I Think We Call This "Sleeping Through the Night"!

Tiny Boy was in his own bed, without a peep, until 6:00 am.

Then he proceeded to chitchat with me about trains, had a bottle, and went back to sleep in my bed until roughly 7:30.

One night does not a trend make.  But 10 hours?!

Yay that.

The Morning Cry

As I said, there seems to be absolutely no rhyme or reason for why sometimes Tiny Boy sleeps and sometimes he doesn't.  Let's be clear:  mostly he doesn't, but it's still SO MUCH BETTER than it used to be that I really can't complain.  While I'm not happy about using various pharmaceutical sleep aids (Benadryl, mostly, with some Xanax thrown in there on occasion), I'm sleeping well enough that I can THINK during the day.  And do things like my job.

But consistently for the past week or so Tiny Boy has woken up around 5:00 and, instead of asking for a bottle, starts yelling about TOYS.  "My b[all]oon, my b[all]oon" (huh?) or this morning "DINO!" which was a birthday gift from LG and I promptly fetched from his crib because he wouldn't stop crying about it.  And he immediately cuddled with it and went back to sleep.

What gives, Tiny Boy?

Two

Happy Birthday, Tiny Boy!

Joining the Twenty-First Century

My other self decided to get a twitter account.  (Have I told you I don't even do Facebook?)

But given the stuff that's going on in my professional life, an avenue of shameless self-promotion feels like a potentially useful thing.

It's strange, being a writer in the world.  I don't quite know how to do it.

Gratitude

LG and I had it out this morning.

I'm sure it didn't help that we're both tired (I didn't fall asleep until almost one last night and still woke three times with Tiny Boy).

It started with her asking me for $12.50 for her book fair.  I'd told her at the beginning of the year, and reiterated this week, that I'd give her $25 for the year for books from book fair/scholastic/etc.  (Even as a professional book hoarder professor of English, I hate book fairs.  They encourage kids to buy a bunch of stupid crap, like journals they fill in once and immediately for get about.  LG has a Kindle, she goes to the library weekly; in short, she is not at a loss for books.)  Somehow in her head this translated into "there are two book fairs, so I will get half now and half later."  In my head, this meant if there was actually a book that she wanted, I'd give her money for it, up to $25.  I told her I didn't have cash; reminded her that she just received money from her grandmother and she could use that and I'd pay her back if she found a book she wanted.  She asked again.  I repeated.  She asked again, this time for $11 (???).  I finally looked in my wallet and told her I'd be willing to give her $10 (of the $15 in there!).  She stormed off.*

Now let's be clear:  she has already spent I can't tell you how much on book fair crap (erasers that look like animals, some weird secret code pen, etc) this week.  When she came back down I launched into a spiel about how lucky she is to have all that she does--i.e. I just spent over $100 for gymnastics outfit alone--and she doesn't even bother to say thank you most of the time.  She yelled "I know, you can stop already!" but clearly she doesn't get it at all. 

She's not at a loss for things, or experiences, or even access to cash, as she gets a weekly allowance for doing routine things around the house (putting her dinner dish away, feeding cats, etc).  And while I wouldn't say that she's "spoiled," she does have a sense of entitlement that makes me--as a kid who grew up "almost on welfare" as my mother liked to say--really uneasy.  Maybe it's time that I sit her down and show her (again) how much money I have coming in and how much money going out and how much of that is FOR HER AND HER BROTHER.

Egads.  I hate this stuff.  I almost wonder if I should give her a higher allowance--a lot higher--and say I'm done paying for everything except food.  Even if that's only on paper.



* At some point I told her that I'd be happy to buy a specific book for her, WITH A CHECK, after school but that went ignored.

The Spin Cycle

Before we begin, let's get out of the way that (1) life is exactly what I want it to be, thank you very much and (2) really, life is exactly what I want it to be (well, minus the sleep deprivation).

I've been spinning lately.  Infertility, recurrent pregnancy loss, egg donation that is.

Without paying my therapist $125 I can self diagnose that this has to do with it being the anniversary (of sorts) of my first pregnancy loss (things started to go wrong on Oct 29 and ended with d&c on Dec 19) so this time of year can be hard.  And then there's the fact that I'm writing about all this stuff, because the two book manuscripts deal with it so there it is.  Sometimes I look at Tiny Boy and LG and my heart just breaks for all that I have and all that I don't.

I'm not cosmically sad in the way that I was three years ago, on the verge of making the DE decision.  Or the way that I was eleven years ago, when I lost baby #1.  But it's this off-kilter feeling I can't shake.  Better since I decided not to donate the embryos.  Better since it's been a while since I weaned (I think my hormones are evening out) and I'm getting more sleep.  But it's there.  And I wonder if it will always be there, if I'll ever be able to write anything else (even when I think of switching genres and writing fiction it's about lost and distraught mothers).

I wear a pomegranate charm and the other day it slipped off my wrist into the toilet.  That has to be some kind of metaphor, right?

The Thing About Changing the Clocks

I went to bed last night at 10:00 and woke up at 7:00, which, for all practical purposes, meant waking up at 8:00 (10 hrs, minus waking up 3 (?) times with the boy).  Napless Boy was down for the night at 7:15.  Overtired girl went down at 8:15.  Lunches are made.  Clean sheets on two of three beds.  Diapers are in the laundry.

So if we ignore the facts that (1) I haven't commented on the student work (because the boy didn't NAP!) and (2) the house is strewn with toys, it seems perfectly reasonable to take a shower and go to bed by 9:00.

So that's like getting extra sleep two nights in a row. 

Night y'all.