Ashes to Ashes, We All Fall Down...From Lack Of Sleep....

I felt inspired by a post I just read and I got all kinds of bursting thought bubbles above my highlighted head... I just HAD to do it...

A History In The Sleep Life of Us, Posthumously.

...because when I first read "What about you guys?" and such and was thinking, "I want to click 'comments' but why would I? We're so boring..."  and then I thought,"Well, the kids DON'T sleep the same routine they did 6 months ago..." and there the was the six months before that and the six months before THAT and the months before that and then there was just Thing 1 and WOW! 

It's actually changed quite a bit, now hasn't it?  Maybe it's not all that boring!  Harley's early days were difficult looking back.  It was definitely normal seeming to us at the time due to the fact we had NOT been parents before, so anything we deemed normal was just what was happening at the time.  8 years ago, Daddy's job was at night.  He'd come home and have Harley duty.  She hated the bassinet that she had.  And I hated that she hated it.  It was beautifully constructed, couldn't she see that and understand that with her barely 3 day old brain?? What was wrong with her?!?!  Later we found that it was NOT the bassinet but WAS in fact the A/C vent pointed DIRECTLY into the canopy creating a FUCKING WIND TUNNEL!  Of course she hated it!!  As a direct result, I believe, she then hated any air/wind on her face for years afterward.

From the wee early days she slept with daddy on his chest (protected from the a/c vent debacle that eluded us) and he stayed up with her and fed and changed and cooed and hugged.  He slept while I took the day shift.  I went back to work at the fairly typical six week stage.  We put her in her crib because she hated the bassinet so much and two days before I was due back at the office, I knew we had to do something.  Dammit all if that kid didn't sleep 8 hours that night!  And slept through the night thereafter.   She just wanted the crib, we thought... No, she just didn't want to sleep in a damned tornado.  She was amazing.  She went down at 9pm and woke at 6am.  Sometimes 5am.  When it was a 5am kind of day, Gpa was usually right there to get her and shooing me away...who was I to argue? I mean, it's his house right?  He can get up and get the baby if he wants!!  Until she was 18 months, it was sleep all night from 9-6.We moved twice and when she got to the second new place, she was uncertain about it.  Her new surroundings made her uneasy when it came to night time.

She started sleepwalking and we had to put one of those handle things on the inside of her door so she wouldn't do any harm to herself.  Then she was wanting to sleep with us.  There was some coaxing for six months.  Then at two years, she started a really cute routine... or WE started it and she ran with it.  From the time she was two to when we moved again 6 months later, we would turn the lights off in the living room...turn the sound down on the TV...  and we would sit with her on our couch and get cozy...then at 9 we would say "Ni-night Harley" and she would jump off the couch, give daddy a kiss and drag her binkie to bed, waving at us...she would shut her door to just a crack (we would shut it the rest of the way later) and that was it...she was sleeping.  There a handful of nights this didn't work, but it worked most of the time....

Then we moved again...she didn't like that place either...what worked in the new place was letting her fall asleep on the couch THEN moving her.  She stuck to her bedtime doing this, amazingly...but sometimes, just sometimes she would wake up and hang on her door and call for daddy to come get her...sometimes he did and brought her to bed with us and it was fingers and elbows in our eyes...but sometimes he would take her to the living room and hang a few minutes where she would fall back asleep and she would get carried back to bed.

When she was 4, we bought our house...and she hasn't had any problems since...a few nightmares, but nothing to write home about...

The wee one, she was different from the get go... she wanted to nurse every hour on the hour so the first two nights were HELLISH...  lack of sleep inspired a talk between me and daddy whether we were wanting to give nursing the big GO or use the formula and bottles we had for backup...  after no sleep in basically three days, I was ready to not go down the road of the sleepless unhappy mommy...  I put the bassinet in our room and I slept on our bed the first time in 3 nights...  I had premade water in bottles, premeasure formula in a container...all I had to do was dump, shake and serve.  I used one hand to feed while the other hand changed the diaper that she wet after every serving which was every two hours for the first 5 weeks...then she wanted more and longer time between feedings... I woke up with her for the six weeks and daddy would take the morning shift giving me a few hours of sleep in a row.  Aaaww, that daddy...

