Tired Mama

Having children equals sleep deprivation.  Jerry and I joke that we have been sleep deprived for 21 years.  I remember when Brandon was a newborn, the absolute exhaustion, as we experienced, for the first time in our lives, the effects of waking up every few hours all night long to care for a little person.  When Brandon was only a few weeks old, we saw exactly how tired we were one night.  Brandon had wakened to nurse and I asked Jerry if he wouldn't mind changing his diaper for me.  He said, "Sure," and left the room with the baby.  He came back very quickly and I was impressed with his diaper changing speed.  I commented on it and he said groggily, "Well, I just put a new diaper over the other one." That is sheer "tiredness" for you.

Last night I had a similar experience.  Jerry is away on a business trip, I have a cold, Sophia has been sick and not sleeping well, and David is cutting teeth and not sleeping well himself.  I was pretty exhausted last night and getting up every couple of hours with one child or another was not helping.  I went in to David at one point, nursed him and then realized he needed a diaper change.  I quickly began changing him without turning on the light so he would not be roused too much.  When I began to put on the diaper I realized that the tabs were faulty.  They were opening on the wrong side.  Instead of wanting to wrap around the front of the diaper, they wanted to wrap around the back.  I've had faulty diapers before.  In fact, once I bought a package of diapers where every single diaper was missing the velcro like fastening.  So, instead of getting out another diaper I just twisted the tabs and fastened the diaper in front then put the baby back to bed.  Not even an hour later I was wakened by his crying again.  I went sleepily into his room only to find his jammies and all his blankets sopping wet.  He had peed right through everything.  I yanked everything out of his bed, pulled a huge pile of baby blankets down on top of my head trying to get the snuggly ones from the bottom of the pile on the closet shelf, remade his bed, changed his diaper and jammies, nursed him again because he was not going to settle without it, and finally made my way back to bed. 

The next morning I was cleaning up and taking blankets down to be laundered when I noticed the diaper from the night before sitting on the bed where I had left it.  And guess what I also noticed?  The diaper was folded up inside out.  That explained everything.  I had, in my totally numb and tired state, put the diaper on with the nice absorbent layer on the outside. So much for faulty tabs.  No wonder the diaper hadn't been able to hold anything.  I had to laugh!!!