Things are not the same.

Intellectually, I've known this since last April. When I slunk down to Fred's and used my left hand a LOT as I bought my first pregnancy test. 

But today, it really sunk in.

After getting up at dawn to bake baguettes to sell at the local market (I am so tres charming I can't stand myself), I came home with fresh produce and a small bag of homemade peanutbutter fudge.

I did not mean to come home with such a thing, but I did. Traded a few baguettes for it, in fact. 

So at noon, I had myself some fudge and the daily cup of coffee I'd been too busy for in the morning.

And then, because the baby went down for her one o'clock, I took a nap. Passed out, in fact.

Two things: used to be I couldn't sleep for EIGHT HOURS after a cup of coffee, so I know I'm dead tired. That comes as a surprise to no one; Annaliese's sleeping habits are miles from what they were, but it's rare that I make it through the night, she wakes up at seven am every day of the week, and it's hard not to stay up late after her bedtime to savor the delicious wee hours (like, say, ten pm).

But here's the thing:

No matter how tired I am, no matter how firmly I am sleep, there is now ALWAYS a part of me that is wide, wide, wide awake and monitoring the household. I now sleep like a watchdog, ears moving as I slumber. 

It's the strangest thing.

I don't wake up for ordinary sounds: K. coming to bed (he really does stay up to the wee hours, especially since Caitlin gave him a box of Terry Pratchett); I don't wake up for Annaliese's mumbling episodes, or the dogs moving around, etc. 

But when something happens to jolt me awake, I'm not starting from oblivion; I can look past the sleep and rewind the small awake part of my brain and say, oh, Annaliese has been awake for a while, or Fresh Air started playing about twenty minutes ago, or whatever.

I wonder when that wears off.