Another day, another disastrous night.

To my friends who are starting to hear their biological clocks tick with varying degrees of volume, please. Let me be your birth control.

Owen was 9 months old on the 15th of this month. By all accounts - his doctor, the "experts", my circle of friends, family and acquaintances, he should be LONG since sleeping through the night. And yet, I wake up bleary eyed again after another night where I got maybe 4 hours of sleep. Maybe. And not in a row.

Owen just doesn't sleep. I don't understand it and I really can't deal with it. Most nights I end up crying along with him because friends, there is a reason they torture people in guantanamo by sleep deprivation. It's hell. The long term effects of 9 months without sleeping (more, really, because anyone who's ever been 30+ weeks pregnant will tell you you're not sleeping much then eiher) have started to really affect my cognitive abilities. My long term memory is probably worse than average, but my rote and short term memories are excellent, or, they were excellent. Lately, particularly at work, my short term memory deficits are becoming problematic. I guess I could be experiencing early dementia, but my money's on sheer exhaustion. Yesterday, I checked my voicemail, listened to a message, wrote down a phone number and pressed delete. I then looked down at the pad of paper I wrote the message on, and had zero idea 1) who the message had been from 2) what the message was about 3) who's phone number that was 4) when/if and why I was supposed to call back. Immediately after listening to the message. I am tired.

I'm also just getting slow. My job hasn't gotten harder over the last 6 months - it's fast paced and there's a lot to get done every day, but I've never had trouble getting everything done before. Lately, I can barely keep my head above water. I am sure it's because I'm not sleeping. The lack of sleep hasn't improved my mood, either. I've always been sort of (to be charitable) cynical and misanthropic. Now I am veritable hurricane of negativity. I'm one step away from reminding kids at the mall waiting for Santa that they're lucky they weren't born in Somalia, and explaining precisely why.

I just don't know what to do about it. I am really trying to let him put himself back to sleep but he won't. And worse, if I let him cry for more than 10 minutes without going in, he starts literally throwing himself against the sides of his crib. Am I supposed to let him concuss himself back to sleep? Seems unlikely. Even when I bring him into bed with me, he won't sleep anymore. Sometimes feeding him helps, but most times it doesn't. There is no rhyme or reason.

I am ready to spend every last cent we have on a person to sit here from 10pm to 6am. Just so that I can sleep. It would be so worth it. do they have people like that?