TIP #8 FOR BECOMING A GUILT FREE PARENT:

You will become the Walking Dead

Zombies used to scare the crap out of me. Now when I look in the mirror I think it is kind of good to be a zombie. Little responsibility, no control, aimless wandering around the world and relatively hard to kill. As a parent, you will become one at various stages. I am not sure how I managed to get a paycheque in my first few months because I did very little at work. I think I just stared at the screen with my eyes open but I am pretty sure I was asleep. I had a window to the hall in my office so I really couldn’t pull a George Constanza and sleep under my desk (that’s a Seinfield tv show reference for those who are too young to know). There were many times when I left the office at lunch and went to my car and put my seat back and had a snooze. It was uncomfortable and cold but it worked. Finding a secluded place to park so that no one could see you was key – I remember when finding a secluded place to park the car used to mean something else – now I just see it as great nap time, not the possible production of another child.

While at work, I would sit in meetings and I could hear myself talking but I had no idea what was happening. People would ask me to repeat myself so that it could be recorded and I would stare at them blankly and say “I was talking? I have no idea what came out of my mouth.” And the level of forgetfulness is enough to drive a person mad. I would be driving to work and thinking about stuff I need to do and forget those things ten minutes later. I thought I would get ahead of this and use my phone to set up to do lists for me. Technology is a life saver for zombies. So while driving I would ask my phone “Siri – can you add ‘book meeting with the VP’ to my to-do list?” and then Siri would say “Sorry I didn’t understand. Did you say ‘Argg...Brains...Brains’.”

And the level of rational thinking drops dramatically too – just like a zombie. A colleague of mine told me a story about her son who wasn’t a great sleeper. One night she heard him yelling out to her so she got out of bed went into his room. He said, “Mom the cat is trying to get up on the bed”. She said, “Honey we don’t have a cat.” He kept repeating it - “Mom the cat is in the house”. Rather than rationalize with a 2 year-old at 3 a.m., she decided to just get some sleep and take him into the bed with her and her husband. And every ten minutes or so, he would sit straight up in bed and say, “The cat is in the house”. Then her zombie-like brain suddenly started to creep in and she started to think maybe there is a cat in the house. She was lying there for an hour thinking about this cat and every time she heard a noise she would sit straight up and look out into the hall. So then she woke up her husband and told him that she thinks there is a cat in the house. He didn’t know what to do with two individuals bugging him about cats so he had to get up and go search the house for this mysterious cat. There was no cat ...just a couple tired souls.

Another colleague who has two children told me that his wife asked him to go get the crying child in the middle of the night so she could breastfeed her in bed. He went out and got the kid and came back to the room. His wife stared at him blankly and said “Try again”. In his sleep deprived state he grabbed his oldest kid who was sound asleep at the time and woke him up to be breastfed – when he hasn’t been breastfed in years. He then left the room to get the correct child but now everyone in the house was awake. He had to feed the oldest breakfast and turn on the TV at 4 a.m. I am not sure his wife ever asked him to help in the middle of the night again – he might be on to something.

One night our oldest child came into our bed in the middle of the night and rather than being kicked in the face, boobs, or crotch all night, my wife decided to go to the spare room, thinking that I would just sleep with the child instead. Apparently I had a similar thought a half hour later and left the bed to go to the couch thinking my wife was in the bed. So now our kid got a queen bed to herself and both of us were aimlessly (or zombielessly?) walking around looking for a comfortable place to sleep, not knowing what was really happening.

So be prepared to become zombie-like but being a zombie ain’t so bad. Just don’t let someone cut off your head like the movies and TV shows. The cure to become a normal human being is a least 2 years of restful sleep. Share your zombie stories below.