I don't actually know what LO means. I presume "Little One?" It's a shorthand I see frequently on stuff like the Birthways Breastfeeding Support Facebook group and the Ames Babywearing and Beyond group. I don't get it. I mean, it's fine calling your baby "Little One," as its a nice gender-neutral non-specific-age term of endearment, but why abbreviate it? While, yes, it takes about half a second longer to type out little one than LO, this is a PC with a full keyboard. I'm not texting. Heck, autocorrect even made abbreviations old fashioned. Seems weird. It's also another one of those random things that I've learned since becoming a mom. Like you have no idea how many new words I learned that relate to breastfeeding...
Anyway, that's not where I was trying to go with this.
I frequently have questioned how on earth people could have more than one kid. Like I said, my "LO" is turning two months tomorrow. During those two months, I have been cried at, had to get up multiple times a night (usually three, not counting all the times fifteen minutes later to calm her back to sleep), had to spend inordinate amounts of time bouncing, can't seem to take a minute to myself to dress or eat breakfast unless I wait for her nap time, have to watch my alcohol consumption and timing, been pooped on, changed multiple diapers, can't get away for more than a couple hours, and let's not even talk about how I haven't slept for more than four hours in a stretch and usually no more than six a night for those two months and not even a smile in repayment from a super-demanding tiny individual. And this was all after the traumatizing birth (that also kept me up all night) that ended with me in the operating room with a third degree laceration. Why would people repeat that? I love my little girl, but man, why try this over again?
People all tell me it gets better, but can you truly forget all of this within a year or two?
I have discovered the answer: sleep deprivation. Oh, you think it's a bad thing? Well, yes, it's a bad thing. There have been days where I have been dead on my feet and nights I cry in desperation when I hear her start to cry again after I had just begun to drift off, clocking only three hours of sleep by 3am. Sleep deprivation sucks. BUT, sleep deprivation brings memory loss.
Sleep-deprivation based amnesia. That must be the answer. For example, I honestly cannot remember how many times I got up last night. I know she woke up at 01:30ish, and again at 03:00ish (which is stupid), but I can't for the life of me remember if she woke up at 05:00ish or not. I thought she did, but examining that idea more closely, I found I couldn't link any memories with that specifically. Kind of like how you sometimes can't remember if you brushed your teeth because you've done it so dang often that it all seems the same and you can't tell if your teeth-brushing memory is from this morning or yesterday morning or a week ago.
So in six months or whenever she hopefully starts sleeping through the night and I start getting normal amounts of sleep, this whole episode will fade to the murky consistency of a dream. Kind of like how right after she was born, I'm like "If this is the way childbirth goes, I am never doing it again," and then I was sleep deprived because labor had started at like 22:30 (not when I would choose to run a marathon) and then it was exhausting and then I was drugged for the OR and all groggy and I haven't had a good night's sleep ever since. And I talk about "next time."
Well, it's either the sleep thing or kids get a lot more fun later on. Hard to imagine at this point (this week, she's cut her nap times in half).
(Ironic onesie)
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