‘Drunk On Tired’ All the Time
February 4th, 2010 | 
Author: I have a few close friends with twins of their own and I saw one on the way to work this morning and he laughed in my face across two lanes of traffic as we sat at a stoplight.
“You’re lookin’ pretty rough there Joely-bear.” *A lot of my male friends seem to call me by nicknames that I had once thought reserved for romantically involved couples… It’s unsettling but oddly comforting.
‘Nah. Doin’ fine. How’s the fam?’
“Don’t change the subject jagbag. You’re drunk on tired aren’t ya?”
All I can really do is nod at this point because I’m getting at least 5 hours of sleep a night, but it isn’t really coming all at once, rather in 2 hour bursts. And that’s only if my two year old son doesn’t wake up at some point during the night.
The twinsies have to eat every three hours, so there is a half hour for feeding and a good fifteen minutes for putting them back down, which includes a change and a dozen kisses each. Add in the one pumping Julie does at like 2am, which I say doesn’t wake me up, but come on that Medela pump is fucking creepy and it talks to me about assassinating Sesame Street characters with tainted cookies. If there’s a 10pm feeding, then a 1 or 1:30am feeding and then a 4 or 4:30 feeding and then I get up at like 6 for work or 6:05 on the weekends when my 2 year old sleeps in, we’re just on top of 5 hours.
So I guess I’m always drunk on tired right now.
Symptoms of this rare but extremely common complex are:
- blood shot eyes
- bags under said blood shot eyes
- chalky taste in the mouth from coffee three times a day
- breath resembling, to quote Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle: pig shit in turpentine
- sentences that start with, contain and normally end with “uhhhhmmmm”
- blank stares at people who ask simple questions like “Do you want a cookie?”
- incorrect word order. example: “I need helping this with.”
- inability to finish typing sente
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Dude, I’ve been there. And the best part of it was when the twins were in the NICU. We lived 45 minutes from the hospital, but the in-laws were away at their beach house all summer, so we stayed there. I also work 2 hours away.
My day: Wake up at 5, in the car by 6, drive for 2 hours to be at work by 8:30. Work till 5. Come home around 7. Eat quick dinner, either at the house, or grab something quick on the way to the hospital. Spend a few hours there, usually home by 11, enduring all the trauma of the NICU, not getting to hold your sons unless they’re connected to all sorts of wires, monitors beeping at you and shit. Like I said, home by 11, asleep within a few minutes, then start it all again.
Then, they came home, but one at a time. Carden came home first, for a week. Then Landon (hernia surgery in the NICU kept him over). We got nice and used to having one baby, then we had another one. And yes, while Landon was still in the hospital, we were driving the 2 hour trip after I got home from work to go visit him.
Then, they were on a 3 hour schedule from the NICU for a few months, one on each side of our bed so each of us handles one of them when they wake up. We swapped them out every Saturday. After a while, they started sleeping through the night, then before you know it, they went for being 3 and 4 pounds a month and a half old to being 14 and 15 pounds at 4 months and outgrowing their bassinets.
They moved to cribs in their room, and now the baby monitor wakes me up twice a night. The second time, I poke the wife and have her deal with him, then they sleep until after I’m awake for work.
It only gets easier and more interesting man…
unreal. i dont miss the transit to and from the hospital, we’re similar in that its a hike to the hospital. but we are extremely lucky in that our kids came home with us. i couldnt imagine what i would be thinking about during those drives if there was a nicu involved. im glad things worked out for you guys, and allowing you to ease into two is oddly convenient. were these your first children?
and how old was your son with the hernia? was it a double hernia? our son had his this past august when he was 18mo old and ended up having one direct and one indirect which left him with badass scars under his beltline which, if i were him, would be tattooed over with pistols. but im a weirdo. and all my scars are weak.
we’re having some similar pyloric stenosis type vomit issues with the boy twin right now and have had one ultrasound already and it might end up that both our sons will have had the pylorotomy.
hoping the vomit to breastmilk/formula ratio stays in favor of food.
go “anyone but the colts”
haaa! suckers!!!
the shit that yo baby mama is going through right now is BY FAR the hardest thing i’ve lived through. and i lived through hurricane hugo AND the fish camp jam.
i can only give you lots of warmmmmmmm, snuggly, positive thoughts and PROMISE you that sleep will come. one day. honestly, not so far away.
my twins had their first birthday a couple of weeks ago. they are so awesome and i would never think of returning them. that was not the case for prob the first four months.
it gets so much easier, my friend. just give your wife everything that she wants and don’t ask her for sexual favors.
cheers.
Dude, it was brutal. Yes, they are our first. And no, there was no help. We are healthy, normal, in our early 20’s with twins.
As for the hernias, it wasn’t just the one. Landon had it before he left the NICU. Dual inguinal, with the badass scars. Carden had his discovered 2 weeks later, after he was home. Same thing, same scars, different hospital closer to home, with an overnight stay.
I’m just glad to be done with all of the hospital stuff for now. They’re doing pretty good, and they’re 7 months old now. Exactly 7 months older than your twins.