Waffles at 3 AM

I have no idea when the last time was that I actually closed my eyes at night and kept them closed until morning. I struggle with sleep on my own, so I need no help being awake when I should be sleeping, but it seems someone else, a small 3 year old, feels it necessary to wake me up every single night. And if it’s not the kid, it’s the snoring husband, my relentlessly wandering mind, or the bastard cat. This morning at 3 am Lailah came barging out of her room wanting a waffle, and proceeded to reach near meltdown when I told her that we don’t have waffles at 3 in the morning. I was able to get her to at least stay in her room and watch Monsters University on the tablet while I went and lay back down. But, I never did get back to sleep, and by 4:30 (15 minutes before the alarm was set to go off) she was back in my room - angry that I had conned her out of her waffle, and pissed off that she had been persuaded to stay in her room. So, like a scene out of Groundhog’s Day, it’s up and at em’, blurry eyed and ornery, wondering how I am going to function at work. This happens more often than not, and I start to feel like I am going to lose my mind. I gorge myself on copious amounts of caffeine and am prone to making bad food choices, I drive my shitty commute in a fog, mind flooded with petty thoughts about how I wish I lived closer to work, about how I wish I didn’t have to work at all, and in a downward spiral it becomes about how I feel like I make more sacrifices than the other half, about how I feel like I do more than I am capable, then guilt sets in. I chose to be a Mom, I chose to be a wife, but so often I feel like I fail at both, and in all honesty, sometimes I wonder why I chose either.  Before you gasp, please know that I wouldn’t trade either for the world, and I am so thankful that we are healthy, and we don’t have struggles that other families have. Life, I know, could be so-much-worse, but these are my feelings right now, and so help me if there isn’t someone else out there who feels the same way. Please someone affirm to me that I am not completely trite in expressing such a silly list of selfish woes. I tell myself things will get better, and I am sure that they will. Someday Lailah will enjoy sleep as much as I do, someday I will have more energy, someday I will be able to have more time for myself, someday I will have the energy to be that mom/wife who has homemade dinner on the table and not some flimsy reheated piece of pizza, someday, someday. Until then, I guess I will just make the best of waffles, at 3 am.