I see them in the cars next to me. I see them at the gas station. I see them in the grocery store, mindlessly squeezing the avocados, placing the Cheerios box next to the jumbo pack of Capri Sun, and uttering a monotone “No” to the children swarming around them begging for various sugary-based edibles. They are the Mombies, the walking dead tired.

I myself have walked in their shoes, felt the exhaustion brought on by the endless loop of motherhood: getting the children up, feeding them, dressing them, buckling them into their car seats, driving in circles around town delivering them to their various schools/activities, cleaning the house...well, you know the routine. Day after day after day.

And it doesn’t end when night falls. Darkness brings on a new set of duties; drinks of water to be distributed, boogey-men to banish from the closets; diapers to be changed...well, you know the routine. From dusk to dawn in my house there was always somebody up begging for something: “Can’t I watch 15 more minutes of Sponge Bob, please?”; “Just one more drink of water, please?”; “Mommy, can you change my wet sheets, please?”

Nighttime was always the worst for me. I’d look outside in the dark and think about all those people fast asleep in their comfy beds. Sleep became my impossible dream – my unreachable star. I see women all over the place fighting the bedtime blues just like I did, and I know it’s the weariness that sets in that turns even the perkiest mommy into the Mombie I see before me - the pale-faced woman with the dark circles under her dead-tired eyes and her hair pulled back in a ponytail trying to keep her two-year-old from licking the glass at the post office while holding a baby as she fills out a mailing form.

I was that woman in the post office, the Mombie just trying to send a package to someone, somewhere, staring blankly at the post office worker asking me questions like, “Do you want a signature of receipt?” and “Is this going first-class or overnight?”

“Receipt?” “Overnight?” Did I know these words? I heard the words but my brain was not processing them. “Who are you and how did I get to this strange place?” were the words going through my mind. I’ll never know if I said them out loud. My brain was frozen. It was almost like having an out of body experience, or like having one of those dreams where you are desperately trying to scream, but no sound comes out.

The good news is that the Mombie state is not permanent. As the children get older you will get more sleep, I promise you. It’s like God has recognized that for years you valiantly marched into h-e-double toothpicks for a heavenly cause, and He rewards you with calmness when you lay down to rest. The restorative sleep you missed out on through the Mombie years allows your brain to reboot itself. Oh sure, there are times when you may forget where you parked your car, or why you walked into the den, but your brain eventually kicks into gear. And then your children become teenagers.