Another thorn in bedtime's side

M: Daddy?
B: Yes?
M: What if monsters come in our house?
B: They can't. Remember, we have an alarm.
M: (pause to think) But what if they eat the alarm?

Swift thinking, kid. I tried to convince him that monsters are simply misunderstood, that if they came to our house we would invite them in and feed them chicken parmesan sandwiches and send them on their merry way. He told me we could also call animal control.

Week Tired Time Taffy

Is it really only Wednesday? Really? Does anyone else feel like the month is just crawling toward Thanksgiving? I know I shouldn't complain, because the holidays usually move so fast , but I can only get up before 5am so many days in a row before I start getting cranky.* You'd think, then, when things move so slowly, that I'd be getting so much more done, right? But no. It just feels like it takes me longer to do everything, like time has become a piece of pulled taffy. And I don't even like taffy. Although maybe if I had some taffy, we could at least do a fun project about it's miraculous stretching properties. You know, to kill some time. Did I mention that being tired also messes with my focus?

*In case it wasn't clear already, today was my tipping point. A few more days of this and my posts are going to become as random as this one's title.

Pleading nap time insanity

Every day at nap time, I read K and M their choice of story. Then I settle K down in her bed to sleep and usher M to the playroom to play. Every day, M tells me that he wants to sleep. I tried, when the kids began sharing a room, to let him sleep in his own bed. When no one slept at nap time, I realized this was a bad idea. So I told him that he could sleep in my bed if he was tired. So now, every nap time, I have to go into my room, close up all the doors and windows, unmake my bed, and generally prepare the room for rest. And every day, M spends the entire nap time in the playroom, playing.

I know it's a little thing to get frustrated about, but that's exactly what I am. I like having the windows open in our room and the bed nicely made. I don't want to leave them closed and undone all morning in preparation for this nap time charade, but at the same time, it's maddening to open/fix them twice on one day. I know: little thing. But when I feel like I have to make use of every second of my time, these are precious seconds utterly wasted.

If M really slept, I'd be fine with it. If M even tried to sleep, I'd be fine with it. He doesn't. But when I tell him such ("I don't think you're tired enough to sleep" or "Are you really going to sleep today, because you usually don't") I get loud and emphatic protests. Fearful that they will wake the actually sleeping child, I go along. On principle, too, I hate telling him that he can't or won't sleep just because I don't think he will. It is his body, after all.

I know there's probably no solution, except maybe to just not get so up in bunches about it. And most days I just do it automatically. But every day, the same thing, just starts getting to me after a while. This sneaking feeling creeps up that they are trying to break me one nap at a time, and even I doubt my resilience.

Time for NaBloPoMo

I realized today, to my horror, that NaBloPoMo had already begun! How could I be behind already? What kind of person skips the very first day?

Except that I didn't skip. I posted yesterday. Was it really just yesterday? See, this daylight savings time business messes with my whole world. You know why? Because I insist on going around telling myself what the "real" time is. For example, it's one forty. Which is really two forty. The kids should be up from their nap soon, and I haven't even put one of them down.

It gets worse. Last night I went to bed at ten, which was really eleven. Very late. Woke up to the sound of a small child in the bathroom at five thirty, which was really four thirty. Talk about a short night.

You're all scratching your heads right now, I can practically hear it. No, it wasn't really four thirty. It was really six thirty. Only it was really five thirty. Can it really just be nine thirty already? I clearly need some sleep.

Irony, defined

In the event that you are unfamiliar with the definition of irony, here it is: "an event or result that is the opposite of what is expected" (Webster's New World Dictionary and Thesaurus). Need an example? How about this one:

I get these headaches when I haven't had enough sleep. They start in my neck and go all the way along the back of my head with very dull, persistent pain. There is nothing that can cure these headaches except, well, sleep. Thus I call them my tired headaches.

So this morning, at four, when I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, do you know it was that kept me awake? Yep. A tired headache. A throbbing, painful, cannot be ignored signal from my body that I need more sleep, asap. Huh huh. Joke's on you, body. You hurt me like that, I don't sleep. Or maybe the joke's on me. Actually, it's not really funny at all. But it is ironic.

Today's Parenting Strategy: Non-parenting

Forty-five minutes into K's nap--a very quiet, uneventful forty-five minutes--she calls me into her room. Surprised, I go in to become even more surprised. She's still in her bed, but she's now surrounded by about twenty different books. Naptime clearly does not mean the same thing to her as it does to me. "This book scary," she says as she hands me Where the Wild Things Are. I'm sure there are a lot of things I probably could or should have said in this situation, but instead I took the book from her, laid it aside, and said, "Well, you don't need to read it." And then I walked out. I can blame this on busyness or hump day or pre-vacation distraction, but the truth is, sometimes I'd just rather avoid parenting.

Now, if we could just get them to *sleep*...

