how boys and girls are different

Two days ago:

Him-the-boy: "Ok, give me my task list for tonight."

Me-the-girl: "Throw away 27 things."

Him-the-boy: "27? Why 27? Is there a reason for the 27?

Me-the-girl: "Because it's the number I picked."

Him-the-boy: "Ok, what things do I throw away? My things?"

Me-the-girl: "No, trash. Not your things - trash. Like empty, open envelopes."

Him-the-boy: "hmm. Ok."


Today.

Him-the-boy, holding a brand new box of unused envelopes: "I didn't do my 27 things. Should I throw these?"

Me-the-girl, staring in confusion: "Um, no ... why would you throw out my brand new box of envelopes? Is there something wrong with them?"

Him-the-boy:"oh, no, um, you said throw away open envelopes, so I thought these."

Long, Long Pause.

Him-the-boy:"ohhhhhhh. you probably meant like the envelopes we've opened from the mail, huh?"

...

Of course there's that other stuff, too.

1 comments Labels: , , , | edit post

therapy

This blog started out a long time ago as a random place for personal therapy. A place I could come and work stuff out on my own, without the pressure of a time table or the need to do it on some kind of schedule. And I guess it is still that. A random place for random thoughts.

It's a random day. I'm still tired. The younger girl is sleeping better. The older girl is, too. We just have to get the whole thing moved forward about an hour, and I think the adults will be sleeping better as well.

In the meantime, I feel dazed with the strength of my exhaustion. I feel it everywhere ... in the increasing number of headaches that happen each weak, in my limbs when I'm trying to fix the swingy-chicken-parts of my arms before they are past saving, in my lack of desire to cook or plan or grocery shop or even eat out. I feel it in my racing thoughts and my too-quick temper and in what seems to be the constant irritation I feel when I hear either a whine or a scream from one of the two small persons, or the cat. I am so tired.

Yesterday, I took a nap. I don't remember when I did that last when it wasn't a Sunday. Lately, even those Sunday naps have disappeared. I woke up after an hour next to the older girl feeling no more rested than when I lay down. It is the same way I feel each morning when I climb out of bed.

And I don't know how to fix it. The tired. I don't know how to get past it and gain my energy again. I don't know how I got here in the first place, and I don't know how to go back, or how once I am back, if I can ever find my way, how to stay out of this zone of fatigue.

And that also bugs me. Because I am the fixer. It is what I do: I fix things. Yet not me. I can't fix me and the tiredness that is always there. Irritation. Grrrrr.

I question myself daily:
Are you depressed?
Are you homesick?
Are you getting enough exercise? (no)
Should you eat more vegetables? More protein?
Drink more water? Drink less coffee?
Are you hungry? Too full?

And I feel no answer to any of those questions actually comes close to defining what on earth is making me so tired.

The last time I felt like this was when the thhg (transient hyperthyroidism of hyperemesis gravidarum) hit with that last pregnancy. (Question: are you pregnant? Answer: no)

The difference being that I don't fall asleep in the middle of a sentence and I'm not so nauseated I require daily meds (excepting these headaches, man they are killer).

So, what? What is it?
Maybe it's the final stages of a year without sleep.

Also, why can't tortilla chips be good for you? If we fry food in olive oil, does that make it heart healthy? How long can ten pounds stay attached to my body? Why is my hair so grey? And what do I do to it to make it cute again? And when did birding become so fun?

Ther.Ap.Y

0 comments Labels: , , , , | edit post

Sleepless.

My sweet, totally precious little baby girl will not sleep. It seems to me as if there was a time when she did sleep. But I could be making that up. I mean, it's been so long since I slept like a regular person, I'm sometimes not sure what I'm remembering and what is wishful, wishful day-dreaming.

This moment, the smallest person in our family is lying flat on her face in her crib screaming the way I'd imagine I myself might scream if someone was trying to cut off my leg. She has been screaming like this for the last twenty-two minutes, save a brief respite during which I stupidly entered her room to make sure she wasn't stuck in the crib bars or that the ceiling hadn't fallen in on her or or that a giant sheepdog hadn't broken in through her window or that some other catastrophic even hadn't taken place while I was making the afternoon coffee that I need to stay awake for the rest of the day. It's a need, by the way, driven by last night's {this morning's} "feed-me-mama-I-need-you-party" that began sometime around 3 a.m. and lasted through until roughly seven-thirty. And what time did that sweet little bundle go to sleep you might ask? Just about eleven o'clock.

Right. She went to sleep at eleven, and slept until three. I think. Her Daddy might have walked her somewhere in the three hours between midnight (which is when we crawled in bed) and her waking, but I really don't have any memory of what happened then. I'd say I slept, but I think it was more of a passing out from sheer exhaustion kind of thing.

Today, she's had an hour long scream-fest in her crib - that's the time that's supposed to be her morning nap - and now, she's been in that bed for nearly an hour screaming again. I can't begin to calculate her sleep deficit, and she's only ten months old.

I know she's tired. And I know that she needs sleep to be a happy baby. And I - we- have tried everything we know how to try to help her go to sleep and stay asleep. This letting her cry thing is excruciating, and yet I fear that if we relent, we will end up with a baby who will only sleep if she's comfortably ensconced in our arms or leisurely suckling and snuggling in our bed.

As I finish this post, it is 4:40 p.m. EST. I put her in her bed exactly one hour and one minute ago. She just now stopped crying.

I think now it's my turn to start. Because I hear the sound of a Chinook. And it's gonna fly right over the top of our house.




0 comments Labels: , , , , | edit post