Life As We Have Known It

I was talking to a friend recently and she commented how she couldn't wait for 2013 to be over because it sucked. Just a lot of commotion and not enough joy. And that is exactly how I feel. It seems when I reflect at the end of the year I always think of the bad things and how I want the next year to be better. Which I guess is sort of human nature?

I was super duper looking forward to selling our house this year that we had been in for 9 years. And WE DID IT! Do you know what happens when you sell a house that you have been in for any length of time? You have to pack. And there is so much packing that in order to do it properly you should take your time and think about it and sort things and be practical and get rid of things. Since Workaholic and I are champion procrastinators, you just know that didn't happen. Packing up a 4100 sq. ft. house into boxes sucked. Especially since the house was empty when we moved in and it was FAR from empty when we moved out. Workaholic wasn't (isn't) quite as willing to part with certain things like I was (am).

For example, all the furniture we inherited or took in as hand-me-downs so we could fill our big new house? He wants to keep. Or not just give away. I say, "Let's become Craigslist's best client." Bedroom furniture, office furniture, living room furniture, rugs, toys, bedding sets, and more I would be happy to part with in a big fun bonfire. I know it sounds stupid, but I'd rather not have a matching bedroom set of dressers that I don't like than have mismatched pieces of furniture that I do. AND, as it turns out, Workaholic and I have quite the different taste in...well, everything.

As a result, the story-and-a-half much smaller house that we bought has things in it that I really like. And a basement full of crap that I don't. Don't get me wrong, there are also things down there that I like. Kitchen gadgets that don't fit in our new cabinets, kid's clothing, Christmas decorations, Halloween costumes, fine china, and toys that I swear we'll bring out and the girls will play with them. Then there are other things...like Workaholic's dozen boxes of paperwork on I-have-no-idea-what, boxes of wires that belong to electronics that don't exist anymore, and OH-EM-GEE THE EMPTY BOXES. We have at least 20 LARGE cardboard boxes that are piled into a corner. This does NOT include that pile of broken down cardboard boxes that are in the same corner. There are also random assorted piles of wood and tools and sawhorses and electronics that actually DO work. And let's not even talk about the boxes (that I packed) of meticulously packed toys that were no longer played with that were unceremoniously ripped open and the contents tossed all over the basement. I walk down there and it is so overwhelming I just turn around and go back up the stairs.

Common sense and a host of hoarders experts would say that you take the big project and break it down into small projects and tackle them one at a time. A while ago I found out I have this lovely personality flaw trait called the "all or nothing". Which means if I don't think I can do it immediately and do it perfectly, then why even attempt to do it at all? I've been this way as long as I can remember and I have no idea how I graduated from college. With a somewhat decent GPA. Almost the only time I can get any type of large project done is when Workaholic is there pushing me. His unending energy and relentless desire to get everything done (and done perfectly) makes it almost impossible to just sit around. Not to say that I work as hard or as long as he does, but at least I do put in some time and energy and amazeballs, I get shit done!!

Our new home has very few decorations hung up and the Christmas decorations are half-assed at their best. And were mostly done over last weekend. I'm not a decorator at heart and I definitely cannot imagine what an entire room should look like based on one piece of furniture. I'd hire an interior decorator but HOLY SHIT THEY ARE EXPENSIVE. Their hourly rate doesn't sound bad, until you have them put in a few hours at your house and a few more shopping and all of the sudden you are looking at a couple paychecks worth of services.

Anyway, so that is where we live. The house we moved out of was perfectly decorated because I hired someone to make it look perfect for the real estate listing, and the new house is a scattered physical rendition of my brain. 

