An original by Rachel Higginson:

There once was a newborn that slept through the night.
He felt so snug and warm after his mommy tucked him in tight.

All through the dark hours he would sleep peacefully.
While his mommy thought, "Wow, what a child," most gleefully.

Then one long and cold winters night, that baby boy awoke and looked all around.
And thought why should I sleep here, when my mommy is sleeping so sound?

So cry he did and he hasn't stopped yet.
Unless his mommy holds him, without any sleep to get.

She sits up straight in the cold rocking chair.
Whining and crying that this isn't fair.

She doesn't understand why her baby won't let her rest.
Doesn't he want her sane, awake and looking her best?

She doesn't think so as her brain turns to moosh.
She's not even sure she remembers how to get off of her toosh.

All day she walks around in a zombie like state.
Wishing she would make sense when talking to her mate.

Afraid of a nervous breakdown she cries all the time.
While her face hasn't been made and her hair covered in slime.

Her nails are all jagged, a pedicure a joke.
And her hopes of clean clothes, well that's gone up in smoke.

One day it will be better, she says with little hope.
One day she'll figure it out and learn how to cope.

Until then she'll just have to learn to live without showers.
Counting all the time she's awake during late night hours.

She'll push on through sluggishness and temporary insanity.
Hoping for the day she'll return sanely to society.

The joys of motherhood are lost in confusion
As this tired woman walks circles in delusion.

I had one of those nervous breakdowns this morning. After not sleeping for another night, and working hard to clean up a destroyed and messy house and just throwing in another load of laundry, I walked into the living room to see newly purchased baby announcements all over the room like confetti, a brand new game ripped to pieces and the artistic work of Scarlett drawn in black crayon all over the walls. Oh and did I mention Stryker had just started to cry? I was about fifty loads of laundry behind and had paid bills that morning which always depresses me?

It was awesome.

I mean not awesome.

This is what happened. I disciplined my children properly and calmly, picked up Stryker and nursed him while cleaning up the announcements and washing the walls, I skillfully taped and glued the game back together so that it looked like nothing even happened and then I folded all 75 loads of laundry with one hand while a gourmet but healthy lunch cooked in the kitchen and I went over the dinner menu in my head just to be sure I had everything.

Wrong.

WRONG!

Ok, so that's not quite what happened. The children did get disciplined. Um, not so calmly.... After. After I sat down in the middle of the room and had myself a good enough cry that my children also thought they needed to cry.

There we were, the four of us. Crying. And Crying. And Crying.

Then they got disciplined. As if witnessing their mother lose her mind first hand wasn't bad enough.... Then Stryker was fed. More tears. From me. And then the girls. Then I cleaned up the announcements. More tears. Then I pulled out wash clothes for the girls to clean the walls. FYI, water and wash clothes don't work on black crayon.

Washable. My ass.

Then I almost slipped into an exhaustion coma.

Then, I picked up the game although it has yet to be reassembled. And I'm not really sure if there is hope for it. I'm still working on laundry and forget it getting folded. The pile in the hallway has become somewhat of a "New, Communal Closet." (Zach's words.)

And lunch was basically hot dogs and like three baked beans because at the end of it, I didn't have time, energy or the willpower to cook healthy or make those kids eat healthy.

To be fair, there were oranges on the plate.

But like I said before, they ran their own lunch.

Zach came home sometime after that, after the explicit warning, not to come home, you might not recognize your deranged wife and still in their pajamas, dirty children. (Who has time to get dressed or take a bath? Not us.)

He didn't listen to the warning obviously and still came home.

And then saved my life.

And my sanity.

In fact, for Valentines Day expect an Ode To Zach, because he's kind of been saving my life every hour of every day recently and I couldn't be writing this right now if it weren't for the thirty minutes he put into scrubbing the walls with a magic eraser(Which PS, those things really are magic.) and then being patient enough to put Scarlett to sleep and then being even more patient to talk me off of my internal ledge, remind me that I'm a good mother, and a good wife and then make out with me even if I haven't showered in five days, my hair looks like what I expect a spaghetti factory would after an explosion and my eyebrows could use some.... work, that is if your eyes can even look past the lack of makeup to find them, I don't want to talk about my breath, or the fact that it's four in the afternoon and I'm still in my pajamas. But he braved it. That's a good man.

Maybe tonight I'll get more than two and a half hours of sleep.

And scene, while I'm laughing like a hysterical crazy person.....