A Bit Better Blog

Wake. Up.

It's tough to get work done when you keep falling asleep. Yeah, I'm back to this again. It doesn't help that 2 nights ago, Einstein kept waking up and crying "Moooommmmmeeeee!" We deduced that his new "sounds" clock was getting into his head and giving him bad dreams: he has been choosing either "Tick Tock" or "Heartbeat"; both sounds that would keep me up, not help me sleep. So we took the clock away from him until we can have a deep conversation about it.

I go for a second opinion on my ear soon. I don't have an appointment yet because my ENT has to figure out who I should go to that is in my insurance plan. This person will be deciding whether or not I need surgery. Yeah, someone might be fooling around near my brain with sharp instruments. Woo!

In other news, the baby (who is hardly a baby at 19 months), continues to say adorable things. He often asks questions such as "Daddy, what are you doing?" (although all you actually hear is "Daddy, doing?") and "Mommy, where are you?" He commands people to "yook" at him, and has added "now" to all requests: "milk, now."

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.

After Midnight

Once again, bedtime was in the a.m. Bedtime is not supposed to be in the a.m. I don't know how I'm standing upright.

Last night we got home a bit late, because my husband had picked up the kids and gone to the supermarket to drop off a prescription. This was poor planning on his part; he should have dropped it off earlier in the day (he worked at home). I volunteered to meet him there, so that the kids wouldn't have to be dragged out of the car and back in again. Then we had to feed them, while I put together a lasagne to be baked tonight for dinner. After the kids went to bed, Hubby and I had a talk about finances. It really had to happen, and I'm glad it did. I now know that he is on the same page as I am, realizing that we really have to work at getting out of this hole. Also, he figured out that A LOT of our money (more than I realized) is going to restaurants and otherwise buying food out (like at work). So we are trying to be like normal people with kids and eat at home most days, and bring out lunches (and breakfasts) to work. We should save hundreds of dollars a month. And, eat healthier as well. It has been nice this week not having my money disappear from my wallet.

I'm going to post this now and start a new one, because it is actually Thursday the 8th now. The next entry will discuss how I went to bed after midnight again, and how I am SO not doing that tonight.