It’s funny how we humans try to study the patterns of something in an effort to predict our next outcome. We all do it. In so many different ways.

And a lot of the time, it actually works!

But, over the past two years, I’ve found that kids don’t give two shits about the meticulous way you’ve studied them. Things are gonna change day to day, no matter how much you try to mimic the previous day’s routine.

If we did X, Y, Z yesterday and Ishu slept through the night, I try to recreate the day.

And then I’m just left completely annoyed (and sleepy) when he decides to wake up at 3am. DESPITE ME DOING X, Y, AND Z, DAMNIT.

Spreadsheets have no place here.

I sit on the toilet and ponder this every morning this happens. And tell myself, “Okay, stop trying to study patterns. You’ve been here before. You know that this just leads to disappointment.”

AND THEN I DO IT AGAIN LIKE A BUFFOON.

Anyway, yes, he woke up at 3am again. Yes, I was a buffoon again.

But I snap out of it quicker these days. I used to spend SO LONG agonizing over WHY it didn’t all line up. And now I have that brief moment I think about it. And then the other (more experienced) part of me reminds the buffoon part of me that toddlers don’t care about my data and my patterns and the fact I did X, Y, and Z.

They’ll just decide they wanna wake up at 3am and run into the living room pointing to the window saying, “IT’S DAWK OUTSIDE.”

Fortunately, this isn’t an everyday occurrence. And, for the most part, we’re all getting enough sleep. But, man, I wish I could time travel back a few years and tell myself, “Get all the Zzzz’s you can get, cause once you’re a mama, your sleep will never be the same.”