Too Noisy

The great bedroom experiment has officially been declared a failure.

Pebbles isn't (much to my chagrin) sleeping through the night as consistently as I'd like. It leads to bad sleeping habits, because I bolt in to "save the day" when she cries at night, to avoid waking Woodstock, who is Little Miss Cranky if she doesn't get 11 hours of sleep a night. (Well, so is her mother, but one of us has to be the grown up). It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle ... Pebbles now DEMANDS to be picked up and whisked away to be rocked before she'll stop hollering. She's smart. She knows I love to snuggle, but this middle of the night stuff is for the birds. She also knows snuggling wins out every single time over having a grumpy sister the next day.

Additionally, Pebbles tummy ceases to be happy 11 hours after she last eats ... so she wakes up about an hour before Woodstock. At that point, no amount of cajoling that it isn't morning until the sun comes up (what are we going to do when it rises at 5:45 a.m. in the summer?!) works and Woodstock is raring to go.

I knew it was near the end when Woodstock complained the other day, "Pebbles is too noisy."

Yes, she is. Because not only does she cry at night, Pebbles cannot wake up quietly. Oh no. She has to wake up with SCREECHING peals of laughter and loud thumping noises as she swings her legs up and lets them fall over and over (and over) again. She doesn't need to be "rescued" come morning, she is perfectly happy entertain herself - the problem is, she hasn't learned the concept of "inside voice."

This morning I asked Woodstock if she wanted Pebbles to still share a room or if she wanted her to sleep elsewhere for now. Her response was telling: "Pebbles can sweep in my room, but she's too noisy."

Let me put it this way: we've never had to use a monitor with Pebbles. We can hear her regardless of how far apart in the house we may be.

Pebbles may be banished to the guest bedroom - for now. She's adorable. I love her, but I cannot continue to endure months of waking up every single night.

The only problem is, it involves furniture rearranging and stairs and more time off than I have at the moment.

Maybe if we all don't get enough sleep no one will notice we're grumpy...?

The Grumpies

(Sent as an e-mail to The Parentals - who don't read this blog - earlier today)

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So this morning Pebbles, who has a bad cold, woke up at oh-dark-thirty (5:40 a.m.). She slept in her bouncy chair in our room last night, since she understandably wasn't comfortably sleeping lying flat. Not wanting Woodstock to wake up (everyone sleeps with their doors open to keep from freezing to death), I bounded silently down the hall only to be met by a sleepy Woodstock at her door (she is loving the fact that she doesn't have to yell "All Done Sleeping" or anything else for that matter from her bed in the morning - she merely pops out when she feels like getting up. In this case, 5:40 a.m.).

I tried the old "It's not morning yet" trick. Didn't work. She wanted to snuggle. So back we went into our bedroom. She climbed into bed next to Himself. It really wasn't morning or time to get up (according to my sleep-deprived self), so I got Pebbles, gave her something to suck on and all four of us "snuggled." Really, Himself pretended to sleep, Pebbles moaned. Woodstock told her over and over and over (and over!) to not be afraid. I counted to 100. Silently. Hoping some fairy would drop magic sleeping dust on at least the two littlest.

Alas, it was not to be. We all ended up getting up. Most of us having a case of the grumpies. (Himself not so much - he got to immediately escape to work, so he was likely spared).

Fast forward to breakfast. Woodstock, who had requested cinnamon oatmeal with blueberries sat staring at her (now cold) bowl of oatmeal - missing only a single bite. The entire time I was feeding Pebbles she snuggled up next to me and said over and over and over (and over!), "I hungry mama!". Which would be why I switched up the order and gave her breakfast first instead of last thing before we left (after all, it's a long time between 5:40 a.m. and 7:40 a.m. - our normal breakfast time - for a little tummy). Of course, even though she got exactly what she ordered for breakfast, Woodstock ate only her vitamins and one bite of oatmeal. She then lay her head down on her tray and dropped blobs of oatmeal over the edge of her tray onto the floor while exhibiting a very-tired-toddler case of the grumpies. Pebbles moaned her discomfort and relative displeasure from her swing. Over and over and over (and over) again.

