WORDS BY ME | KATIE Z.

Hey girl, I feel your pain. The pure exhaustion is setting in, taking over every part of you. I feel. your. pain.

Today’s one of those days you’re so tired that if there was a breathalyzer for delirium, you’re pretty sure you’d blow a million point a million.

Maybe you were up all night with a colicky baby. Or nursing till you were numb. Or triple checking for monsters under the bed…for the fourth time.

Or maybe you stayed up till 1 am sipping red wine and eating an inappropriate amount of cheese because they were the only hours you could get a minute of ‘me’ time in before running the race all over again bright and early in the morning.

Just kidding, no one does that!

No matter the reason, you’re astounded by the absurdly small amount of sleep the human body can still function on.

You remember your college days, even though they were totally not that long ok, a decade ago. Anyway, you remember how you’d whine your way through your breakfast shift at Bakers Square after an all-nighter of beer pong and Christmas-light-lined basement parties.

“You guys, I’m like seriously DYING today.”

Quit your bleching, college girl. You had no idea, “like seriously”.

Now, you can get three kids, yourself and the dog ready for the day, put in a full 8+ hours at the office, pick them all up, cook dinner, give baths, do three separate bedtime routines, maybe squeeze in that stupid Jillian Michaels DVD (god she’s such a bitch, I love her), fold laundry, maybe squeeze in some kind of non-kid-related conversation with your significant other (yes, arguing over which DVR recording to watch first counts)…all on 4 hours of interrupted sleep.

And the frosting on the burnt cake is that you get to do it all over again tonight, lucky you!

Well let me tell you something, my exhausted friend.

You got this.

Even though your head is pounding, your brain’s so foggy you feel like you’re watching someone else from inside of yourself, and your bloodshot eyes burn so badly they may just melt right out of your face.

You got this.

Even though it takes you a full minute to realize that the muffled sound in your ear is actually your boss next to you, not music from your headphones that you never turned on. Even though your wildest fantasy right now is to sneak away to a secluded hotel room somewhere, slip between the sheets and fall fast asleep…by yourself!

You got this.

Every night of struggling to stay awake, you’re learning a new trick to lull your babies back to sleep. Every night you’re the comfort to a bad dream, or a sick tummy or a scary monster under the bed, the bond with those babies is growing stronger by the sleepy second.

You got this, girl. And you are amazing. No one else could do what you do.

And remember, someday many years from now, you’ll miss these days. And if one more person tells you that, you’re going to suffocate them with your pillow.

You’re not using it much these days anyway.