Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Running on empty: In awe of sleep-deprived parents

I don't know how anyone does it — raise kids, that is. Any time I get the slightest taste of what it's like, I am in complete awe. Last night, for example. My dog was sick — not in any tragic way, but in a normal dog way. He probably ate something in the back yard, or drank water from the pond — who knows. Anyway it was enough to give him an upset stomach with a case of the runs all night.

Now, he's an incredibly good dog. He never once left a mess — instead, he woke me up to let me know he had to go out. A lot. In fact, it seemed that every time I fell into a deep sleep, he appeared at the side of the bed, panting in my face and pawing at the blanket. (I did hear him try it once or twice with my partner, but she's practically unconscious when she sleeps.)

Finally, about the 4th or 5th time this happened, I remembered in my sleepy stupor that the vet had told me once that you can give dogs a small amount of Pepto Bismal. So into the bathroom we went, and let me tell you, it's no easy task to give a spoonful of medicine to a 60 pound dog at 2:30 in the morning.

That did the trick and he was able to settle down. Of course, as soon as I started to fall asleep again, the cat began picking at closet door.

How do you do it?

10 comments:

Sara said...

laughing...

no choice, sue. you simply have no choice.

and someone spikes your coffee with some weird hormone that makes you do it again and again.

Sue J said...

I read a theory once that babies have evolved into such damn cute things because otherwise exhausted mothers wouldn't have the will to take care of them.

I guess my dog's just lucky he's cute, too, and the cat's just lucky he was out of reach!

Anonymous said...

You know, there's lots of reasearch that shows that naps do wonderful things at all ages....
Snooze well!

Sue J said...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Huh? What?

Sue J said...

I just ran across this story:

6-minute catnap sharpens memory

You're on to something, Cootamundra -- I guess I should listen to the moms out there ...

Mauigirl said...

ROTFLMAO! I had EXACTLY that same experience on both Saturday and Sunday night. Same thing: Our dog apparently got a case of the runs - not the really really bad ones, but enough so that she had to get up and go into the yard about every 2 hours. The first time she tried waking us up I told her to go back to sleep and a few minutes later she got up off the bed (she sleeps with us) and left.

This is never a good sign. So a I got up to see where she went...and found she WENT on our carpet in the spare room. My fault. I didn't listen to her.

So we all go back to sleep and at 3 a.m. she woke me up again and this time I listened and ran downstairs to let her out.

Ditto at 7 a.m. And remember this was on a Sunday morning and I would have slept later!

Sunday night she got up twice also.

We fed her rice for the next day and a half and she is back to normal today. Have you used the rice cure?

I didn't know about the Pepto - how much do you give him?

Sue J said...

What did these dogs get into, anyway? But yes -- he'll be having rice for dinner tonight.

For the Pepto, it doesn't take much (go by weight, like with kids). I TRIED to give him a teaspoonful, but I ended up wearing about half of that... whatever he took down seemed to help.

He has mild hip dysplasia, too, poor guy, but one aspirin seems to help when he's over exerted himself.

Sara said...

look at you! poop and sleep... sleep and poop...

it's the same thing!

Sue J said...

Yeah, but I can go out for the evening and put him in a crate with a favorite toy.

I may be wrong, but I think you're not supposed to do that with children?

Sara said...

big crate- house- withe baby sitter- toy.

same thing.