I said, "Woodstock, you are going to be in big trouble if you don't find a way to get rid of the grumpies." One of those vauge parental threats that all the parenting books warn you to never use, but the parenting books have never functioned for weeks on end with little sleep and an actual grumpy toddler who is really just acting in exhaustion and not out-and-out wantonness. She continued to drop oatmeal onto the floor. I continued to eat my own oatmeal and ignore her. I was determined to not have to eat breakfast in the car, like I do most mornings. (Note: I did clean up the oatmeal after I was done ... I have to mop the floors tonight anyway).

We finally got ourselves out to the car, got the car unburied from the snow that found us last night, got everyone buckled in. Headed toward Miss Jan's, with me already counting the hours until bedtime - for all of us. And feeling a little bad that I was about to unleash two of the three grumpies on poor Miss Jan.

We were blocks from Miss Jan's house when Woodstock piped up from the back seat.

"Mama, I not in bery big trouble anymore."

Curious, I said, "Oh, really? Why not?"

"Cuz I not mad anymore. I not in bery big trouble now, cuz I so happy."

And right then, my heart melted.

I still have a case of the grumpies, but they're mellowing out. Woodstock and Pebbles seemed to leave their grumpies behind as well - as both were beaming big happy grins when Miss Jan opened the door.

She has no idea how close she came to having the grumpies come to visit today.

(Totally unrelated side note: Woodstock got out of the car at Miss Jan's, bounded over to the sidewalk, looked up at the tree and said, "Hey birdies! Whas going on?" like she does every morning - grumpy or not. It makes me laugh every single morning - grumpy or not.)

Slumberless Sleepover

There are three things about being a mother I have dreaded so far, and not just casually dreaded, but dreaded-deep-down-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach dreaded.

1. Weaning Woodstock off her binky
2. Moving Woodstock into a "big" bed
3. Potty training

We accomplished 1 in December. After a month of talking about the binky fairy and a week of counting down the nights until the binky fairy arrived, one Thursday night in December Woodstock awoke to find her binky had been replaced by a note and a Curious George puzzle. (She strategically came on a Thursday night to ensure there were two non-work nights to deal with any fallout).

Surprisingly (or maybe not, since she was clearly ready to give it up), there have only been a couple of the briefest mentions of binkies since.

So I decided to tackle #2 on my "dreaded list of mothering a toddler tasks."

On Tuesday night, after having her "big" bed in her room for 5 months, Woodstock finally agreed it might be fun to sleep somewhere other than her crib.

One should note that Woodstock LOVES her crib. Never has she tried to climb out (though she can climb in - more worrisome at the moment, as the last thing I need is her trying to co-sleep with Pebbles!). Never has she wanted to sleep anywhere else (except when sick - she wants to sleep on the couch - weirdness). So it was a big deal I convinced her that it was high time she move up in the world.

Since Himself was out of town on business, I suggested we have a slumber party. I put both girls down - Woodstock on the trundle bed (low to ground), Pebbles in the crib and, after they had both gone to sleep, I crashed on the day bed. They thought this was very cool (well, I'm assuming Pebbles did, she didn't protest, after all). I thought it was a good way to spy on Woodstock to ensure she didn't try to sleep with her sister (a valid concern, it's happened before when Pebbles was in the bassinet in the other room).

They both slept like rocks all night.

I woke up every single hour. First, it was the darn nightlight that Woodstock insists on having so she can read before she sleeps (I tried turning it off after she went to bed - she inevitably wakes up and yells "my yittle yight is not on, come fix it!".

Second, it turns out that the day bed mattress is the one I put the plastic mattress pad on. I do not sleep still. It meant a night-long ordeal of hearing "crinkle, crinkle, crinkle" every single time I moved.

Third, I do not wear footie pajamas and the blanket on the day bed is not long enough for a full-sized adult (easily rectified, but annoying nonetheless).

Fourth, while Pebbles is a blissfully quiet sleeper, Woodstock is not. And since the trundle was right next to the bed I was in, it was like she was snorting right in my ear.

