If you give a kid a cookie…

I'm a terrible, horrible, awful mother. Yesterday, I did the unthinkable.

I fed my 8-month-old a Mint Oreo Cookie, and I'm not sorry I did it.

What led me to this madness? What terrible events could have occurred for me to do such a dastardly thing? Lack of sleep my friends. Extreme lack of sleep.

You see, Gracie was a little out of whack, sleeping-wise. It started about two weeks ago when she got a bit of a cold. She kept waking up in the night either with a coughing fit or because her poor little head was all plugged up and she couldn't breathe. If she was tired enough, we would rock in the rocking chair until she fell asleep again. But mostly, once she was awake there was no going back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried. So we would be up for a couple hours in the middle of the night until she could sleep again; and then she would need a big nap the next day.

Pretty soon, the daytime naps were getting longer and the night-time waking up time was getting longer too, until we got to the point where she was sleeping most of the day away, then waking up in the evening and not going to bed until 2 a.m., then waking up again at 6 a.m. And Denice was starting to get grumpy. I have a really hard time taking naps in the daytime because, well, I have things to do. And living on four hours of sleep just wasn't doing it for me.

By Sunday, I was at the end of my rope. I needed some sleep. I decided since Gracie was over her cold, I was going to keep her awake for most of the day. And as I was sitting next to her on the floor, eating a couple of Mint Oreo Cookies for a little sugar rush to keep me awake, a little thought quietly ran through my head: "If these cookies are keeping ME awake…"

I pulled another Oreo out of the package, took one of the cookie pieces off and hesitated for a moment as I contemplated if this really was a good idea, or if it was my sleep deprived brain trying to convince me it was a good idea -- and Gracie made the decision for me. She grabbed the cookie right out of my hand and stuffed it directly into her mouth. Well, mostly she just sucked on the icing because she doesn't have any teeth yet, but you get the idea.

So I let my Gracie have sugar for the first time, and boy did it work! She stayed awake most of the day, went to bed at the very reasonable hour of 10 p.m., and slept straight through until 8:30 a.m., just like she used to do.

And I'm not sorry. Incredibly guilt-ridden for feeding my child junk at such a young age -- you betcha. But sorry? Can't say that I am.