To Sleep Or Not To Sleep

A soliloquy for parents of small children

To sleep or not to sleep—that is the parents’ dilemma:
Whether 'tis better for the body to suffer
The fatigue and exhaustion a of folding laundry past midnight
Or to pick up the toys of a sea of small men
And by morning they’re out again. To rest, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we get
To relax, but the thousand nocturnal interruptions
That parents are heir to. 'Tis a longing
Devoutly to be wished. To sleep, to just lay down--
To lay down--perchance to rest uninterrupted: ay, there's a wish,
For in that sleep of parenthood what dreams may come
When we remember all the things we’ve forgotten to do,
Must wake us up again. There's still laundry to put away!
That makes for so long a night.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of sleep deprivation,
The parents’ minds, the toy-eating dog,
The child who wet the bed, the nightmare’s scream,
The baby’s hunger, and the confusion
When parents wake-up dazed,
When they themselves quietly make way into the baby’s room
Without bumping into walls in the dark? Who else then will wake up,
To scream and scream and wake up the baby again,
But that the dread of something after uninterrupted sleep,
The undiscovered country, from whose bliss
No parent returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those tribulations we have
That people without children know not of?
Thus parenthood does make tired, bumbling idiots of us all,
And thus the native hue of dark circles under the eyes
Is sicklied o'er with the pale skin of exhaustion,
And a mind that is too tired to remember anything
With this regard their longing to sleep turns awry
And lose the name of well-rested. -- Soft you now,
The fair Nyx! – Goddess of sleep and dreams
Can we just get some freakin’ rest!

Have a good weekend,
Get some sleep,
Busy-Dad-E