Fifth, Woodstock woke up at oh-dark-thirty and proclaimed "All done syeeping!". No amount of cajoling could convince her it was a full 2 hours before her normal "wake up time." Pebbles, apparently wary of missing out on the fun, then awoke herself. Realizing it had been 10 hours since she last ate, she refused to reconsider going back to sleep as well.

Somehow, my "sneaky plan disguised as fun" ended up as a joke on me.

Beware of 4 a.m.

One should beware of online activities at 4 a.m., especially if one's wallet is in reach.

This morning I woke up early, as usual. What wasn't usual was that I woke up at 3:30 a.m. Normally "early" involves a 5 in the hour. I had acid reflux (again) that was so bad I'd gross any of my 2.7 readers out if I was to describe it, so I'll refrain. Suffice it to say, it was miserably bad - bad enough that sleep just wasn't going to happen again. At 3:45, I heaved myself out of bed.

Since I was in a class all day yesterday, I logged on to check my work e-mail - in case anything specatularly interesting had happened that I just might have to deal with before I showed up at 9 a.m. While I was at it, I decided to browse for a few things we need, that we've been putting off because I just didn't have the energy to go to a furniture store and "browse."

So I browsed online. Read reviews, compared prices, clicked on buttons and made mathematical calculations in my sleep-addled brain.

By 4:30 a.m., my online shopping cart contained one full-sized mattress, one full-sized box spring, one bed frame and one 5.0 cubic foot chest freezer. Grand total: $530, plus tax and delivery ...I think the 5 showing up in my total (instead of in my awakening hour) was what did it ...

I woke up enough to realize that the delivery charge was more than it would cost us to rent a pick-up (or cajole a neighbor) for the day, and Himself and the two teenage boys inhabiting our house (Grover and Nephew) this week are more than enough manpower to move a full-sized bed and a small freezer into the 70s palace.

Never mind though. That wasn't enough to stop me, I reserved it for in-store pick up on Saturday.

Beware of 4 a.m. - suddenly your excuse for not buying Himself corn dogs (lack of freezer space) will no longer fly and your guests (and Grover) will have somewhere to sleep besides a trusty air mattress.

And your bank account will still be stinging.

Sleeping Beauty

For the last year (more or less), Woodstock has been a fabulous sleeper. (The first 8 weeks of her life would not qualify for "fabulous sleeperhood" - she was difficult to get to sleep and didn't stay asleep long - but I suppose that is normal).

She is also generally easy to get to bed - a bit too attached to her "been-tee" (binkie), but since she only gets it at church and naptime/bedtime, I'm willing to look the other way for the moment.

Over the past several weeks, however, she has been waking up and shrieking at the top of her lungs. Nightmare-inducing shrieks. Shrieks that make one's heart stop beating as it rouses one from a dead sleep over the baby monitor (her room is too far away to hear her otherwise). Especially when one accidentally leaves the monitor's volume up too high.

For the record, I am not a nice person to rouse from a deep sleep. It happens so rarely (the deep sleep, not the rousing), that I am guilty of being slightly grumpy if roused before I feel is absolutely necessary. Fortunately, the walk to Woodstock's room is long and usually filled with obstacles she has scattered throughout the hall, so I have plenty of time to stub my toe and "adjust my attitude" prior to poking my head in to see what on earth is warranting such shrieking.

A couple of weeks ago, I was EXHAUSTED when this happened. More exhausted than usual. I had stayed up way too late watching election coverage that shouldn't have kept me up late. It was hardly a nail-biter and the whole thing kicked off two hours earlier than I'm used to, having relocated to a new time zone. It was all said and done before my regular bedtime. Nevertheless, I stayed up to0 late.

As a result, the first time the shrieking began, I broke my own iron-clad parenting rule. I picked Woodstock up, cuddled her to my chest, went back to bed, waited for her to fall asleep and then deposited her back into her bed. The second time, I picked Woodstock up, cuddled her to my chest, went back to bed, rearranged the pillows and bedding, plopped her in the middle, turned over and went to sleep. Every once in awhile I'd wake up and right her so her head was at the top and her feet were no longer in my back. I was too tired to care what awful habits I might be instilling by fetching her and letting her sleep with us.