When I went back to work , Thing 2 was NOT on the same track as big sis... she was still every 3 hours at night.. sometimes...just sometimes.. a little longer...
Sometimes, she wanted to be held and not let down... and it was winter-ish time and we bundled her and swaddled her and she hated to be swaddled but she liked to be snuggled, if that makes sense... she doesn't like to be swaddled... but she likes snuggly blankies and soft comfy cushions... so we made a little snuggle cave in her bassinet and used the boppy and I'm sure there are people out there that would LOVE to hang us by our toes if they saw what we did...but then again, isn't it just super CRUNCHY of us to do what THE BABY WANTED?  she slept all night like that and when she out grew that snuggly cave and the bassinet and went into the crib, we went back to waking up at some time of the night.

somewhere around 8 months she stopped the midnight wake up.  She did, though, wake up earlier thought. She went down at 9 and woke up at 5:30am...  we almost had her to six :)  so it was close and then sometime around 10 months, we were on the schedule we are on now.  What we didn't know though, was that she doesn't like to be in the pack n' play.  At ALL... so going somewhere doesn't bode well with her.  Also, this poor kid has been teething every day since she was 6 months old which has caused plenty of sleeplessness for me n daddy... and frustration and confirmation as to why we CLOSED AND LOCKED the baby factory.  We are done, and we are enjoying this!!  She has nights where all of a sudden we hear a SHRIEK!!!!  Then nothing...and we fall asleep again and it's peaceful.  Thing 1 napped where she fell and Thing 2 naps twice a day for two hours each and that's what makes her tick.  I learned this weekend that if I go somewhere that's not my mom's or my MIL's, then I bring the pack and play.

Granted, the naps are forced, but she NEEDS them OH SO badly...  she usually cries a bit and falls asleep after 20 minutes...  once in awhile what she really needs is a time out, chill out time...  but the naps are KEY.

It's amazing how I went from, "Ugh, why would I of all people say anything?"
to all of that up there ^^

It's amazing what the brain's first reaction is to remember something one way, and then when you think about it and think really hard... all sorts of thinks get thought!  And thinking of all those thinks, I remember that little boppy cave that daddy made and that baby loved so much... it was a Godsend...  the man and his brain and how it works those things out so wonderfully... That man was meant to be a daddy... he really was!  As much as I almost get to the point where I miss a good excuse to watch The Simpsons Movie at 4am... sleep is good too... sleep and coffee... lots and lots of coffee...

"Dirty Mouth? Clean it UP!"...

...Oh Orbit Lady.... PLEASE come through my house!!!  ...And then I wake up... Cause yeah... that's NOT gonna happen. Not no way, not no how...

 

Guess what I did yesterday? Nothing.  I cleaned the kids room with them (by with them of course I mean giving Thing 2 things to keep her busy while I cleaned with Thing 1)...  I can't believe what we were able to clean. I can't believe what she let me get rid of.  Yes LET ME.  I know, I shouldn't let my kid have the say really.  But here's the part about them being far apart.  Thing 1 is at the age when she should be getting rid of baby toys...but we have the baby now...and she is old enough to play with all those toys.  One day, they will be gone, but we just signed a new lease on their life.  If those toys could talk I'd demand some thank yous...  just sayin...

 

Cleaning the kid's room has become somewhat of a "mommy" job.  Sometimes I sell myself on the idea that the chores are perfectly, evenly split up, but they're not.  They're just not.  It's never going to be perfectly even and perfect.  Putting the kid's laundry away is a mommy job.  But I like it.  I like it because I am the one that buys them their replacement clothes...so if I buy the clothes, I should fold them and put them away so I know what's hole-y.  What's shredded, ripped, stained, too small and ready to go.  I like my "mommy" jobs.  I try to do other things, but the only time I have to do things is the weekends, which this weekend was one where daddy worked...  I played with the kiddos yesterday and cleaned and played...we watched movies, had a little friend over, sent the little friend home, and played... Mary slept, I worked on a crochet project (what's with all these breeders lately? I loved it!) and I went to bed a little later than usual cause I wanted to hug and kiss my Choni-baloney before I went to bed.  And then, he did the dishes... He worked, came home at 9:30 after stopping at the store after work, put the food away and did the dishes...  Yeah, that's what I married...  and that's why I strive to be a better person everyday...and that's why last night I went to bed totally depressed.  I am going to have start a personal journal....

 

I need somewhere where I can completely release the crazy inadequacies I feel as the spouse... some of it's pure bullshit.  Some of it is pretty valid... Some of it is just for us.. some of it... like when I have had people tell me that from their end, they don't think Choni does enough... 

 

Yep... people have told me that.  I know what they mean is based on what they see, but you have to be in our house day to day to realize that it's really the other way around...  I play with the kids when I have them... because I am constantly in a state of flux.  I want to clean the house, I want to see them see me clean the house so they can say "wow, what a clean house we have."  But I have some negative semi-repressed memories about having a clean house, which is also probably a serious part of me being "Clean or play?  PLAY!"  Because we did things as a family, but I can't remember a time my mom really PLAYED with  me.  I don't hold it against her or anything, she worked like a fuckin DOG to keep our house up and my dad did, too...  food on the table and a clean house and a few memories here and there of Disneyland, Knott's, picnics, birthday parties.  Lots of snuggly nights at home...  right before bed and after dinner...  very warm and snuggly... but I also remember several times when my OCD dad decided to WASH THE SCREENS instead of go to the park with us, so we made our own fun. 

