The Sleep Woes

Tiny Boy is back in my bed.

To clarify:  Tiny Boy goes to bed, on his own, in his own bed around 8:00 pm.  Somewhere, generally 1:30 or 2:00, he wakes up, calls for me, picks up his pillow and blanket and says "too, too" (????) which is his word for going to my bed.  I have tried rocking him and re-dumping him the crib.  I have tried sitting in the rocker while he falls back to sleep.  If I do the former, he gets down and walks into my room.  The latter, well, he doesn't sleep but waits for me--and I've sat there A LONG FUCKING TIME--and then cries when I eventually ditch him.  So, in the end, faster to get back to sleep for both of us if I give in to "too, too."

I am not philosophically opposed to co-sleeping.  LG spent much of her first 2.5 years in my bed, and that was fine.  Tiny Boy was fine as a breastfeeding infant.

But as a bigger baby/toddler Tiny Boy SUCKS as a co-sleeper.  What he wants is to sleep on my body.  Specifically, my head.  I cannot even begin to tell you how fucked up my neck is right now, from having a toddler crawling over my pillow and mashing his head against mine (why this is comfortable for him, I don't know).  I pick him up and shove him back into the corner of the bed (which used to be where he slept); he comes back.  We repeat about 30 times.  I threaten to put him back in his crib.  He finally moves.  Ugh.

He needs to be evicted.  But every time I start the evicting process he gets sick.  I mean, you can't evict a baby with PNEUMONIA!  He's on the mend now.  So tonight, people.  Tonight.  Yeah.

Playing Student

We have a visiting writer on campus today.  These things either suck or they are fantastic.  So far, we have a fantastic.  Like, I want to do everything this guy is doing; he's making me think about my work in new ways, and it's totally great to talk to him.  Amen.

*

Up next:  pregnancy loss take #1, 11 years later, or what's going on in my head these days

Close Encounters

I ran into my therapist yesterday at the public library.

I suppose this is not that surprising.  It's a small town.  Her kids went to the same elementary school as LG.

I've seen her from a distance a couple times at the grocery store, etc.  But I really didn't have any choice yesterday but to walk up to her and say hi.  He's cute! she said, about Tiny Boy, the subject of our many conversations from embryo-hood on.  Enjoy!

Indeed.

Have I said I'm having something resembling a mid-life crisis?  Like, what do you do after you got everything you ever wanted?  Happiness is a strange place to be.

Being a Single Mother by Choice

In the hectic day to day of things, I don't think much about being a single mother by choice.

I think a lot about being a single mother, because I'm the only adult in the house.  But the circumstances of my becoming a single mother, well, not so much.

But I find myself writing an essay, a kind of ranty thing, on what it means to be an SMC.  The sort of thing I was vehement about back when I was like 29 and trying to become one and most SMCs were 35+  At the time, the distinction was critical.  I also find myself wanting to tell young women, like my students (in appropriate contexts, like a class on motherhood!) that they should consider single motherhood, in the same way that they should consider egg freezing (though I am skeptical about that), in the same way that they should consider child-free lives, and "traditional" family structures.  As an option for family building on their own terms.  That's what reproductive choice really is.

A Little Crabby, A Lot Overwhelmed

Here's what I've got on my plate right now:

• teaching (thankfully only one class), which means weekly commenting on student work because, you know, it's writing-intensive
• chairing third-year/reappointment committee for one of my junior colleagues
• co-chairing university wide panel for internal grant thing (and the reviewing of files that goes along with it)
• reviewing writing samples for undergrad program thing
• admin job, which includes, among other things, overseeing an undergrad organization, bringing a speaker in to campus next week, curricular stuff I haven't even started yet...
• a few grad students, who need advice and letters and feedback now and again
• revisions of forthcoming book manuscript
• revisions of sort-of-accepted book manuscript
• revisions of not-yet-finished book manuscript because I need to finish the damn thing already!
• proposal for co-edited book thing was supposed to be in the mail weeks ago

And then there's the whole single parenting thing and the domestic messes (like, our basement floor is finally being replaced and so the toys are everywhere, and canned goods, and sundry items generally stored in the basement).

And did I mention that within the past ten days, LG needed to go to urgent care and I developed a weird eye thing and needed to go to the doctor and Tiny Boy is recovering from pneumonia?

AHHHHH.

Okay, I feel a little better now.

In Which Gwinne Vents About Editors and Readers Reports

Oh, this is the Year of the Book it seems.

Another book manuscript accepted, pending revision.

I am not one of those writers who says it's DONE AS IS sorry.  I have rarely refused to make changes when offered the opportunity to publish.  And, indeed, I agree wholeheartedly with this editor that the book needs work.

I just think it needs very different work than she's asking for.  And I don't know if I can do it.  Like, literally, it's not that I don't want to do it, it's just I can't even fucking IMAGINE what this book would look like her way.

I forwarded the readers' reports to my best ladies (my writers' group) and they were indignant on my behalf.  I emailed a senior colleague who likewise said not to trust it, don't do it.

Indeed, the last time I was asked to revise this book, I did exactly what was asked of me and it was ultimately rejected (maybe 2010?  it was pre-Tiny Boy) and I was so humiliated that I largely stopped sending the thing out.

So my impulse is to tinker with it and see what happens on my own terms.  And if that happens to work with her terms, yay.  And if not, I guess the thing will continue to be unpublished.

Argh.

Would you read this book?

I'm working on a blurb about my book.  Help!

[Thanks for the comments!  Decided to take the blurb down for now...will let you all know when the book eventually makes its way into the world]

Books about DE?