The house that we were in and that we are in now is only a part of why I am looking forward to 2014. In between houses we decided to live in the cottage in Michigan for the summer. I commuted an hour-and-a half to work twice a week, while Suky and the girls spent the summer on the lake. And Workaholic came up on the weekends. Let me repeat that...Workaholic came up on the weekends. So during the week I got little sleep because of the commute and the working and the fact that my daughters didn't like sleeping in their own room or going to bed at a decent hour or not waking in the middle of the night to come in and crawl in bed with me which then woke me up. On the weekends family and friends were there and FUN ENSUED. (It really did.) Then they went home and I drove to work and finally caved and let the girls sleep with me all the time just so I could get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time. Even with Suky there, the stress level was at an all time high. She missed her friends and working out at her gym, the girls and I missed Workaholic more than we ever thought possible, and then there was a host of other things happening that added to the fun. As much as I was looking forward to living at the lake for the summer, I honestly can say that it will never happen again unless I have a) a drastic personality shift, b) a promise of 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep every night, and 3) an exponential increase in energy. So...when pigs fly. (insert smiley face here)

2014 is going to be an awesome year for a multitude of reasons. We are "settled" into our new house. Which is smaller and much more manageable. We WILL get the basement cleaned up and out. The house that my father-in-law and brother-in-law and husband are building will be finished by Memorial Day. (It better be.) I will continue to work on my all-or-nothing personality and therefore hopefully will be able to more fully enjoy every moment. Good or bad. Stressful or not.

I'm not really into making New Year's resolutions because they are crap and I never keep them. (See aforementioned personality flaw.) And I am not making them this year. This year is going to be a continued resolve of the things that I have worked on in the past. I may have fallen off the bandwagon, but damn if I'm letting it go on without me.

GO 2014!!!

And MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

It's All About Communication

Whenever younger people (you know, those twoppers...otherwise known as "twenty boppers) complain to me about their husbands, or parents, or siblings, I am infamous for telling them, (as if I am some wise old owl) "Communication is the #1 thing you need in order to make a relationship work."

Yep, just call me a cliche. And a marriage counselor. (I briefly considered switching my college major to something where I would be qualified to be a marriage counselor. I decided against it because #1: it would require grad school and #2: you can't finish undergrad and grad school in four years. Which was the college deadline my parents I had set for myself.)

I sort of pride Workaholic and I on our good communication. And by that, I mean that I know I tell him all the tiny, minute details of our lives that he needs to know in order to do everything I want need him to do in order to make me happy keep our house running smoothly.

However, I recently realized that I may have overestimated our excellent communication skills. He has started "forgetting" things that I know I have told him. I was convinced that he is losing his hearing, much like his father. (what I now know is that he has what is called "selective hearing" and apparently is quite common amongst married couples.)  He will call and be like, "Did you say something to me about working late today?" After I have told him three times. In writing.

There also is this thing called "mommy brain", and I have it. I am the poster child for moms who can't remember where they put their car keys or if they fed their children or if they told their husbands that they have to work late and so someone needs to go home and take care of the kids.

So yeah...communication.

We took Sam's pacifier away from her about a week ago.  I have not slept a full night in a week. If I am not randomly waking up for absolutely no reason at all (other than I am a mom), it is because Sam is crawling into our bed. It would seem that she makes it most of the way through the night, and then something would scare her and she would crawl into my bed. It has been driving me nuts. I've tried talking to her, and all she will tell me is that, "My light turns off and I get scared and so I have to get in bed with you." (She is terrified of the dark and sleeps not only with her closet light on and doors open, but the lamp on her dresser is nice and bright too.) Her light "turning off" makes absolutely no sense, since I swear when I get up in the morning, they are all still on. If not more lights than were on when I left the room the night before. I figured she was either telling me something backwards or manipulating me. Three year olds are crafty, you know.

After a colossal meltdown this morning, I felt just terrible about yanking her pacifier from her. I thought this had to be the reason for her recent strange behavior. It has been a crazy busy couple of months, I've been working a lot since the new year, and then we just deprive her of the single, solitary thing that makes her feel at peace. (OK, to be fair, she has blankets too, and dolls, and stuffed animals, but the pacifier seemed to be her favorite.)  

So tonight, I caved. She saw a couple of pacifiers laying on a table that we had forgotten to hide, and she was on it like white on rice. I decided to let her go to bed with it. And yet, she fought me. She wanted me to lay with her, she wanted me to sleep with her, she didn't want to go to sleeeeep, she wanted to sleep in MY bed. (Umm...no. Kid, you have a damn binky, be happy.)

