All three of our girls sucked at sleeping. I was a half-dead, hollowed version of myself for about six years as they learned to suck a little less at sleeping through the night.

Things are pretty decent now, but we still seem to get hit with these spurts of crappy sleeps again: a string of sicknesses, a random week of midnight bed-wetting or night terrors and I am taken back to that desperate place of clawing through the sleep deprivation, of trying to fall asleep at night myself, but realizing my whole body is clenched, waiting to see who’s going to wake up howling first.

Kids end up in our bed, punting my face all night long, but it becomes about survival.

Knock on wood, we’re through the worst of the most recent rash of wakings, but you just never know when a solid 8 hours of rest will be wrenched from my white-knuckled grip again.