I’m so tired right now, there’s at least a 30% chance that I’m dreaming this.

I don’t remember it being this tough with the first kid, but that might be because your brain makes you forget the early days of infancy so you’ll be stupid enough to do it again. Not only does the Hammer spend most of the night wide awake, he spends most of the night wide awake and screaming.

We’re only three weeks in, so there’s always a chance the kid will settle down and the screaming will stop and his sleep schedule will improve. But even if it does, I’m still going to be tired.

For one thing, I’m almost forty. For another, I’m a parent. And, perhaps most importantly, I don’t take naps.

I hate taking naps.

(The crowd gasps!)

About the only thing more ridiculous than a parent who says they don’t nap is a parent who says they don’t drink, or a parent who says their third child wasn’t an accident. But I’ve never enjoyed napping, not before I was a parent and not now, whether I could use one or not. Which I obviously could. Almost every day. I’m running on fumes right now.

What parent couldn’t use some extra sleep? I just refuse to get it by wasting a chunk of my day in bed.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good veg session (I was so tempted to put an avocado emoji here!) This past weekend, we spent all of Saturday lounging around in our PJs watching movies. I didn’t get any extra sleep, but it was relaxing, if not exactly rejuvenating. There’s not a lot of rejuvenation to be had when you live with a newborn.

They say sleep when the baby sleeps, but I would rather do other stuff when the baby sleeps. Like watch R-rated programming, or write a blog post, or even do some cleaning. I like to use that time doing something enjoyable, or at least something essential. Besides, it’s not that easy to nap with a baby; every random sound makes you panic, and every long stretch without any sound makes you panic. Baby life is stressful!

I don’t begrudge anyone who naps. For many people, like Mom and Buried, it’s a lifesaver. She loves to snag a quick twenty-minute disco snooze, and she wakes up refreshed and energized. Sometimes she’s perfectly content falling asleep on the couch for two hours on a lazy Sunday afternoon, emerging no worse for the wear, ready to go and have adventures, much to my exhausted chagrin.

Despite my desire to use my time more wisely, I might succumb to the occasional nap, if every time I woke up from one I didn’t feel like I’d just been thawed out of carbonite! I’m confused, I’m sweaty, and it takes a while for the hibernation sickness to wear off. Not only that, it also takes me a while to fall asleep! If I want to take a quick little disco nap, I need to carve out a jam-band-sized chunk of time just to allow for my slow fade. I ain’t got time for that!

Yeah, I’m tired. We’re all tired. (Well, Detective Munch isn’t tired. He’s hyper and loud and doesn’t understand why Daddy is yelling so much lately, but he’s not tired, and he never naps anymore, because THERE IS NO GOD.) But I don’t like naps, so I rarely take them. Whatever energy boost they offer is rarely worth it for me, so I prefer to power through with some coffee, and maybe go to bed a little bit earlier than normal.

Hopefully the Hammer will get into a routine soon, and my need to resist taking the naps I dread so much will disappear. Until then, I just hope my caffeine dependency doesn’t lead me to something stronger.

I can’t afford to blow my diaper money on cocaine!