Later, I was telling Workaholic about how she was still a challenge to put to bed, and how I thought the problem with her lately was that we had taken away her pacifier without some cool story about the Pacifier Fairy coming and taking all the pacifiers to little babies who needed them. We just told her to suck it up and grow up. Such mean parents.

And then I told him (again) about how she was telling me (again) about how she comes down into my bed when "her light turns off". And how I just didn't understand that, because she always comes down in the morning, even before the sun rises, so she can't be confused and thinking that she is coming down when it is light out. And how I think she must really be having a problem with the busyness of the last month.

That was when Workaholic smiled sheepishly at me. OK, let's call a spade a spade. He damn well smirked at me. And then he says this, "Oh, I guess I had better stop turning off her lights when I leave for work in the morning, huh?" EXCUSE ME??? Then he says, "I don't turn off all the lights, just the lamp, and I leave on the overhead light on dim."

And it all makes sense. She hears him leave for work because the garage door wakes her up. She realizes that her lamp is off, the all-important BRIGHT LIGHT LAMP that she insists is on every night before we leave her room, (the closet light is no longer enough), she gets up, turns it on, and then comes down to sleep with me. Because she knows I won't walk her back to bed since she says she is SCARED OF THE DARK.

Sigh.

Communication, people. It is the cornerstone of a happy peaceful marriage.

(The sad part is, the more I think about it, the more I think I remember him telling me before that he did that. We'll just blame mommy brain.)

She Sleeps...and Sleeps...and Sleeps

When Sam was 9 months old, she started daycare, and so started semi-regular ear infections. The first one was just terrible, with her laying on me, burning up, barely moving, moaning softly with a 103 fever. I finally took her to the doctor where she was diagnosed with "raging" double ear infections.

As time went on, her symptoms got more minor. Her fever didn't elevate quite as much, she rarely, if ever, pulled on her ears, and her energy level barely dipped. Other than the flu one time, ear infections were the only sickness she really got that slowed her down. At all.

Around the time she was Charlie's age, she touched her ear once, and then went to sleep...for 19 hours. I checked on her a few times, and each time she was still breathing and didn't wake up when I dared to enter her domain, so I let her sleep. And then I took her to the doctor, where she was diagnosed with a "mild" ear infection. The doctor said she was doing exactly what she needed to be doing, sleeping it off. (Let's just say that I took that doctor's advice whenever I feel myself getting sick...I promptly go to bed, and stay there until I feel better. And PEOPLE, I swear it works! I'm sick for a shorter amount of time!)

Fast forward to Charlie being 16 months old. She has been sick exactly maybe once in her life. We had a very great, but long weekend with friends where she didn't sleep her usual 18 hours a day. On Tuesday, new K woke her up at noon (from going to be at 7pm). And then she went back to sleep at 3:30...and slept until 9:30am the next day. 18 HOURS people...in one shot! So then they went and played and had a ball, and she was laid down for her nap at 2pm yesterday. She JUST got up! 19 PLUS hours! I guess she is sick.

I'm not sure why I am telling the internet this, except that I want it written down for me to remember in 5 years. Or come on, let's get real...5 minutes. My kids rock.

Sleep All Night? What is that?

I have two older sisters, each with four kids.

One of them has twins.

I remember her telling me after the twins were born that once you become a mom, you never get a full night's sleep ever again. I told her that I would train my children to sleep because I need my sleep. Besides, they would be just like me, and love their beds and love to sleep.

She said that no matter how great of sleepers your kids are, for one reason or another you don't get to sleep all night.

And damn it. She was right.

Both of my kids are champion sleepers. It isn't uncommon for Charlie to go to bed at 7:30pm and not get up until 11am. She'll play for a little while in her crib in the morning, but always falls back asleep before letting us know she is ready to get up.

Sam has been a bit more of a challenge to get to bed lately, and she is up by 8am at the latest. Which isn't bad, don't get me wrong, but I'm telling you, my sleep problems have little to do with my kids.