 

I know people will call bullshit on the fact that I say "well the baby is UP MY ASS"  because it IS difficult to keep your mind ON TASK when a midget is pulling your pants down whilst climbing your leg... so we do what we can, but still... I feel like I should be doing a better job.  Like my house should be immaculate like so many other people's houses are (or maybe they're not and I PRESUME they are)... I guess everyone juggles differently and this is how we juggle... We prioritized, and cleanliness of house has taken a bit of a back burner...sure, I Swiffer... that shit's RAD... but when I dusted my house as a chore when I was a kid, it was a rag and Pledge to the WHOLE shebang and that was all that was acceptable.  My mom could tell when I tickled the house with a feather duster and what did I do the next day?  Re-DID all the dusting I didn't do the day before.... 

 

I guess the point is, I don't  have a clean house... my poor hubby does 95% percent more housework than I do and I play with the kids...  and one day this will change... so I'm going to do my best to enjoy this while it lasts...because one day...the kids won't want a thing to do with me and I'll be cleaning out of necessity to keep my time occupied.  And that's why my house is disheveled and my nails are barely kempt and I sneak in project-ing when the baby naps...oh and I am at my pre baby weight and sustaining because it's too goddamned hot to go outside and walk and my post work work-outs are on hold until Thing 2 gets old enough to NOT get into shit... I'm waiting for Fall basically... or OUR Fall, which starts in late November... I should call this time "Baby Flux"...maybe naming it will help me get out of my head about it...  but see, now that I've said that and put it out there, I feel better already!  Blah...word vomit...and now I am purged!!!  ...and this is what happens when I have too much time to think things...  because this is all bullshit...and I know that...  first world problems eh?  TOTALLY!!!  And this is why I would be a horrible psych patient...  I would do a round of word vomit...and I would be cured...teeheehee...  And one day, I will be looking at a 5 year old Thing 2 and be thinking, "Remember when I didn't have time for things?"...  I remember doing that with Thing 1.  I think she was about 3 when I could just 100% get going on things and she wouldn't be ALL OVER ME...and as much as I sat there enjoying it, I was sad that I wasn't being called for, needed, "bugged"...  It's bittersweet, that moment when you're doing something that you couldn't easily do with a small one around, and then the moment you can... it's ALMOST not as enjoyable it once was.  Because that free time comes at a price...the price of kids growing up...  Circle of life n shit...  kids grow up, we get our "free time" back for what it's worth and we wonder where it all went...  And it's all so incredibly NORMAL...  and now I can move on to the next thing on my list of things to dwell on...what's for dinner??

♪♪Nobody Does It Better...♪♪

Oh yes... they fucking do...

Do you want me to give my parenting insight??

Well I can't...

Because this chick is so awesome, she pretty much hits the nail on the head for me ALL the time.
And I LOVE it...but then I'm completely uninspired...because in a weird way I have tricked my stupid brain into thinking I did something...when I didn't... 

This is why I have seemed "Silent Blog, Holy Blog" for so long... because I have read so many things on other blogs that were like "Exactly! Exactly.  Exactly?"  That I started to feel like...what's the point of ME going back and reiterating on it then?

My brain...oh brain you silly think popping your synaptic jazz...  YOU SUCK...

I have a mental check list.

I have a physical check list, too.  I am actually copying OUT of that little blue physical check list right now...

The latter gets less and less love because of my own personal bullshit mix of 1 part hands that hurt and 1 part my job is totally 100% demanding of my time now. 

...my thinks do get written...they get THOUGHT...and when they get THOUGHT, they get mentally catalogued to hopefully be revisited later...but then I read something that my brain thinks "Wow, Exactly!" and that think does two different things...

1. List check marked mentally as if I myself wrote a meaningful post that means a lot to someone.
2. Completely disillusioned and suddenly uninspired because I wanted to say that... that very thing...and I couldn't/didn't say it first... so is life...

I don't like plagiarism.  I don't like anything similar to it.  but I'm telling you... I would footnote the shit out of this blog right here...  It's all the badassness of being a parent and being able to just say, "Fuck it, kids are the way they are, they don't fit in boxes, they don't subject themselves to labels and sometimes you just need to hold them while you poop."

I'm totally sub-paraphrasing by the way...but I'm sure you knew that... I loved this piece so MUCH... 