Most of the time, she shrieks for awhile then falls asleep, sometimes mumbling the guilt-inducing phrase, "nononono," like she's softly scolding herself for waking the entire household.

Several nights later, however, all I could think was "I've created a monster!" The shrieking began, right on cue, at 4 a.m. Himself rolled over and mumbled "She must have thrown her binky overboard," as he went back to sleep. Indeed she had. I handed her her binky and tried to creep out.

Woodstock would have nothing of it. The shrieking got louder. I picked her up, cuddled her to my chest, rocked her until she was almost asleep and then deposited her back into bed. I had taken 2 steps when the shrieking began anew.

"Oh no," I muttered. "You are not coming to bed with me." Too tired to do much of anything, I sat on the floor and reached my arm through the crib slats to stroke Woodstock's foot. Then I started to sing "I am a Child of God" - the song that will almost instantly calm her. (I'm sure Himself enjoyed the raspy, half-dazed serenade over the baby monitor). She sat there, defiant, daring me to either stop singing or stop stroking her foot or both.

I started falling asleep, my arm caught to my elbow in Woodstock's crib, the song verses all mixed up. I stopped singing and stroked her foot. 15 minutes into the ordeal Woodstock keeled over with a thud - she had fallen asleep sitting up. I was so relieved I didn't even bother to move "Meow" her stuffed leopard, out from under her. I crawled to the door and padded back to bed.

Last night, the same thing happened. I sat on her floor in the dark, stroking her head through the slats in the crib. She stared at me, as if to say, "it doesn't matter what you do, I am not going back to sleep." I sang jumbled, raspy verses again, picturing Himself with his head shoved under his pillow, willing her to fall asleep quickly so I'd stop the serenade.

After tossing and turning and making a complete 360-degree rotation in her crib, Woodstock finally settled down on her stomach, her face turned toward the wall. Her breathing evened. I brought my singing down to a whisper and stroked her hair lightly. Suddenly, her arm thrust out - she stretched as far as it would go, grasped "Meow" and pulled him up next to her, her face buried in his fur as she made a kissing noise in the vicinity of his nose. She flopped her arm over him, turned her head toward me, closed her eyes and sighed a little.

It's hard to remember why my sleep is so necessary when Sleeping Beauty finally throws herself toward dreamland without prelude - slipping abruptly and blissfully into the warm, dark silence, wrapped in love by her faithful furry feline. It's hard not to just stay and watch.

Tales of an Insomniac, Night 4

Chronic sleep issues have plagued me since young adulthood (or younger adulthood, as the case may be, I'm not exactly old). However, the past four nights have been ridiculous.

Night 1, I blamed on not feeling well - achy, sore throat, general feeling of post-incident-of-being-flattened-by-a-Mack-truck. I tossed. I turned. I kicked Himself. He poked me back. I flailed. I piled all the covers on and kicked them all back off.

Night 2, I still blamed on not feeling well, though I had taken medication earlier to prevent that excuse. It didn't really work. I laid in the quiet stillness and breathed. I listened to Woodstock breathe over the baby monitor. When I knew Himself was absolutely asleep, I turned on the lamp and read.

Night 3, I took the laptop to bed with me and started to watch the season finale of NCIS online. Himself chose that moment to go to bed. I went on an expedition to find is iPod headphones (I own no headphones). Except, well, except we moved TWO MONTHS AGO, and apparently that box hasn't been unpacked. As I turned back to return to the bedroom, an entire tower of CDs fell over, without me managing to touch them. I muttered. Loudly. Himself wanted to know why I was wandering around with all the lights on causing things to fall over. I eventually found an old crossword puzzle book, one of my old cures for insomnia. It took 2 hours to work. The last time I saw the clock, it was 3:30 a.m.

I expected to be ravished when I woke up the next morning at precisely the same time Woodstock did (no, it was not a coincidence). I wasn't. I expected I would fade late in the day. I didn't any more than usual. Of course, one of the hallmarks of my insomnia is going for DAYS without more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep and then needing 11-12 hours a night for weeks to make up for it. All of this was fine prior to the arrival of Woodstock, of course.

