The following guest entry has been written for Mommybloggers.com
by Philip Williams, author of one of our favorite blogs: The Blue Sloth.

Brain rot.

How many days has it been? I’m afraid to look.

Every night for a week I’ve thought about it. Words dance in my head. Jiggering butterflies finally unleashed by a moment’s freedom. You know how you get when you stare at a sunset for the first time in awhile? Warm and reflective. Alive. You feel like you need to share it with someone. Everyone needs to know what this feels like. You forgot for awhile, but just look at those colors, look how beautiful the sky is.

That’s how I get every night when I lay my daughter down to sleep.

My brain soars. Our day flashes rapid-fire before me. A wondrous, staccato rhythm dances across the nursery wall. I can see the giggles and the screams and the little discoveries we made. I see her lifting herself to her feet as she clutches my fingers. I watch her chomp on the smushed bananas and pushing them back out with her tongue. I see her smile a thousand times.

Inspirational lightning. My imagination seared with ideas. I need to write.

My body has other ideas. How many days since I last wrote?

Eight.

Eight nights I have wished I could find the energy.

Weariness. A plague on my brain. I can feel the tissue festering as these days slip by.

After I’ve laid the baby to rest, fed my wife and slumped onto the sofa I think about writing. I yearn for it like it’s some far off land, unreachable through the stormy seas. The television drones, a flickering blur. Anesthesia for worry. Salve for stress. I picture the computer downstairs.

It hums with contentment. Little fans purring, pulling air across the heat sink. Two green lights shine patiently from the box, visual evidence that it is waiting for me in case I couldn’t hear it’s burring drive. It is so far away.

The sofa wraps around me.

I am so tired.

My arms feel heavy. Someone has filled my organs with concrete. My blood has been replaced with a sticky, sweet syrup.

It is tough being a Sloth. This is our time of the day. Nesting time. The pillows whisper their siren call. Come rest with us, they sing. Come, our King, and lay your weary head upon our fluffy backs.

I am the King of the Sloths, and as such, I have many, many pillows. I hoard them.

You can never have too many pillows when you’re the King.

I pile them up on top of my legs when I’m sleeping. They remind me of my first cat who slept on my bed every night when I was a kid. I was safe beneath her.

Pillows foster relaxation. The pursuit of relaxation is very important to the Sloths. Pillows are habit forming. And Sloths love ritual. As such, all pillows have specific cases. Same pillow goes in the same case so I can always find the one I want. There’s reassurance when you grab the faded brown case and just the right pillow is inside. The brown one goes on top of the blue one. The two yellow paisley-patterned ones sit behind them, angled at a 45 degree angle. The pretty brownish red one with the really soft case all faded and coming apart at the corners goes on top of those. Fluff twice and lie back with a whoosh. The sofa has me.

Proper pillow arrangement is an art. I’ve tried to teach my wife, but she’s still learning. It takes years to get it right, I reassure her after I have surveyed her attempts. As Sloth Queen, she is a master mess-maker. I often marvel at the sheer volume of mess she can create in just one day. And as far as relaxation goes, she has rightfully earned her title. I am proud that she is my Queen. But as pillow arranging goes, she is no better than a sheepalope. She just stacks em up like pieces of roast beef on white bread. I showed her which pillow goes where. I’ve diagramed the engineering aspects. I’ve explained the philosophy. A home for each pillow.

Unfortunately, she messes it all up. All the pillows are in the wrong cases. She doesn’t understand, not yet. That’s what happens when someone takes the time to wash your sheets for you. They put all the pillows back in the wrong cases.

But they are still my pillows. They just have different homes.

The pillows surround me every night. Take a rest, they say. You’ve earned it. Let us support you for a spell. Just lie back. Who am I to protest?

I weighed 170 pounds an instant ago. Now the pillows have me and I am weightless.

Don’t think about the words and the thoughts, the pillows say. Here’s the tv.

I stare at the white blur and I can feel my brain cells dying one by one. The dendrite atrophies as the neurons sputter and then cease firing.

Brain rot.