Does anyone know of a first-hand account of family building via egg donation?

I don't mean a self-helpy sort of informational thing but a narrative/memoir.

Because if there's not one, I think I might need to write it.  A sequel of sorts to my book coming out in the spring.

Emailed Dr. G last night and told her I wasn't ready.

I feel like my heart is breaking.

Now where was I?

Feeling like this space is becoming a tedious recording of sleep problems and successes.*

Of course I spend a lot of time thinking about it.  I think maybe I'm going to do some kind of art project about sleep.  A weird diary or something.  I think I need to do more visual art.  I find myself thinking I studied the wrong stuff in graduate school.  Like, if only I'd studied poetics at SUNY Buffalo...but that never even occurred to me when I was applying to programs.

Emotionally I am a mess.  I don't know how much this has to do with weaning.  But I have moments--and they seem too frequent--that I am just hit with what I am calling THE USUAL AND MUNDANE SORROWS.  You know, not big stuff like infertility or major life illnesses or anything.  Just being sad.

Maybe this has to do with a friend, whom sometimes I wish was a bit more than just a friend, preparing to move across the country.  We keep having these good byes.  Another one--the real one, I think-- tomorrow morning.

Maybe this is some sort of mid-life crisis.  I feel like I went to bed a 27-year-old fresh from grad school and woke up an almost 41-year-old with two kids and tenure (and a lot of shit has gone down in the past 5-10 years, you know?).

And then there's work.  I'm actually largely on top of things.  Making headway on all necessary project and turning out new stuff.  Staying on top of the email and the details.  Not getting overly emotionally invested in students and my class (which isn't going as well as I'd like but I've been doing this particular class long enough that I know THAT'S NOT ME, IT'S THEM).

Therapy with actual therapist tomorrow, largely to talk about the embryos in cold storage.

Life is good.  But why does it have to be so hard to make it through the night?



* for the record, we're doing better.  First waking generally as late as 2:30 (although last night he came in with me at 11:00!) but still those wee hours SUCK.  I've tried giving him more or less "baba"; I've tried keeping him with me and forcing him to stay in his bed.  Nothing systematic seems to work but I can pretty much count on being awake for two hours sometime in the middle of the night.  The only good thing is that I'm getting enough total sleep, due to early bedtime and generally late wakeup, to make up for it.  I mean, I'm not well rested or anything...but I haven't had one of those HORRID nights in about a month.  And that' helps.  Damn does that help.

Hooray for Quiet Time

Tiny Boy is down for a nap.

I have dealt with all the email catch up from yesterday.  I have commented on half a stack of student writing (the other I'm saving for tomorrow's nap).  I have a load of laundry in the wash and another in the dryer.  In a minute I'm going to go straighten up the kitchen, including mopping the floor (which hasn't been done in I don't really remember how long...)

And if that doesn't get me to the end of nap, I'll read.

LG is at a library program for 4 hours (!!!!!!!) today.

I love my daughter but she is LOUD and she talks nonstop and she's exhausting to be around for hours on end.

It's quiet.

Crash

I'm supposed to be reading for work.  Or making a bunch of phone calls.

Instead I'm dealing with email (admin admin admin) from my bed.

Mostly I feel the urgent need to nap.  Except I am mostly incapable of napping (yes, I tried).

This probably because I took Xanax at 2:00 in the morning, around the time I booted Tiny Boy out of my bed and proceeded to listen to him cry.  And then when crying had no effect he just talked to himself for about an hour.  He finished his bottle, said "ah done," and chucked it on the floor.

We were awake from about 12:30-3:00 last night.

And then he woke up again at 5:30 and I gave him (another) damn bottle and told him I would help him put his body down and it wasn't morning and you need to let mommy sleep NOW.

We were almost late again.  I got up at 7:40 and if I didn't need to get LG out the door probably could have kept going.

That is, I'm not sure if I'm exhausted because I didn't get enough good sleep or because I drugged myself in the middle of the night in order to get some sleep.  Or both.

Probably both.

I am glad Thursdays are forgiving if I am ON during the rest of the week.

Progress

It seems every time we make some progress in the sleep department there is a setback.  This time:  an illness (sinus infection?) that left him sobbing at night about his "teeth" and coughing.  He's 7 days into antibiotics and things are looking better.  But, short term, I ended up bringing him in bed with me--the alternative was sitting in the rocker for hours on end--so now that's become a bad habit that needs to be broken.  I will say, though, that it's not an all night thing as it was for a few days.  First waking is coming around 3:00 or even 4:00!  Sometimes I can get him to stay in the crib until 5:00 and sometimes it's just easier to snuggle up and go back to sleep.  So while it's not great, the advantage of co-sleeping is NO CRYING.  Even if he wakes up he actually uses his words:  "mo baba, pees" and "ah done" or "ni-nite, mommy."  So that's something.  Getting there.  Slowly.

He's up to 22 lbs in a diaper.

Otherwise:  also slowly getting work done.  Trying to respect my own boundaries, esp. when it comes to email.  Would like to be getting more reading done.  Would like our house to be a bit cleaner.  But all in all, I feel better not nursing (I'm gaining weight back at an astonishing rate) and sleeping closer to normally.  Still relying too much on the variety of drugs in my arsenal (don't do any one thing two days in a row because, frankly, I'm afraid of addiction) but the consequences of the MAJOR INSOMNIA are just too high otherwise....mostly I just use Benadryl which I need, anyway, because of the allergy situation.

One thing at a time, right?