A Bit Better Blog

March Monday

There is one thing worse than having only a five-hour window in which to sleep (I know, that's so obvious, a four-hour or three-hour or two-hour window would all be worse, but work with me here). Going to sleep expecting to have a solid five-hour window and then having that window interrupted several times. First of all, there was Einstein. (I am going to be referring to my 4-year-old as Einstein from now on. This is not because he is a genius, even though he is, but because he has a zebra named Einstein who is his favorite friend.)  Einstein has always been a pretty good sleeper, but lately he has been getting up during the night. Sometimes it is bad dreams, sometimes he just wants a drink of water and can't quite get his mind to work to get it himself. There were quite a few wake-ups last night, not all of which I was awake for--sometimes even his crying does not wake me, and this bothers me to no end; I mean, I'm supposed to have a motherly sense of these things, right?

One of these wakeups occurred right at 5:00 a.m. My alarm goes off at that time but I usually hit the snooze anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes before I actually get up. Instead I was up, because Einstein woke up and my husband was grumbling about it afterward. Speaking of hubby, he adds a wrinkle to my whole sleep problem. He has trouble sleeping for a variety of reasons. So even though I get ridiculously little sleep, I end up getting marginally more than he does. So what does this mean? This means I have to let him sleep all morning (sometimes into the afternoon) on weekends. I have found that asking him to get up with the kids or suggesting he get up before he wants to is usually just a bad idea.

Fortunately, I figured out a good thing to do with these mornings while we are waiting for him to wake up. I have spent way too many Saturday and Sunday mornings hanging out in my pajamas, which I hate. I didn't want to go in there and get dressed  because that would wake him, and I prefer to shower in the mornings anyway, so I just waited until I could shower. I finally realized that was stupid, and for the past two weeks I have been whisking the kids to the gym. They get to play in a fun playroom that has computers and a TV as well as toys. It only costs me a few bucks for the time, and I get to work out. I wasn't doing this before because I couldn't stand the thought of bringing the kids to a child care place after they have been in child care all week. But then I realized: a) it is only for an hour or two at the most, b) it is a different playroom with different toys than they have at day care or home, which is always fun no matter what, and c) if they have some awareness of what I am doing there, I will be setting a good example and showing that regular exercise is good and fun. Of course now that I have finally decided not to feel bad about this and just to do it, the weather is getting nice, and I have a whole new reason to feel bad, namely, keeping them inside.

We were talking about cancelling the gym membership because we don't use it, so this is good that I am finally justifying the expense, because I really didn't want to cancel it. Now the challenge will be to figure out if I can somehow get to the gym during the week too. The only way would be if I told my husband that I was going to go every Tuesday from now on, or something, because there is just no way I can pick the kids up from day care and bring them to the gym. That's just wrong. My husband plays pool in a league every Thursday, so my doing a weekly thing would be only fair. ...

I'd better be getting to work, so I'll sign off now. Next time might be an update on the eating-at-home campaign. It's going well, but tonight is grocery day so I have to come up with more meals to carry us through.

Untitled Comment

8:31 PM, Apr. 29, 2007 .. Posted by SilverMonarch

My hubby is similar to yours in that no matter how much sleep he gets I always get an hour or so more... That means he complains about it to everyone who will listen!


I like your writting style! Keep it up.