Tips for the Sleep Deprived

There are few things I feel I have enough experience with in order to consider myself an expert. Sleep deprivation, however, now that I know about.  Here are some tips to make your life a little easier when you can't remember the last time you slept through the night.

1.  Put your car keys on top of the coffee maker.  You'll always know where they are because that is the most frequented spot in your kitchen.

2.  Never watch soap operas.  Your sleep-deprived brain has a difficult time distinguishing fantasy from reality and you don't want to spend the rest of the day wondering if you may be, in fact, related to your husband who was given up at birth by his incarcerated Mother in a Peruvian jail.

3.  Check the mirror before you walk out the door.  A Weird Al Tour tee-shirt from 1996 may be appropriate "around the house" wear, but the checker at Whole Foods may call DYFUS for fear your fashion errors may emotionally affect your child.

4.  Keep in contact with the outside world.  When your tired, the last thing you want to do is talk to anyone.  But, talk to people you must.  Why?  Because you'll begin talking to yourself, otherwise.  And the things you'll say, oh the things you'll say when you're too tired to think clearly.  You need an opinion that comes from outside of your own head.

5.  Lay down.  Don't make dinner.  Don't bake Christmas cookies.  Don't wrap the 18th present underneath the tree only because it's the last one.  If your kid ever has the nerve to fall asleep in her own bed, follow her lead and do the same.

Happy Thursday!