It's all the Thinks I think of parenting in one place.

Everyone is different, all kids are different.  I realize that my "problems" are MINE...  and granted they are completely welcomed warmly by people that have it WORSE than me...and scoffed at by people have it EASIER... but they're what I deal with on a day to day basis and that's what makes my kids MY kids and MY kid problems MINE.

With two kids that are walking different ends of the kid spectrum and working my patience like so much modeling clay, I love it.  I love when something like this speaks to me so loudly that I feel completely at ONE with my life... As if someone floated up to me and said, "Oh yeah? Me, too, dude.  Me...TOO."

And sometimes, you need a hand on your shoulder.  I haven't always needed one.

My dad used to tell me I didn't require a proverbial (or even literal) pat on the back/shoulder area to keep me going...and that it was a great preservation tool. But to remember that if someone were to come up and give that to me, to completely accepted whether I felt it was warranted or not.  So I believe the former and leave myself open for the latter...it creates a great balance to my particular brand of crazy (which my VERY good friend laughs at daily because she REALLY is crazy ;) and she knows that)...

So here's to the people that take the thoughts from my mouth, head and my heart and express them perfectly... because sometimes, I don't even know what I want to say...and then I read it...and I feel completely awesome afterwards!  And WHO doesn't want to share the feeling of AWESOME?? WHO DAMMIT?!?! 

Catch Up number two...as in poop...

Hi Blog! It's Me, Margaret!

I can't believe I did it to myself... I really can't...

I didn't know I was doing it, but I was... It's been almost a year since I stopped physically journaling.  I thought for sure when that happened that a psych consult would surely follow.

What I am realizing is that my world did not in fact come crashing down around me.

So, I take that as a very positive sign! A sign of the strong foundation that myself and others have built to preserve...I am still standing without what I thought for sure was keeping me sane by allowing me to clearly and concisely catalogue my thoughts.  I stopped because, well, you know when something you love becomes work?  My journaling became work.  I started having to make games with myself to get me to do it...partially because my wrists were hurting after writing and partially because I had no time.  I started to keep the journal with me, but the thought of whipping it out in public and scratching away started to seem looney to me.  And the act of pulling it out of my purse, grabbing a pen and writing a full sentence started to become impossible in and of itself due to bad timing (or perfectly bad time). I then told myself that I owed myself one page per day of journaling...that was a recipe for failure right there...and then when I would finally sit down, I figured I would have this built of flood gate to open and I'd get a few pages, just the facts...and I'd be done.  I used to fill books in months... it took me over a year to fill the last one...

That's when I decided to turn to this blogging thing.  I figured, that as a non-pro, I am not subscribing to anyone's deadlines, but my own.  I didn't want to give myself deadlines, but I still had to make a game of it just to keep even MYSELF interested.  Cause I guess I have a slight ADD problem I guess... maybe.. perhaps.. what was I saying???

I hate when people blog blog blog...and then they're gone...cause they were "living life"... not HATE>  I guess that's a strong word... I have seen that a lot is what I mean... and I saw it so much I thought "That's not gonna be me"...wow...that's a dumb thing to say...

IT'S ME IT'S ME!! Living life!  Not logging it in!  I'd like to think I'm not terribly personal on here, so it's not like I'm going to minute by minute catalogue my time "off"... it's not really that interesting.  Thing 1 got out of 2nd grade.  3rd grade here we come!  I wanted to get her something for her bday that rocked...a big bag of books...hehehe...

Then, there's this whole (now) 17 month old thing going on... which is fine.  She's her own person, not a like her sister... Which we were prepared for.  But DAMN... talk about taking advantage...  Daddy even got up with her a few times last week in the middle of the night cause she was just...bothered.  she just needed someone...and he was there...and he cuddled...and snuggled...and half awake walked her back to bed and tucked her in all warm like... she was happy after that...

Her eye teeth are coming in at a snail's pace...especially when compared to the rest of her mouth...  She LOVES to run away from you...so "training" her to walk with us will be a total adventure... 

As completely different as life gets everyday, I fall more in love with where we are at everyday.  Even though I still have some weird mouth/jaw/tooth/ear/throat pain going on every day in some way, shape or form (I'll be looking into that sometime soon)...

So that's ONE way of catching up.  I have this little book...  It's a cute little thing... it's in my desk at work...and It's full of "ideas" for the blog... it's so full, I almost need a new one.

Talk about a step in the WRONG direction... I inadvertently ended up doing something I was un able to do a year ago...jotting down ideas one day at a time... well there you have it...that's catch up sesh number one...  hope I didn't make anyone fall asleep...
that would suck...but then again... I'm not the one with would be key marks on their face... so there's that...