Sleep, sleep, perchance to dream...

Fine, fine. While Hamlet's anguish is at its height in that soliloquy, I am merely exhausted. I took Wednesday off from work with a bad headache & nausea & such fatigue the likes of which I haven't had since the first trimester. I slept all day, waking up at 7pm, and happy to go back to sleep at about 10pm. It must be the hormones, which is better than the stomach flu, which was my initial diagnosis. Except that the flu would be gone by now and I'm still flat out exhausted. I fell asleep at my desk yesterday. That's a touch embarrassing, I might point out, when someone barges in needing something. Blink blink - stammer stammer. Yup, no way to coolly cover that up. Homestead Mama is outwardly very supportive and understanding, and is happy to take Pequita after work - all I have to do is pick the baby up on my way home from work & entertain her until H-Mama appears. We do this in bed w/ many toys and me laying flat. Secretly, Homestead Mama must be thinking how much better she had it - she has no recollection of any hormonal effect on her at all for the duration of her pregnancy. *I* remember her momentary lapses, fits of pique and rageful stomping. Hindsight is fleeting - maybe I'll forget all this in time.

When I was very young, my dad used to come home from work tuckered out & be met at the door by three small kids totally bored with their mother, having spent all day doing nothing with her but making puppets, forts, assorted craft projects, playing outside, you know, boring stuff. Then wonderful, magical, novelty DAD would appear and we'd start clambering for his attention. One of our favorite games was "Sleeping Giant". He would take off his coat and tie, lie down in the middle of the living room floor and pretend to be a sleeping giant, complete with fake snoring and grunting. We'd giggle, creep around him, working up our brevity to approach and poke at him - at the first touch, he'd rear up and roar loudly, flailing his arms, baring his teeth, and make ineffectual grabs for our limbs. We would run screaming and laughing from the room, delightfully frightened and very pleased with this game. It would take us a few minutes of planning to work up to another assault, and the same thing would happen. This could go on for a long time, and we never got tired of it. On a few rare and special occasions, our uncle would be visiting and would play "Sleeping Bear" right alongside the giant. Oh, the paroxysms of joy.

As a parent, I now know that the snoring wasn't fake, the 'sleeping' was really happening in fits and spurts, that poor tired dad was in need of a nap and this was the best way he could fit it into his day. I think it was an ingenious adaptive game. I just wish that Pequita was old enough to enjoy a little terror in the name of fun.