Captain's Log- 3:01 AM- Friday
I've begun hallucinating at night. Treicy says that it's the fatigue/lack of REM sleep that is causing me to have nightmares but I do not agree. I know what a bad dream feels like, I've had them all of my life whenever I'm stressed out. Some people can't sleep when they're stressed... I get really sleepy and then proceed to have ridiculous nightmares. Once, when I was in the middle of my 7th grade SAT tests in school I dreamt that I was married to my 67 year old Earth Science teacher... (wait for it)... Mr. Spilaine. It was an impossible love. I had acne... he had a cane. For the rest of the school year I couldn't look that man in the face. Also, on the eve of a surgical procedure that I had about 10 years ago, I dreamt that after the surgery the doctor informed me that I was completely empty inside. No organs, no bones... nothing. I was completely distressed until the doctor informed me that this was a fairly common condition and that most people with my symptoms used the inside of their bodies as convenient extra storage. But I digress...
My point is that what I am experiencing is not nightmares or night terrors or any of that other stuff. They're full blown, 100% guaranteed, bona-fide hallucinations. I hear the babies crying at night when they actually are not. I hear the crying coming from different rooms in the house and I run around in a panic, half-asleep like I'm in the Blair Witch Project until I realize that everyone in the house is asleep... except for me. I've jumped out of bed in the middle of the night because I am convinced that the babies have pooped on my pillow only to realize that they have not and that they are safely in their cribs and in their own rooms. I've also gotten up in haze and rushed to the kitchen to prepare bottles only to realize that there are already 2 bottles on deck ready to go and that the entire house is, once again, sleeping... except for me. I'm a mess. I hear crying babies constantly. I hear them at work, in the car and my personal favorite... every single time I get into the shower. But none of it is real. It's all inside my head. The good news is that this will all end when they get a little older. The obsessive worrying, the constant feeling of dread whenever I'm not around to protect them. All of those feelings will stop once they are no longer defenseless babies, right?
I will take the obligatory pause now in order to allow all parents of teenage girls to laugh and mock me at will.
The girls are officially mobile... but in opposite directions. Catalina has, once again, set the bar and begun crawling. She doesn't do it on command or even everyday... but she does it. On her terms and on her schedule. I've seen it. Renata, on the other hand, has decided to invent her own methodology. She crawls backwards. It's adorable and amazing... but not very effective when trying to get from point A to point B. She backs into chairs, walls and even the cat all day long with a big goofy smile on her face. We keep trying to teach her that she's doing it wrong... that she should be moving forward; but she doesn't care. She loves to bump her little butt up against everything in the house. So we figured... what the hell. as long as she's happy, right? Meanwhile, we had to lower both of the crib mattresses to their lowest levels because both of them have begun sitting up on their own whenever they wake up in the middle of the night and are trying to stand up in their cribs. Really? The other night I walked into their room at 2AM and Catalina was sitting up in her crib and was attempting to eat her baby-cam. I need to find a way to pump the brakes a little bit. Things are moving really fast now and I'm not psychologically prepared for this next stage of independence from them. As much as I complained about it, there is a certain feeling of control when the child you are caring for is completely dependent of you for absolutely everything. That is no longer the case here.
List of Things The Girls Can Do Now
1) Feed themselves- While they cannot prepare the bottles for themselves yet... they are able to hold the bottles on their own when they feed.
2) Insert Pacifiers- Before, they used to cry whenever they would wake up without their pacifiers... now they just calmly search around till they find where they spit it out and put it back in their mouths.
3) Turn over- They both sleep face-down in their cribs at night and are both found facing up every morning making strange alien-baby noises.
4) Crawl- Frontwards... backwards... it doesn't matter. The point is that they are mobile and I'm in trouble.
5) Talk- Sort of. They say "Mama" and "Papa" and "Tete" which means pacifier or milk... maybe.
As impressive as this list is, it is merely a dreaded omen of things to come. Their newfound independence is intoxicating to them and they are embracing it with fervor and zeal. They are off to the races and going 100 MPH now and I feel like I'm in the passenger seat trying desperately to find my seatbelt and the hand brake. I'm not trying to stop their progress... just slow it down a little bit so that I can catch my breath. I'm sure once I explain the situation to them they will gladly slow things down a bit for me, right? Right?! Yep... I'm in trouble.
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