We've had a couple big changes in our house. A week and a half ago, we bought and set up a loft bed for M. The advantage being that it was a great deal on Craig's List, perfectly matched our existing furniture, and allowed us to use our existing double mattress. The disadvantage being that it's so darn tall. Well, that's a disadvantage to me, who is not so tall and happens to be afraid of heights. Yes, even changing the sheets on a loft bed. But M sees the loft bed as the greatest thing in the world, because it's big and high and his own personal space. It surprised me a little, his scampering up without hesitation, but it shouldn't. I sometimes forget that just because he's a lot like me, it doesn't mean that he's me. And even better--he's only fallen off once. Of course, he laid on the ground all still and frightening and I burst into tears, but we survived unscathed (physically, at least).

The second change came last Saturday, when K began sleeping in the big girl bed (which, funnily enough, looks just like the old big boy bed, but with a pink comforter). She absolutely LOVES it, and she's so cute all little and tucked in and giggly about being so grown up. She's never fallen out, but she has escaped a few times. Still, when we found they were playing in her crib the other day, we dismantled it for safety's sake and committed to the bed.

The thing is, I've had that crib up for four and a half years--the entire duration of what I consider our new life. We used to slide Duck and friends up and down its slanted sides. I used to use it for light exercise while M woke up from his nap, my sweet cat lounging nearby. There are teeth marks on the front rail from both kids. I've cleaned all sorts of unpleasantness from it, started and ended countless sleep cycles, lifted small bodies in and out in all levels of happy and sad, asleep and awake. That crib marked the beginning and end of nearly every day.

And now we finish prayers and give hugs and then the kids scurry off to their respective spots. I know it will become the new norm, just one of the many shifts we learn to accept in a life where the only constant seems to be change. But the first time it happened, B and I sat a little perplexed, as though we couldn't quite figure out what to do with ourselves.

Of course, we are still needed, always always. There are sheets to fix and water cups to fill and animals to rearrange. And most nights we have to rearrange K too, who despite being a big girl still manages to spin herself around the bed like a scooting baby and wind up with her feet on the pillow. I guess with every change there's a little catch-up time, no matter how ready (or not) you are.

P.S. I'm thrilled to find we solved the Bunk Bed Challenge in less than two months. What? That's not fast to you? Well, see, I get to deduct time lost to sleeplessness. Turns out I managed it in negative three days.

Did I mention I need a pep talk today?

Did I mention that two weeks ago, I bought a Costco cake for a baby shower held the very morning that we were leaving for Las Vegas (or as M puts it, Lost Vegas, which is probably unlikely since it's the only bright, shiny water filled object in a very large desert)? I bought this cake because it seemed like way too much work to bake and decorate a whole cake when I had cleaning and packing and busyness to attend to. Plus I wasn't even going to the shower anyway.

Did I also mention that I left this cake in the back of the van while I took the first load of groceries into the house, even though I could clearly see K heading toward the back of the van? But of course she could wait thirty seconds for me to return and move said cake out of the way so that she could climb out.

Did I also mention that K is two? Very, very two?

Oh, you know where this is going. I'm not sure what body part dragged across the cake, but it was something that allowed her to run past me as I stood staring, google-eyed, at the smooshy mess that was once my ticket to a quiet, pre-vacation afternoon. I strode back over to my daughter, who was happily wheeling around on her tricycle, and tried to keep my voice in the semi-human tenor of supremely-pissed-but-still-sane as I explained, demonic like, that some things are very delicate and that she should not try to climb across them. She turned her bright little smile up to me, at which point I strangled her with my bare hands. Oh, no, just kidding (we obviously wouldn't be enduring the binky crisis of 2009 if that had happened... hmm). No, I stared at her for a few seconds, totally unbelieving that she didn't comprehend for a microsecond that she'd just destroyed something of value, when it occurred to me that she wouldn't have any way to know that the cake was that delicate. I mean, sure, probably should climb over stuff, but eh, it probably looked stable enough.

I took the cake and kids inside and we all stood there for a while. I cried a little, and K talked sweetly, and M reminded her that Mommy was not happy with her right now, which didn't phase her in the least. I called B, cried a little more, then went back to staring. Finally, I scraped the frosting from the top, took a break to feed everyone lunch, and after they went down for nap (back when we were actually sleeping--joy!), I spent that afternoon redecorating the cake I never meant to decorate in the first place. Then I spent that evening packing , and I got my rest on vacation, like a good vacation should provide.

