolidation on a Wednesday morning, a hump day for everyone, and just another seemingly insurmountable day for my wife.

Because she used to love sleep. Like some people are about ice cream or others about Star Wars, my wife is about sleep. Fanatical in enjoying, preserving it, and in all ways experiencing it.

But no longer.

Empathizing with her pain is not the easiest thing to do for me, but I try. I try to help. I know that I am probably not doing enough, but honestly I feel like I am at a loss of what I should be doing versus what I can be doing. It is alarming for me to try to help in a way, but get a look that I am not doing the right thing.

She is Mom. It is an amazing transformation to see a baby come out, and your wife metamorphisize into this new being that is able to see out of the back of her head, hear cries and know what to do, and in all ways take control over caring for a little person that has never been in her life before.

She may hate the lack of sleep, but I know she knows it is all worth it.

Many times over.