A hazelnut shell would probably suffice

So obviously I am just getting started here, and it must be equally obvious that I don’t have time to post every day. I wish I did. By the time all the kids are in bed and the kitchen is de-crumbed so the ants won’t completely take over (though they continue to press their advantage) and the laundry is semi-folded and stuffed into drawers, I’m—just—so—tired.

So I go to bed and think about what I would have posted if I had the brain power to post.

In some of the post-BlogHer accounts, I read that Arianna Huffington talked about sleep deprivation in her keynote and how that’s something she’s concerned about. It’s the first time I’ve heard anyone single out sleep deprivation as an Issue with a capital I—you’re always hearing about how no one gets their eight hours, tsk tsk, but it sounds like Arianna is elevating the topic to let’s-take-this-seriously status, like Sleep Deprivation should be rubbing elbows with Global Warming or Homelessness.

I don’t know what I think about this. On the one hand, I feel sort of awed and giddy that someone out there, a high-profile someone, no less, recognizes the enormity of what has to be the single biggest problem in my life.

On the other hand, it seems such a personal, individual problem. No national movement or awareness can alter my own personal circumstances, which are pretty simple, really. Lots of kids (by choice! I love them! I want them! Big families are fabulous!), husband who travels. Doesn’t take a Brazil nut shell for my nutshell version. I have many children; therefore I get less sleep than I need. I’m not a martyr. It’s just life.

I haven’t yet read what Arianna has to say on the subject. I’m wondering, speculating. Would she advise me to scale back on activities and time commitments? Check. Since I knew I was having a baby in April, I didn’t sign the kids up for ANYTHING last spring, and then summer hit and Mr. David Copperfield had to depart and so I didn’t sign them up for anything again. We go to the pool, which is close to home and free. We go to the park once in a while. Otherwise we’ve been pretty mellow, just hanging out. No mad rush of gymnastics and art class pulling us out the door in a hurry. Except for Sunday Mass, there’s no place we HAVE to be.

What else, Arianna? You might say I should choose sleep over late-night time sucks like, just for instance, the blogs on which I read about your BlogHer keynote in the first place. Or the Huffington Post, for that matter, which has nibbled away at a hefty portion of my time over the past two years. Here’s where that gets tricky.

1) I read blogs to stay connected, to remind myself I’m not in this alone, to keep my sense of humor in good working order and my sense of perspective firmly in place.

2) I read news sites like the HuffPo to keep myself aware of what’s going on outside my little nutshell. This is very important. Otherwise I become isolated and insulated and liable to make mountains out of my molehills. Yes, it’s hard to take care of five little kids by yourself. But, you know: running water, central air, vaccines, a washer and dryer, a Giant supermarket, a BBT debit card. No bombs, no waterborne parasites, no war or drought that touches me beyond a delicate groping of the pocketbook. I’m guessing there are a lot of women around the world who’d be thrilled to have my problems. If I don’t READ about their problems, I might stop seeing mine for what they are: the kind of problems that really count as blessings.

So I stay up a little too late reading—reading what Arianna has to say, what you have to say (so many of you, who don’t know me, but I know YOU, I wince or rejoice over your daily adventures)—and then instead of adding my bit, I acknowledge that Arianna has a point, and I turn away from the computer and go to bed to write these things in my head.

Except tonight, I didn’t.