Day 4 (last night) was even worse. I went to get gas at 11:30 p.m., before the Sunday bewitching hour of midnight. We didn't particularly need gas, we don't ever drive the car on Sundays and the tank was 1/3 full ... but, well, just in case - and I needed something to do. It didn't work. I washed the dishes - by hand. I puttered. Sometime around midnight I decided to make bread. It helped exhaust me, but did nothing to bring on feelings of leaded eyelids. And, to be honest, bread made at midnight isn't as good as bread made at a normal daylight hour ... it's finicky enough as it is, I was just asking for disaster by undergoing the task in the wee hours of the morning.

And then ... nothing. Sleep still did not come. I counted the hours, minutes, seconds until morning. I curled up next to Himself. I counted sheep, worked another New York Times crossword puzzle and waited.

I waited clear into Day 5.

6 a.m. - Time for a Vocabulary Lesson!

Woodstock has been sleeping in our room for the past 5 nights in the pack-n-play because she got sick all over everything in her room, I washed/sanitized it (many praises to the inventor of the sanitize cycle on the washing machine) and promptly got sick before I could get her room back together. Then, well, then I just got lazy, because I'm on day three of being well and she's still sleeping in our room.

This morning, around 6 a.m., she woke up. She wasn't ready to get up, oh no - as a matter of fact, she seemed to be quizzing herself on her vocabulary. I had to cover my mouth with a pillow because I didn't want to disturb the obviously serious educational review going in the "zoo" (as Himself calls the pack-n-play).

It went something like this (picture Woodstock holding her binky in front of her as if she was talking to it):

Happy, happy, happy
Uh oh uh oh
No no no
Puppy (this would be a new word she started saying last night)
Pu-pa (purple)
Baeh (bear)
Happy, happy, happy
DADDY! (always said with an !)
No no no
Mamamamamamama
Hi
Uh oh

Followed by some random baby gibberish that makes it sound like she's having an actual conversation - if you could only understand what she was saying.

Then back to her list of words - liberally dosed with "happy, happy, happy" which seems to be her favorite word/phrase of late. Most likely because who expects a one-year-old to say "happy happy happy", which means she gets LOTS of attention for doing it, perpetuating the repitition.

She eventually drifted off to sleep.

I couldn't stop chuckling.

The Nightmare Before Labor Day

Saturday night, I had my worst panic attack in a long time.

It probably didn't help that my sister had showed me earlier that evening what she and the other nurses at work do when they're bored - they look up bookings for the county jail to see if they know anyone (sadly - both of us did, and I haven't lived in that county for 12 years!).

It probably didn't help that Woodstock's party, by everyone else's accounts successful, was one of the most miserable things through which I've subjected myself in months ... a virtual kaleidescope of sound and color and movement that threatened to send the whole world off kilter.

It probably didn't help that, with all my attempts to minimize traffic through the house on Saturday (thereby minmizing the impact on the rental carpet that is easy to stain and impossible to scrub), I have two HUGE spots that are going to require both time and money to remove.

It probably didn't help that there were SEVEN people spending the night Saturday night - guest room, nursery, living room, family room all had bodies in them and Woodstock was in our room. There was nowhere to de-program.

It probably didn't help that I woke up to Himself nearly smothering me (or so it felt) from a horrible dream, that I can only remember vaguely.

I started to sob hysterically. Himself, already perplexed by the fact that I would drastically spring to the other side of the bed if he happened to touch me, tried to calm me down.

The darkness was thick. I had to swallow any noise that came from the rising tide of panic engulfing me from the inside out, as Woodstock was sleeping soundly only feet away. I wanted to be held and yet the sensation of touch made me recoil. Every little thing, every little sensation, noise, sight - collectively was magnified into something greater. The whirring in my head was audible. The dread in the depth of my soul was palpable.

After I exhausted all of the emotional outburst of the attack, I fled to the bathroom (the only room not occupied by a sleeping body). I rescued my aromatheraphy bottles from the cavernous dungeous of the under-the-sink cabinet and ran a bath with a generous amount of lavendar bubbles. I ran the bath hot enough to sting my skin and require slow acclimation. I read about China's economy,disecting the panic attack to better understand the triggers and my reaction as I read about Chinese labor laws, factory conditions and rise to economic power.

