To Hell and Back

Besides being the title of the late Audie Murphy's autobiography, "To Hell and Back" is an apt description of the past several days at home. The past week was characterized by two sick kids--dripping with mucus and delirious from fever--and one exhausted father (that's me). To use the analogy that someone at work mentioned, I had a "Perfect Storm" of unfortunate events occur all at once.

Now that I have had time to think about it, I believe that I've been suffering from exhaustion since Punky was born six months ago. Where with one child I had some free time at night and on weekends, now there hardly a moment to spare. Basically, I have an 8 hour window to do everything I need to do at home, which includes sleep. Time to pay the bills? Then lose an hour of sleep. Read the paper or blog? That's another hour lost. And even if go to bed as soon as Russell and Punky fall asleep, there no guarantee that I'll fall asleep right away. So in reality, I typically get around 6 hours of sleep a night.

But what the weekends? Since my primary task on the weekends is to take care of the kids and take care of the house, I get even less rest than on weekdays when I have to work. I am probably the only person that I know that looks forward to Mondays because then I have an opportunity to take a break when I feel like it.

I'm not complaining. Just waiting for the day when the kids become more self-sufficient and I can take a night or two a week for myself. It's just that I had no idea how tough it would be, and it leaves me wondering why so many Chinese families of the past generation (my own and Jenny's included) decided to have so many children. How did they ever manage it without going crazy?