The moral to this story--wait, is there a moral to this story? You do remember all that sleep we're not getting. Yes, the moral! The moral is that we endure so much, so many big and little triumphs and tragedies in life, and that in the end, whatever you think you can't handle or do or survive any longer usually ends up handle-able or do-able or survivable. Two weeks later, I hardly remember that afternoon, or the ire I felt, or the exhaustion-induced tears. I remember that I had a messed-up cake and that it got suitable fixed, and we still went on vacation and everything. And no one died, not even me. Sometimes we just have to give ourselves that due credit, and (wo)man up to the task at hand. Living life to the fullest isn't always pretty, and sometimes that's the best part. Perfection breeds happiness, but imperfection breeds character.

Bunk Bed Challenge

You'd think, after four years as a parent, that I'd know not to mention things to the kids that we are not, at that precise moment, prepared to do. Like, say, buy bunk beds and have the kids start sharing rooms. But no, didn't really think through the inevitable ensuing events. So after a fruitless morning of bunk bed hunting, we've arrived at the following scenario:

(1) K is not napping because she wants to sleep in M's room.

(2) I have promised to move them into the same room right after nap, even though we have an afternoon playdate.

(3) M does not want to share rooms unless there are bunk beds involved.

You have one hour to solve this fantastic parenting dilemma, but no fair telling me I shouldn't have put myself there in the first place. Go!

The Hallway Triangle

What is it about bed that makes a kid wake up? M can be lolling around, his eyes half closed, nearly asleep on his feet. One quick stop to the bathroom before nap, and then we're tucked into his soothing, dark, cool bedroom where the bed is all ready with his favorite stuffed animal and his turtle nightlight and fresh ice water. Then...

BING!

The eyes are open, the energy is amped, and I'm left wondering when he took a power nap between the living room and here. Because I want that power nap, yes sirree, I'm ready to drop onto the fifth dimension if that's where he takes it because I do not have that kind of energy pop in the afternoon.

It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't need the nap. Sure, I like the quiet time in the middle of the day, but if we could make it from morning to night with that kind of energy, I'd accept our fate. But no, the napless wonder will be dragging around again come four o'clock, when I will have to avoid car trips longer than two seconds and soothe him through crisis after crisis just to manage a half decent dinner before he crashes into deep sleep oblivion. If I didn't have energy before, I sure as heck won't have energy enough for that. Well, I will. Necessity is the mother of all energy boosts.

But what gives, seriously? And why am I not getting any too?

Way to be positive

D: You can't die from exhaustion, right?
B: Actually, you can.

$10 of sleep, hold the meth

I've always been a napper. I trace it back to my last year in high school, when I started at 7 and finished by noon. After lunch, I'd curl up on the couch and take a little snooze until my afternoon choir class. I made time for naps in college, naps when I worked part-time post-college, naps during grad school. Even after the kids were born, I'd go so far as to lay down with my baby just so we could both get some shut-eye.

And then they got bigger. Their schedules got less predicable. We moved into the realm where I couldn't sleep with them and they often wouldn't sleep without me. Soon, I found that I couldn't get to sleep in the small window I found during which both naps overlapped. And after awhile, after countless attempted naps, I accepted that the opportunity and ability had passed.

But the odd thing is, I still try. I know, logically, that I don't have the time to fall asleep, that they won't be quiet long enough, that I will stir at the slightest noise, keeping myself just that little step away from sleep. And most days I'm good to get some exercise or clean the house or do something that perks me up and brushes away the sleepy cobwebs from my mind.

When I'm sick, though, or have only gotten a few hours of sleep--or, as in today, both--I still lay down. I can't help it. Exhaustion seeps through my bones and drags me to my bed. And I let it, even though I will climb out for every child's call with a grumble, that I will eventually get up feeling groggy and frustrated and sleepier than I did before I laid down. Why torture myself? Because the mere thought that I might just sleep is too tempting. My mind's eye brings forth an hour's nap from which I wake refreshed and re-energized, so much more thrilled to play with the kids, filled with so much more excitement for our afternoon. It conjures up pictures of a fun afternoon with play and walks and laughter, such a stark contrast to the dragging crawl of the morning.

It's like an addict looking for their next hit, only for a mom it's sleep: perfectly legal, healthy, and beneficial. If only you could buy it on a street corner and smoke it in 30 seconds while the kids are eating a snack.

I like to remind myself, even when I've lurched crankily out of bed, that my actions reflect a deep hope that maybe things will be different, just this once. More often, though, I see myself as a mouse in a maze, endlessly pounding my head at a blocked corridor when I should really just turn around and try a whole other route. But it might work, right? Just this once?

DLT Day 2

So we've got one kid adjusted, and one moving the right direction. And the winner of the most stubborn internal clock goes to... me. Sigh. Four AM again. After being up for an hour in the night. And struggling to fall asleep. Can anyone explain to me why someone so flipping tired could manage to botch a full night of sleep, again?

But it's two days down, and, what, one hundred twenty to go? See, tired people can be positive too. And a little sarcastic. And bitter. And... okay, not positive at all. Mention your additional hour of sleep / sleeping in child / gingerbread lattes at your own risk.