I scrubbed my feet with an aromatherapy scrub. I lathered in lavendar. I inhaled deeply. I tried to visualize sleep. It worked so well that I napped for nearly an hour and woke to tepid water and wrinkled appendages.

I crept up the stairs for a glass of water, then back to my bedroom. Out came the fuzzy socks and medicated foot rub that takes the ache out of almost anything. Out came a fresh pillow and Himself's warm arms.

And I wondered how on earth to stop the crippling anxiety of the winter from creeping back in. Summer cannot last long enough.

Coughing, Crying and Cursing

Himself has a bad cough - I'm placing money on bronchitis (because, hey, someone always gets sick the week we're supposed to have company ... bronchitis, strep, tonsilitis, pneumonia ... and it is Himself's turn to be sick). It's bad enough he's actually going to the doctor. I can count the number of times he's been to the doctor on one hand in the 9.5 years I've known him, if that gives you any idea how lousy he must feel.

Saturday night, Himself hacked up a lung. In one valiant, irritated moment at some unearthly hour, I said, "Himself. We still have the prescription cough syrup from when you had bronchitis in VA, I found it in the move..." Himself, who won't take an Advil if the expiration date was yesterday, bounded out of bed. Every light in the basement went on as he searched for the cough syrup (just because I saw it in the move doesn't mean a) it has been unpacked or b) that I actually have any idea where it is). He came in four or five times to ask about its location. After the last time, I said, "Himself, it is either in the linen closet in the guest bathroom, under the sink of the master bathroom or buried in a box - in which case it will take you until the next move to find it at the rate we're unpacking," and buried my head under the pillow.

Last night, Himself took the cough syrup, in hopes we'd both have a peaceful (relatively) night sleep. He pawed at the sheets, tossed, turned, hacked, groaned, yanked on the sheets again and started the whole process again. And then ... he woke up hacking up a lung. Finally, he said he was going to sleep on the couch. Never one for couch-sleeping, I didn't even argue. At this rate, neither of us were sleeping.

I blissfully settled into quiet slumber, unable to hear Himself hacking away upstairs .... what felt like minutes (but was, in fact, a couple of hours) later, Woodstock wakes up with a full on yell. Nothing would console her. Exhausted, feeling drugged and wanting nothing more than to be in the horizontal postion, I brought her back to my bed.

How someone who isn't even 2.5' tall and weighs less than 20 pounds can take up the entire bed is beyond me, but at 11.5 months, Woodstock is already a bed hog. Every time I'd roll over, Woodstock would snuggle up against me. I'd wait until she was in a deep sleep, then roll over further, to no avail. Soon her fingers would be tangled in my hair and her feet would be in the small of my back.

The cursing started at oh-dark-hundred when Woodstock sat up, sunny smile on her face, said, "alldoh!" (All done) and leaned over to slobber on my face.

Today is not a good day to ask me if I like Mondays.

Happy Hangover

I am too old to be going to bed at 2 a.m., as evidenced by the fact that my brain cells feel scrambled and my eyelids hurt this morning.

Woodstock and I went to visit Oliver & Kristin to help fold paper ... I mean help unpack (I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who saves moving supplies, in dreaded anticipation of the next move).

We arrived home at the unearthly hour of 12:50 a.m., at which point I left Woodstock snoozining fitfully in the car while I lugged the trash can and recycling container to the curb.

Unfortunately, our cars took up the entire driveway, so I had to "drive" the recycling container on the grass. In an attempt to miss the sprinkler heads, I went in a wide arc through the thickest part of the grass. Hit a bump and disaster! Pieces of cardboard and recycling debris all over the lawn. It looked like a box factory had exploded. I refrained from throwing a tantrum (out loud) and kicking the recycling container as I picked it all up. I did contemplate just pulling the blanket out of the trunk, building a fort out of cardboard and camping on the lawn.

