Shadows

Today I feel a restlessness that often comes. I am not sure what to do about it. My mind is blank. It usually happens when I am so tired I feel useless. I feel so tired and yet there is always an endless list of tasks to do. I live in a pretty small space compared to what I used to live in and I cant keep up with the four little ones that have so much get up and go. Some nights my baby is up so many times I never really get to sleep. I will just drift off and he is up again. I am not sure if it is heart burn or allergies or teething or what the issue is but the fact of the matter is...sleep is something I obsess about sometimes. Since my eldest moved in with us I have been up at least twice a night. She is now ten and she moved in when she was one and a half. I would say through all these years there has probably been about a month maybe two in total (but not all those nights together) where I have slept through the night. I feel like I am this shadow of mist. Like someone could just touch me with one finger and I'd disappear. That is how fragile I feel. I know many mothers understand this to some degree. However for many of these years the nights have involved horrific screams of pain from my son. He has had a medical issue that has just this last year seemed to disappear. It has involved him waking up in so much pain and just screaming. When he was a baby I was so devastated to not be able to help him. I didn't know what was happening and doctors just thought he was colicky. Anyway that is not the point. The point is my constant restlessness. Like I am missing clarity. I want to feel alive and awake and capable. I seriously sometimes feel like I am going insane because I want to sleep so badly but there is so little real chance. I want to feel smart and capable. This blog is me rebelling against my life. It is me fighting back against the mundane relentless days of exhaustion.
This reality, it is not something I ever dreamed of when I thought about becoming a mother. I guess I didn't really think much past getting pregnant. I was so naive and aren't we all.
I feel like I have been gypped in some ways of the capacity to be the mother I could be, or the wife I could be, or the friend I could be, or the woman I could be if I had more sleep.  I see so many mothers that do so much. They can handle their children, be consistent, teach them better and just handle the incoming every day. I know I sound like I am complaining and I am today. I also have not had children that nap in the day after they turn two. In this newest babies case rarely does he nap in the day and if  does it is usually for about twenty minutes. So between him and his four year old sister who cant fall asleep till at least ten each night...the whining and crying all day..... It's hard to take.
The bad days mean falling asleep while sitting up and reading to the children as my eyes are red and burning. I know now that I wont die. I will always keep on going. However sometimes I let myself grieve the fact that I am not all me. I grieve that my energy is so low and my feelings of inadequacy are so high.I love being a mother so much. I love my sweet incredible children. I love my husband and the life that we have worked so hard to build together. However because of this lack of sleep

I am so often a shadow just wanting to break free.