Thoughts on sleep, or the lack thereof

Sleep. I once guarded my sleep like a jealous husband. Sure I enjoyed a late night hangout with friends but the magic number was eight. Namely, I required eight hours of sleep to function be it all in the night hours or trickling into the afternoon. Even in law school where all nighters were a given, I might have stayed up past 3am on many a night, but that only meant I woke up at 11am the next day. Eight. Consecutive hours. I stress the consecutive because while my little boy respects the number eight, [heck he'll even sleep 18 hours on some days] he missed the memo on the whole consecutive thing.

During pregnancy veteran mama friends urged me with bleary eyes to rest as much as you can now! Sleep in for as long as you can stand it! Except that as humans, as opposed to bears, we can't really stock up on sleep via hibernation. So all the lazy Sunday mornings waking up and lazing about don't really help me at 3am as I rock a beautiful babe to sleep.

I snatch sleep when I can but heavy lids are now a constant companion. This past weekend K took a night shift, and my visiting parents took an early morning shift [If you plan to nurse I strongly suggest investing in a Medela since it allows others to help you feed the bebe] and I got two nights of six consecutive hours of sleep! It felt amazing. I heard there comes a time they sleep six hours in a row on the regular. Right now this sounds as mythical as the land of Oz but one can hope.

They say the best things in life are free. As I remember my sleep I know this to be true, but this lack of sleep is because of the truly best thing in my life, the one that has no price because it is truly priceless. Him. For him a thousand sleepless nights are worth it a thousand times over. Alhamdullilah. [And yes Mamus, this is his Zoolander pose, already the genetics are so very apparent!]
Sleep is one of our most intractable attachments. We claw and clutch and crave it. We adorn and worship it. We four hundred thread count it. It is our one sovereign domain. We hide out there; we fantasize and burrow there; we think we can't live without it. You will see that you can live without it- just enough. -Momma Zen

It's a boy!

I am humbled to share that my husband and I have been blessed with a son, Waleed. He was born Mother's Day weekend on May 7, 2010 at 7:02pm measuring 21 1/4 inches and weighing in at 7lb 12oz. This blog has always been my place to express my thoughts on life, but how does one express what it feels like to look into your son's eyes for the first time? How can I explain the simultaneous feelings of excitement and amazement which jostle for position amongst heart stopping panic at the realization that you are now responsible for a completely pure creature who stares at you with total trust to guide him in learning this world? Words fail. I can simply say I'm grateful for this new chapter God has honored us with and I hope we will be the parents that our son deserves. May he live a long and happy life. Ameen.