My classmates and I are celebrating. We are now third year medical students at Duke. Many of use are doing research, and actually working normal hours. After our clinical year, the thought of working normal 40-50 hour work weeks is scrumptious. Simply delectable. And the anthem many of us have been repeating daily is "No call for ten months!"
However, I was painfully reminded that that isn't necessarily true.
You see, being a parent really is being on call every night. You never know how long you are going to sleep when you go to bed every night. There are no guarantees that you are going to get 3, 4, 5, or (perish the thought!) 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Our littlest one has been feeling under the weather the past couple of days (but she seems to be doing much better tonight!), and as such just hasn't been sleeping well. After finally getting her down by about midnight Sunday night/Monday morning I got up with her at 1:30, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, and 6:00. Needless to say, I was a little tired yesterday. And, of course, my classmates simply couldn't understand why.
And last night, when it took until about 2:30 to get her to settle down, I knew it was going to be a rough day.
But that is just part of being a parent. While many of my classmates hear those stories and express their gratitude they don't have children, I suppose my wife and I just look at it as another part of life and growing up. One we welcome with bloodshot, puffy eyes.