Typically, I wake up every night at least once. Sometimes I roll over and look at the clock and think "WTF...why am I awake? It is 3am!" And promptly fall back asleep.

Last night I woke up around 3am, Workaholic was getting up to go to work. I listened to the TV from the bathroom, heard him walk out to the kitchen to get milk and cookies (breakfast of champtions) and smiled to myself as he carried Sam in to lay in bed with me.

(She had gotten up when she heard him too and climbed in bed with me. I sent her out to tell him good-bye just to hear his reaction at seeing her at 3:30 in the morning.) Then I changed her diaper and we both went back to sleep, her on his side of the bed and me on mine.

I wish I could get a full night's sleep.

I like to tell myself that I would be much more willing to get out of bed before 7am and start my day if I had slept the previous 8 hours straight. (just let me believe...)

I'm hoping that one day I'll sleep straight through the night again, someday.

Dilemna

Dear Internet,

I have a problem. A dilemma really. And here's the thing. It shouldn't be a problem. Or a dilemma. Because it actually is solving a problem.

Let me explain...ever since I started working, perhaps even before, I wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom. Being a working mom seemed like so much, well...work. Maintaining the house and going to the grocery store and making dinner AND working a full-time job?? How on Earth was that to be done?

And I did it. For 19 months, I did it. And I hated it. I hated that I couldn't go to the grocery store after work because I had to pick up Sam at daycare. And even on the days when she was with grandma, I would go to the store after work, rushing because I felt guilty. She had been with grandma all day, and now I was taking up her evening too. I hated that there was never enough time for anything, and I never got to play with my kid, and how I was always tired.

Well guess what? I am going back to work. I had hoped that this wouldn't be my original plan, I had hoped that we could swing it with me staying at home and losing my income. And then we realized that wasn't feasible, not yet anyway. We just spend too much money. And aren't willing to stop.

The great thing is that while on leave, my work has implemented a flex schedule. So I get to work from home 50% of the time now! Yay!!! I get to bring in an income, spend time with adults, and also spend time with my kids. Sounds like a no-brainer right? Right.

Here is where my dilemma comes in. I have guilt. Because I am ready to go back to work. I can't get out of bed in the morning. I lay there, awake, knowing that I should shower because this is my chance to do that before the girls wake up. Yet I don't. I lay down every chance I get during the day because I am just. so. tired. I rarely play with the girls, I watch the clock to see when the next feeding time or nap time is. This is not the quality time I had hoped for. But I just can't help myself. I know that when I have to go back to work, I HAVE to get out of bed. I have to shower. (at least half of the time) I have to get something done during the day. And I am looking forward to that.

As it turns out, I think that I might be one of the worst stay-at-home-moms ever. My house is a pit, we have no food...much less dinner on the table, and poor Sam just wanders around looking for trouble to get into. I float from day to day, hoping the next day will be better, but not doing anything to change it. Therein lies the guilt. I feel guilty that I don't want to spend this time with my kids. I feel guilty that I can't wait for them to take their naps so I can nap or play on the internet. I feel guilty that I have wasted the past 2 months being lazy.

I am not sure of the delusions I have about going back to work. I will have help, even more than I have had in the past. So I am looking forward to that. I need to get my life in order, but at times, it feels like such a mess I just lay down and take a nap. It's easier that way.

Zoloft Can Go F*ck Itself

Last week, I went to a White Sox game. I am not a fan of the White Sox, actually, I'm a Cubs fan, so going to the Cell was kind of like trepassing in a junkyard or proclaiming you are Methodist when you are really Catholic. We got the opportunity to go from Workaholic's work, and it had been planned for months, so off we went.

When we made the plans to go, I knew that I'd have an infant at home. What I didn't know was that I'd have an infant who didn't sleep through the night and combine that with my pathetic attempt to start taking Zoloft a couple of days before.

When I had Sam, I needed something to help me out after she was born. I wasn't in that mode of wanting to hurt myself or my kid, but I was down and out and cried. A lot. Like...A LOT. So my doctor prescribed me Zoloft, because that is the only thing that pregnant/breastfeeding moms can take for depression. After 3 days, I finally figured out that I didn't have the flu, but it was the side effects from the meds, and I stopped taking them.