I finally arrived inside the house at around 1:15 a.m. and went to put Woodstock to bed for the second time (she had spent most of our visit sleeping in Oliver & Kristin's closet). Except - now my tired little kiddo was WIDE AWAKE. I decided I was too tired to deal with it, and snuggled with her in my bed. Or tried to. Woodstock discovered my hair and, sitting right next to me, began pulling my hair, combing her fingers through it and pulling it over my face - then giggling hysterically when my breathing made it poof up.

This was not condusive to sleeping for either party. I put my hair up in a pony tail. She then began poking at my eyes, sticking her fingers up my nose (she hasn't discovered that HER nose has holes yet - but she loves the ones in mine...) and chattering up a storm. I rolled over and put the pillow over my head (a very adult thing to do).

Eventually, I got her to bed - in her own bed - sometime after 2 a.m. Neither one of us woke up until 8 a.m. I have to leave for work at 8:30. It made for a lovely morning.

I'm already contemplating naps, and I've only been at work for 90 minutes.

It's going to be a long day.

The Great Bedroom Escape

Sleeping in a new place is always difficult for me. I don't sleep well as a general rule, but I sleep even worse if I am in someone else's bed or someone else's house. That includes the first few nights in a new home.

However, either the new house has good karma or I am suffering from sheer exhaustion over the drama of the last month, because I have slept blissfully well all three nights I have spent in the new house (new being a very relative term, of course, it's 30 years old).

Additionally, while Baby Girl has her bedroom on the same level as ours, she is back in the far corner - so we had to drag out the baby monitor. I have grown unaccustomed to hearing her cries so loudly over the monitor on the rare occasion she wakes up in the night.

Last night I went from a dead sleep to a frenzied stupor in 0.7 seconds when Baby Girl let out a series of wails from her room. It shocked me so completely, I forgot to just wait it out to see if she would rescue her binky and drift back to sleep, and I launched myself out of bed in a mess of bedding, flailing limbs and grunts. Completely disoriented, I stumbled around in the blackness of our bedroom until I found the door. I opened it, and walked out.

Strange, I thought. I would have thought there would be at least some ambient light from the window in the family room. I was unable to find the banister in the dark, which indicates the necessary place to turn toward Baby Girl's room. Instead, I ran into a wall.

Still in a state of heavy delirium, I stumbled back into the bedroom and fished for my cell phone to use the LED display and brighten up my path to Baby Girl's room a little.

Imagine my surprise when my cell phone illuminated the room just enough to reveal my "adventure" had been in our completely empty walk-in closet. The door out of the bedroom wasn't even on the same wall.

By the time I found my way out of the bedroom, Baby Girl had given up and gone back to sleep. Funny how easy it is to feel so dumb at 3 a.m., even when no one is around to witness it.

Yo Yo

The weekend was awful. I didn't sleep, I couldn't function and I snapped at everyone and everything.

I started to cry when Himself thought letting Baby Girl eat "krispies" (rice krispies) off a plate on the floor was a good idea - resulting in rice krispies all over the living room.

I forgot Father's Day and made DH get up with Baby Girl so I could bury my head in the pillow and forget about getting up and having to teach an incredibly spiritually draining lesson on Sunday.

Yesterday brought some calm, some of that giddy "I get to play with my kid" feeling I knew existed somewhere. I gleefully fled the office after my requisite 4 hours, not looking back.

Today, I'm back in a funk, realizing how much I hate being at The Factory. I hate the patronizing assurances of "that's so great you're working part-time this summer!" and the fact that I now sit at the front desk, completely isolated from the rest of the team. The fall from grace has been quick and furious, and I just want out - to the point I just sent my college-aged brother on an errand to his CEO (with whom he has a personal, non-work relationship) with my resume for a job they have - in a town 250 miles away from The Frontier.

For those of you who have heard me swear never to move any closer to my hometown, hold me back now. Remind me I'm insane.