My baby is a vampire, I think as I sink into the upholstery. She leaches my energy and my time. My knowledge and my patience. She grows stronger and smarter as I grow weary and tired. Her vitality is the flip side of my exhaustion.

She is an energy leach. How can anyone be this tired at 9 pm?

I think of the words I should be typing. Is she becoming smarter in direct proportion to my mental enfeeblement? Enfeeblement is not a word, is it? I can’t remember. I should know that.

The King of the Sloths lies upon his sofa and cultivates laziness. He surrounds himself with his jealously guarded pillows and expends as little energy as possible. Being a Sloth takes intelligence, it takes preparation. You have to have the remote controls within arm’s reach or you can’t turn the channels. Getting stuck on one channel breeds frustration. Frustration takes energy.

You have to have plenty of sodas on the coffee table. And snacks. And the phone. The lights have to be turned down. Or off. Off is good. Darkness comforts the Sloth. The baby is safe in her crib, the King of the Sloths is free to pursue his laziness.

But there is a catch. The body is satiated, but the mind is not. The baby has leached my day away. I’ve not written a word, nor welded a seam. Nothing has been created except dirty diapers.

My brain is rotting whist hers bubbles with new visions and sounds and skills.

Being a Sloth is a precarious balance. One can only enjoy the pillows and the snuggles and the joys of laziness after a full day of creating and learning and living a full Sloth life. Sloths must eat the leaves and study the forest and nurture their young. With slow bodies, Sloths must have fast minds. Great contemplation is required when you only move fifteen feet a day. You have to really want to get where you’re going when you move this slow.

So brain rot is a terrible thing to a Sloth. We treasure our sharp wit and razor insight. Reveling in the pillows is quite different from being too tired to move off of them.

I worry about my child. How will she learn if my brain is rotting? If I cannot find the energy to pursue what I love, how can I engender in her a passion of her own?

Am I really slipping? Will she continue to grow brighter as I dim? Will exhaustion overwhelm me every night?

I cannot allow this. I have visions in my head of how it will be as she grows up. I have stories I want to write for her, illustrations to draw. A dozen books in my mind already. As the sun fades, so do my hopes for writing them. I’ll do it tomorrow, I say. I’m too tired.

Tomorrow becomes an evil word.

I’ll be just this tired tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

I will always be this tired.

I shudder to think about it.

I must not allow this.

Easy for me to say, today. Today on my day off. My little girl with her wonderful grandmother. I have energy, exuberance. Vitality courses through me. I am in my old stomping grounds, Starbucks. Headphones on my ears and the laptop cracked open. Coffee in my blood and books spread out over the round table. I have a week’s worth of tales to tell.

I cannot allow tomorrow-itus to take over.

I picture myself reading my daughter’s text books along with her. Learning American history again. Relearning calculus. Studying Keats and Byron. A second renaissance. Sharing her exploration of this amazing world.

I cannot give in to the pillows, soft and wonderful as they are. I have been King of the Sloths for many years, and I have collected many pillows. Being a Sloth is wonderful. Sometimes there is nothing better than curling up with the Queen after a long day and tugging on her pillows. We push and shove for position on the bed and grapple with the covers, finally settling into a blissful state of love and contentment.

We Sloths are playful and happy. Messy and slow. Full of wistful humor and a wry appreciation for the little details that make existence so interesting. Yes, we are quite lazy at times, but our minds are keen and sharp. Creativity abounds in the Sloths. But we have a weakness for pillows and big, soft comforters. We came out of the trees long ago. Beds are the thing. And sofas.

But it is a new age for the Sloth Family. The Baby Sloth grows at a phenomenal pace. She is the instrument of change, and nothing can stop her. No longer can I simply collect my pillows and snuggle with my mate. Marveling at the sunset is not enough. I must be able to explain it to my child. I must embrace the spark that she fosters within me, and find the strength to follow through on the page and in the studio. Even if it means forsaking the pillows. How can I expect her to seize every opportunity if I do not do so myself?

Today I am King of the Sloths.

Tomorrow I must become King of the Daddies.

Read more by Philip at The Blue Sloth.