This time, I was hoping that the side effects would be lesser. I hoped and prayed that I wouldn't even have side effects. Boy oh boy, was I wrong. I took one pill. One. Pill. And that night, I couldn't sleep. A mother of a 6 week old COULDN'T SLEEP, given the opportunity. The next day, the nausea started, accompanied shortly thereafter by vomiting, and...let's just say that there were other digestive-related side effects as well.

By the middle of the morning, I had decided that Zoloft could go fuck itself and there was NO WAY I was taking another pill. I would rather be depressed. So I didn't. That was Wednesday. Wednesday night, I couldn't sleep either. And I was still nausous, and still, you know. And then Thursday came, and I needed to go to this baseball game and socialize with people who I didn't know.

Thursday I was able to get in a nap, but then we were off to the game. And it was cool, The Cell is a nice park, and there were fireworks when Paul Konerko hit a grand slam. (A GRAND SLAM!! Some people never get to see one in real life, and I was like...oh, that's neat.) I ate a few peanuts and tried to stay warm as the temperature dipped.

But I am going to be honest with you. I was almost in tears more than once. All I could think of was sleep. I was desperate for sleep. I texted Workaholic at one point (when he was about 5 feet away from me) and told him that I was ready to go. I think that was about the 4th inning. I tried to smile and talk to the nice people we were with, but I can't remember any of the conversations, except that I am positive I mentioned sleep more than once in each one. I feel bad, like I shouldn't have been quite so whiny, or kept my mouth shut, or something. But again, all I could think of was sleep. I wanted nothing more than a solid 10 hours of sleep.

We got home around midnight, and, like clockwork, Charlie got up around 3:30am. Of course. I don't really remember Friday, except I still wasn't feeling too hot, and couldn't BELIEVE that ONE PILL could do this to me. And then, Friday night, it happened.

Charlie went to bed around 9pm. And she didn't get up until 7am. The little angel SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! 10 HOURS!!!! And the little shit hasn't done it since. But it has given me hope that she'll be come a champion sleeper soon. Hopefully very, very soon.

Tummy Time

I’ve never been a super-paranoid person. I am the one who says, “That’ll never happen to me.” If there is a tornado warning out, I go outside to look for said tornado, because it won’t hit MY house. I’ve led a fairly uneventful life, and I plan to keep it that way.

Samantha, up until now, has always slept on her back. We swaddled her for a good 6 months, and she was unable to roll over in that thing, she could just move her head side to side. (leading cause of bald spots on the back of babies heads) She could wiggle around a little bit, enough to get her blanket over her face, but that was about it. And when she sleeps, she ALWAYS has to have her blanket over face. She has been this way probably since she was a month old. Want to get her to go to sleep? Put her down and throw her blankie over her head. I would joke that she would wind up being the poster child for SIDS. Not a good thing to joke about, but it was just weird how she always wound up completely covered from head to toes when she was basically in a straightjacket.

Now that she can roll around a lot and is THIS CLOSE to crawling, she apparently likes to sleep a little differently. As in, on her stomach. Which I discovered today. And I don’t like it. My usual attitude of, Everything Will Be Fine and It Won’t Happen To Me has not yet kicked in. I haven’t done anything crazy yet like, wake her up just to roll her over, but I am not going to lie when I say I didn’t think about it. I know that it is perfectly normal for babies to sleep on their stomachs, especially once they get big enough to roll all over their cribs. It is just weird for me. I’ve never really worried too much about the SIDS thing, (because the leading cause of SIDS is babies sleeping on their stomachs and she always slept on her back) except for the blanket over her face, which, let’s face it, is probably more of a danger at this point. So I’m trying to be rational, and not think of all the worst case scenarios which really do play out all over the world every day. Instead, I’ll just kick myself for not taking a picture this afternoon, to mark this momentous occasion. My kid now sleeps just. like. me.

