My best friend has a new baby. Yum, can’t you just smell the baby love through your computer?

The other day I was confidently telling her that one day she will sleep again. Four weeks into it, I think she’s getting close to hitting that sleep deprivation wall that we all know so well.

I don’t have the heart to call her and tell her I lied though — she’ll never sleep again. OK, she may sleep again, but the days of deep, worry-free, dead-to-the-world sleeps are gone forever.

I used to think that maybe once I got out of the infant days, I’d start getting my sleep on again. But now I realize I was fooling myself. Even when your kids are no longer waking up all night, aren’t you always still sleeping with one ear half-cocked, waiting for the slightest sounds of coughs/cries for Mommy/surprise trips to the potty/scary dreams, etc?

We’re in a really bad pattern right now. For the most part, E. has been a tremendous sleeper since she was about 12 weeks old.

Sure, there have been the sleepless nights for new teeth, ear infections, growth spurts during the nursing days, and so on. But I’ve gotten pretty spoiled with some solid nights of good sleep.

That honeymoon appears to be over. For the past two weeks, a full night of sleep has been tough to come by. Remember the midnight Dora viewing a couple weeks ago? Except for one or two nights during that span, it’s been like that nearly every night. Luckily there hasn’t been anymore Midnight Matinees but I think I’ve slept more nights in her bed than mine lately. And when we’re not in hers, she’s in ours — kicking DadJovi in the face all night and head butting me. For some reason, she refuses to sleep vertically in a bed. She takes full advantage of our King Size and spreads out across the middle.

I think she’s still sick because when she wakes up, usually at about 11 p.m., she’s never really awake. But there’s a lot of crying and thrashing, and the restlessness usually lasts until about 3 a.m.

I had her ears rechecked on Monday and the doctor said they are healing, but I’m not sure she is better. She keeps telling me her head hurts. I’m hoping that’s still sinus infection related. Or sometimes she says she had a bad dream. What kind of a bad dream could a 2 1/2 year old have? A world without Dora or bouncehoues?

In the meantime, I’m getting crankier and crankier. I don’t think you know how much I ADORE sleep. Pre-kid, it wasn’t unusual for me to sleep until 11 a.m. on a Saturday (DadJovi used to HATE that. He’s an early riser). My biggest fantasy in life right now is that I someday get to go to a hotel all by myself, even for just one night, and be dead to the world for at least 12 hours.

Someone please tell me that this is just a phase. A very short-lived phase. Please.