Sandman, Sandman. Wherefore art thou, Sandman?

So I always knew there would be little sleep happening once the baby was born.  What I was not prepared for was that the restful sleep I had enjoyed all of my life would stop almost 6 weeks before she was born.  At that time, I started waking up at like 2 in the morning and would lay (or is it lie?) in bed arguing with myself to go back to sleep.  Typically, I lost the argument as I lay there in bed trying to figure out how to occupy my time.  It usually went something like this, "DAMN!!!  I need to go to sleep!  Maybe I'll turn on the t.v.  If I do that, I'll wake up Nicole.  Tough crap, I should wake her up.  Why should she get to sleep while I'm awake...ok, that's mean.  I'd be upset if she woke me up just because.  Maybe I could read.  No, the light will still wake her up" and on and on my head would go.  Now, if any of you are like me, you have lots of things in your room that light up (e.g. digital clock, cell phone) and what I came to realize is that those electronics give off lots of light.  So, as I lay there looking at the various shadows that were created by my clock and cell phone, I started making shadow puppets.  First, I started with your basic puppet of the bird flying and then moved on to the dog.  Then, I started getting a bit more creative and made a rabbit (which looked like it escaped a zoo surrounded by a nuclear reactor), a wolf (which is really just the dog.  No, really, still the dog...no changes in shape at all, just changes in the sound effects I make...well, not really much in the way of changes there either, but believe me, it's a wolf), and a human face.  The face I came upon purely by accident, but once I realized I could do it, I started having a great time.  The person interacted with the bird and the dog.  I didn't think it was a great idea for the guy to do something with the wolf because wild animals can become quite unpredictable.  Then, I started making snakes, but they were like giant snakes, so it became like a science fiction thriller from the '50s with some larger than life animal begins attacking the now diminuitive humans (Insert evil laugh here).  I was quite enjoying my crazy Creature Features (anyone? anyone?  bad Saturday afternoon matinee from the '70s?  No? Nobody? K) when I realized that I could make smaller snakes...and that's when it happened.  Being that my mind often travels in the gutter, I began making shadow puppet porn theater.  Granted, most of the action was quite repetitive, but aren't most porns that way?  And, at least there was no cheesy music or bad acting to go into this one.  The music was first rate and the actors...well, it was like they already knew what to do without me having to direct them.  It was pure NC17 shadowtainment.  For those of you reading this and thinking, "She is a total pervert", all I have to say is stop being such a prude.  Each and every one of you knows that, at some point in time, whether you want to admit it or not, you have watched a porn and know exactly what I'm talking about.  I bet that some of you have even uttered the movie line of "There are porn movies that start this way".  For example, many years ago when I lived in an apartment in Manchester with my friend, Sara, we were preparing to host a bachelorette party for my dear, dear friend Cristina.  To celebrate the occasion, we cut  out pictures of nake guys from Playgirl and posted them, along with various other sexualized images, all over our apartment.  Sara had also just finished decorating a penis shaped cake and had it out on the counter ready for the festivities.  It was right about this time that we got a call from our landlord stating the gas company needed to check something out in our apartment and that they would be up in a couple of minutes.  As the reality of his statement began to settle into my head, I told Sara what was happening and I believe that's when one of us blurted out, "You know, there are porn movies that start this way".  With that, there was a knock at the door and the poor, unsuspecting gas guy walked into what must have looked like a psychotic nymphomaniac's apartment.  At first, he looked horrified and I was willing to let him sit with that horror for a bit longer, but Sara explained what was happening and slowly this creepy smile came over his face and he then...wait for it, wait for it...he then offered to be the stripper for the evening.  Now, this would have been an offer that I could have possibly considered if the guy had not been in his late 50s, balding, had a beer gut, and, I'm pretty sure, was missing some of his teeth. So, needless to say, he did what he needed to do, left, and Sara and I had a pretty good laugh about it.  But once again, I have digressed....

I had started talking about sleeping or the lack thereof and, sadly, the sleeping has not improved since the little munchkin was born.  I was able to take 10 weeks of maternity leave, thankfully, and, during that time, she was getting up about 2x a night at the beginning and once a night toward the end.  For that time, I didn't want to wake Nicole because she had to go to work, so I would get up, feed her, change her, and try to get some more sleep before getting up and doing it all over again.  So, as it got closer to my returning to work, I began to revel in the fact that Nicole would be the one getting up with her at night while I got to sleep through it.  While that was a great plan, there were a couple of flaws in that thinking: 1) this line of thought assumes that Nicole would hear her crying and get up to take care of it.  This, sadly, is not the case.  Nicole could sleep through the USC marching band going through the house in the dead of night, so the little noises that come from across the hall are not enough to cut it.  Translation, I still have to get up to wake Nicole up to have her take care of the baby.  Could I just do it myself since I'm already up, sure, but what fun would that be?  2) this line of thought also assumes that my little darling would continue to wake up in the middle of the night.  I'm beginning to think that Nicole may be slipping something into her evening bottle because, my first week back to work, and this little punk has decided she is going to sleep until about 6:30 or 7:30 each morning.  I'm pretty sure she is doing this just to make me crazy and, I hate to admit it, it's working.  I sometimes just want to poke Nicole to make her wake up as a form of vengeful payback, but I don't have the heart to do it...most of the time.  So, now I am finally able to sleep a good stretch through the night, but I am also having to get up earlier than I have ever had to in my life in order to get myself ready and get enough boob juice bottled to have her make it through the day while I'm at work.  It's a darn good thing that she's as cute as she is.  And, on that note, time for me to go tap the ta-tas for more boob juice.  I feel like a human kegerator.  It's like Happy Hour when I get home from work when my bae-bay gets to be a sloppy milk drunk, but that's a story for another time.