Sleepy Violence

I’ve mentioned before how tired I’ve been. Thinking about crawling back into my bed now actually makes me tear up, because I would just love to, but can’t. You know, because momma gots to make the money. (side note: when I was a kid, I was terrible about going to be at a decent hour, no matter how hard my mom made me try. I would go in my room and just lay in bed. So every once in a while, I’d convince my mom that I had a “stomach ache” just so I could stay home from school and sleep. Which obviously did not help me go to sleep any easier the next night.)

Lately, Workaholic has really gotten into the show NCIS. Which means that I am into the show NCIS. We used to watch CSI, (Las Vegas, Miami, and New York) but I think either he got tired of it or he has seen them all. Either way, we watch it, a lot. (he has 68 of them recorded on his DVR) Anytime we are home, it is on, and THANK GOD the cable channel USA has marathons of NCIS on all. the. time. Just in case we aren’t in the bedroom, where his DVR is. And since they are marathons, it’s not like we turn on the TV in the living room at 6pm while I am making dinner and watch it during dinner and that is the end of it. OH NO…we watch during dinner, and then go up in the office and watch some more, and then maybe he takes a shower and turns it on in the bathroom, and while I am folding clothes in our bedroom, I try to ignore the fact that I can hear the same episode that I am watching in the bedroom from his TV in the bathroom except it is delayed by about 2 seconds because of his DVR and also because, as I have mentioned before, THE TV HAS TO BE ON THIS LOUD.

This would all be OK, because there really isn’t anything on TV nowadays that I am that interested in watching, and I really do like Gibbs, McGee, Tony, Ziva, and especially Abs. I really am fine with watching stories about dead people during my waking hours at home…until it is time to go to bed. Because I am a firm believer that when it is time to go to bed, you turn off the TV. But Workaholic likes to fall asleep with the TV on. I got around this for a few years by decreeing “no TV in the bedroom.” But then we moved upstairs and we have a big ol' projection TV up there that is way too hard to move. So then he would just turn it on for a few minutes and I would reach over his corpse-like body when the sleep breathing started.

But now, NOW, I am into the show. So when we get into bed, and he turns on an episode and is asleep 15 minutes into it, I just cannot turn it off. I have to stay up and watch the end. Did Gibbs really kill that police detective? Did Jenny really die? Will Abby get her Caf-Pow?? So this means that I am not going to sleep until after 11pm on most days. And while I have been attempting to sleep in a bit later, it just hasn’t been working out.

It is not for lack of trying to sleep in. This too would be Workaholic’s fault. (notice how I tend to blame him for everything??) This morning, for example, he got up and went into the bathroom a little after 6am. I heard the fan turn on, which is white noise, totally can handle that. Then I hear the TV turn on. Oh no. Please God no. And there, there goes the volume…up, up, up like Mary Poppins flying a kite. And whoo-boy, when the commercials come on?? I give up. I know it is only 45 minutes, but that is the best 45 minutes of sleep I get all night!! I almost went and slept in the guest room, but my mom was in there, I am not sure she would have appreciated an early morning cuddle.

I seriously considered pulling a stunt like I did in the 7th grade, and just call my boss and say that I was sick. But I am an adult now, and even if I was sick, I probably would still have to take care of Samantha, and wouldn’t get much sleep anyway. So I decided to just whine about it here. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, especially if they involve violence, because if this crap continues, I do think that the boy is going to get a swift kick to the head. (lovingly, of course) However, I do think a couple of people who read here are fairly new to the site due to the wonderment of facebook, so until I figure out just how hard I can hit him without leaving a mark I’ll do the next best thing…post a not-so-flattering picture of Workaholic and Samantha taken when she was just a few weeks old. Yes, this was taken in our bathroom. And yes, the TV and the fan were on. THIS LOUD.

Karma's Going to be a Bitch (in about 13 years)

It’s no secret to anyone who has ever slept in the same building as me that I am not a morning person. I never have been…I remember as a kid one day waking up to see my sister’s friend who was our neighbor standing in our bedroom. I couldn’t understand why she was there, until she was like, “The bus is going to be here in 15 minutes!” I think I spent 5 of those minutes bargaining with my mother, trying to either get out of school or have her take us. I don’t remember how we got there, but we DEFINITELY went to school.

Workaholic is somewhat of a morning person. He rarely gets enough sleep, so waking up for him is extremely difficult. But once he is up, he is all happy, chatty, and generally really quite annoying. I would prefer if no one spoke to me before noon, and sometimes actually get angry when people say good morning to me. He has learned this…sort of.

For example, this morning I hit snooze for about an hour. When I finally did get out of bed, it was to go downstairs to get a bottle so I could pump. I climbed the stairs (slowly, because I wakeboarded for about 90 seconds on Sunday and am severely paying for it) back up to my bedroom and lay down on the bed to do my motherly duty. I didn’t turn on the TV, because I just didn’t feel like hearing any noise. Workaholic comes out of the bathroom (where he has the TV and fan on) and is like, “Hey Sweetie!! Good morning!! Why don’t you turn on the TV?!” I have learned over the years to not react violently (as is my natural reaction) to his happiness, as that usually just causes a fight. Instead I just close my eyes and say, “Good morning, because I don’t want to hear any loudness.” He gets the hint and leaves me alone.

Samantha is, oddly enough, quite the morning person. I have actually seen her wake up with a smile on her face. We are, however, being the responsible parents that we are, teaching her the value of the snooze button, in the form of a pacifier. I have this fear that she will not get enough sleep, and be one of “those children” that cries all the time. It is a somewhat irrational fear, as she LOVES to sleep. Generally, she gets at least 9 hours of sleep at night, and then at least 4 hours during the day. I prefer for her to get at least 10-12 at night, and then 3-4 during the day…she seems to be in a better mood. So this morning, when she woke at 7am, I popped the pacifier back in her mouth. She went to bed at 9, but I was running late, and if she’ll go back to sleep, then she needs more sleep, right? Around 7:45, Workaholic heard her crying and went to get her up. She full on smiled at him, accepted the pacifier, and then closed her eyes and went back to sleep. This happens on the weekends too, where she’ll wake up and we “convince” her to sleep for a few more hours. (which…last Friday night, wound up being 15 hours total….she’s already acting like a teenager!!) A girl after my own heart…which means she will HATE waking up to go to school.

Daddy's Girl

My husband has a few nuances, as I am sure that many husbands do. Workaholic's seem to be more...interesting than other people's spouses though. If he knows if there are milk and cookies in the house, and gets up in the middle of the night to eat them. (However, if there are no milk and cookies in the house, he doesn't wake up.) He can fall asleep mid-sentence. And last night, he fell asleep standing up. Snoring and everything. It's really quite the sight. I would've gotten a picture, but to say that I was thrilled that he fell asleep standing up at 2am when he was supposed to be changing a diaper would be a bit of an overstatement.

Another thing that few people know about him is that he loves to sleep on the bathroom floor. (Here's the thing...way back in the day when we were building our house, he wanted to put ceramic tile in all the bathrooms. I said that he was nuts, we live in Indiana, and doesn't he know how cold ceramic is in the wintertime?? His answer?...heated tile floors, and also a fan that spews heat. Our bathroom can get to about 185 degrees in ten minutes.) He also put in a TV, so he can curl up on the floor with his pillow (or balled up towel, in a pinch) and watch TV in the morning without waking me up. It's quite the sight. One that few people understand, including me. But it doesn't really bother me...in fact, it's pretty awesome that we both get our way in the morning...I get to sleep, and he gets to take his sweet-ass time waking up, by watching TMZ or an infomercial or whatever floats his boat.

Watching Workaholic "bond" with our little girl has been quite intriguing. The one thing that they have in common is sleep. Specifically...sleeping on the bathroom floor.

(If he knew this picture was on the internet, he'd be sooo not happy with me!!)

So....Tired....

I have read this over and over in pregnancy books, but I didn't really believe that it would happen to me. I don't sleep well. At all. And you are talking to the girl who has to sleep well, otherwise my head spins and I become a major, raging, bitch. To put it nicely. (I get mad if someone says "Good Morning" to me. Why do people insist on talking to each other before noon!!)

I wake up at approximately 3:30 every morning, and it's not because I have to pee. It's just because. And since it is "just because", I have decided to blame Workaholic. You see, his alarm typically goes off around 4am every day. And since he gets about half the amount of sleep that he should, it doesn't wake him up. So it wakes me up. And the baby. And I have to "gently" wake him up. (Apparently I am so gentle, the poor boy really thought that it was his alarm that woke him up every day...until I stayed at my parent's house on Thursday night and he came home because he had to work on Friday. Let's just say that he overslept. A lot.) I am sooo happy to be right about something. Na-na-na-na-na-na.

Anyway, so I wake up every day at 3:30am. Even in different time zones, I wake up at 3:30am. Which amazed me. It amazed me so much, that when I woke up on Thanksgiving morning, I was just staring at the clock, trying to figure out in my fog of morningness exactly what time it was at home, when my cell phone lit up and buzzed. At 3:34 in the morning, I had a text message. Who in their right mind would be texting "Happy Thanksgiving" at 3:34 in the morning???

So I opened my phone, and I recognized the area code, but not the number. So I figured, What the hell? I'm up. So I texted back a cordial Happy Thanksgiving, and BTW...who the hell is this? Almost immediately, I got a text back saying that it was my cousin Timothy, and WTF was I doing up at that hour??? (never mind that he was the one who started this whole thing) Tim is great fun to go out with and can drink most people I know under the table, so I was sure that was the fuel behind HIM being up at this ungodly hour. So I just told him to have fun and be safe. Makes sense...basically I am saying, don't drink and drive. And from what I found out...he didn't. Good boy. (unfortunately, there is more to the story, but I can't share because there is just no way that I can write it that doesn't make me sound like an idiot. Maybe someday I'll share.)

So I hope that all of you stuffed yourselves as much as I did on Thanksgiving. At one point, my 16 year old nephew looked at me and said "Wow, Aunt Gail just keeps eating and eating. She hasn't stopped." He was truly amazed. Also, fun fact...my sister informed me that I have been having Braxton Hicks contractions. I was whining about being uncomfortable and my stomach being unusually tight as we were wandering around Penney's at 6am, and she let me know that's what that was. Hm! Good to know!

Dreaminess

Do you ever have those dreams where you wish you wouldn’t wake up? Or those ones where you desperately want to wake up and then you do, and you are wide awake and afraid to go back to sleep? Yeah…I’ve been having those lately. One of them involved wolves, another a roller coaster, there was a marathon shopping spree filled with drugs and sex. And last night? Last night, the world was coming to an end. By way of the destruction of all Marriotts and Hiltons. Violently. I am fairly certain my boyfriend and I saved the world, but I’m not sure what happened after that. Don’t ask me where I get this stuff.

The thing is, I have always loved sleep. When I was little, I had a really hard time falling asleep, but once I was there, I never wanted to leave. I do remember nightmares about the Incredible Hulk and the brown walls of my bedroom spinning, and going in and laying on the floor next to my mom in her bedroom. But I also remember the time when my sister’s friend from down the street burst into our bedroom at 7:50am when the bus came at 8:10, and we were both dead in our bed. And no, mom did not let us skip that day or take us…we had to go. I am pretty sure I tried the “My stomach hurts” line, but she kicked us out the door. All I wanted was a couple more hours sleep!!!

Thinking back, I was rarely ever actually sick. But I hated getting out of bed and going to school. So I would know exactly how many sick days I had, and calculated when I wanted to use them. I made sure that they were evenly spaced, not taken too close together, so no one would get suspicious. And when I wanted to stay home, well, my stomach hurt. I am pretty sure I even did this in elementary school…I never understood those kids who strived for the “perfect attendance” record. What was the point? (a little certificate you got a the awards ceremony at the end of the school year) This has carried over into my adult life…I am very careful about taking my vacation days, but the difference is that when I am sick, I am usually actually sick. Unless I want to go shopping or the beach. But don’t tell my new boss that!!