If one more person tells me I should be happy to have more time to sleep, I think my sleep-deprived brain will trigger a crying episode. I wish I could figure out how to feel. I wish I could feel better about working part-time, but the expenses all stay the same - my commute, the cost of the sitter (to whom I now owe a $50 late fee because I forgot to pay her after last Friday's debacle) - all the same. I wish I could sleep at night. That part is no worse or no better, but it a decade of chronic sleep issues combined with anxiety and a new baby have meant it is a minor miracle if I sleep more than 2 or 3 hours at a time.

Forget yo-yo dieting, this yo-yo emotional stuff is for the birds.

Bye Bye Burrito

Baby Girl LOVES to cuddle, loves to be held and, until this week, has loved being swaddled tightly.

Everyone who has seen me put her down for a nap or at night asks, "Are you going to swaddle her until she is three?!"
When she was a newborn, we had a cream-colored swaddler. Himself started calling her the "little burrito," commenting that all we needed to do was add a little foil and it would make a perfect Halloween burrito costume (I thought he'd had too much Chipotle).

In truth, I was hoping she'd hit the "hating to be confined" stage soon, as she's almost too big for her swaddler, and one of these days the blankets I swaddle her in for naptime will be too small. But it seemed she loved the security of it. It certainly helped her sleep, and I thought I'd end up with a kid who wanted to be wrapped up until she graduated from pre-school.

But this past week she began fussing when we'd try to swaddle her at night. Not wanting to sacrifice sleep on a weeknight, I would wait until she was drowsy, then snuggle her in. She didn't protest when she was half asleep, drifting off into dreamland contentedly.

Last night, instead of putting her in a onesie and her swaddler, I put her in her blue pooh-bear footie pajamas (one of the only ones that fits her well enough to be safe sleeping in - everything else, including the sleep sack, is far too big for her). I read to her, rocked her for a few minutes and lay her down in her crib.

She opened her mouth, as usual, like a fish - waiting for her pacifier. She held onto her little stuffed bear. She played with her pacifier and jabbered to her bear, finally drifting off about 10 minutes later. I went in, removed the bear, and watched her tiny little self lay spread-eagled on the mattress.

She slept all night.

I went in this morning and she was curled up in a ball, her little bottom high in the air, her cheek smooshed up against her pacifier (that never goes back in her mouth after the first five second she lies down).

Bye, Bye Little Burrito.

ETA: I just put her down for her nap. No sleep. I finally went in an swaddled her - she was asleep in two minutes, flat. Maybe this isn't good-bye quite yet, but rather a transition of sorts, to keep myself from feeling that lingering bittersweet ache of celebrating a child growing up, while mourning all that will never be again.

Sleep is Entirely Overrated...

...Or at least that's what I'm telling myself these days.

For the past several days, I have awakened on the half hour every hour after midnight. No matter what I do prior to going to bed, I can't seem to stay asleep for more than an hour at a time.

Last night was no different. Rather, maybe it was - because I just couldn't sleep, period.

First it was Baby Girl - who has already commenced to get me to lie in bed and worry. Last night it was about her sluggish, sporadically-spaced movements (or lack of them). I even sent Himself out to buy Orange Juice at oh-dark-thirty (yes, on a Sunday), to kick-start her into hyperactive mode. (Side note: this is the FIRST time the entire pregancy where I have sent Himself to buy ANYTHING that I "must have now," so he has got off rather easily).

Himself returned with the OJ, and I retired with a book (on my left side, of course). Baby Girl, who had been drugged the night before with a Tylenol PM and worn out due to my excessive nesting, was having nothing of it. She stubbornly refused to do anything more than make her presence known with a few hiccups and two well-placed, painful kicks in the ribs.

Second, I could not get comfortable, no matter how many pillows, body parts belonging to Himself or new positions I tried. It didn't help matters when Himself, in a stupor, rolled over almost on top of me, prompting me to a state of full alert in under two seconds, at which point I muttered, "You're squishing the baby." Himself muttered something about me taking up all the bed, rolled back over and went back to sleep.

I tossed and turned (as well as one can toss and turn when feeling like a beached whale). About 3:30 a.m., I got up. I thought I should put the OJ in the fridge. Unfortunately, I had failed to put the lid on tight. I got to the end of the bed before disaster struck, dispensing OJ onto the carpet. I groaned. I got some water and a beach towel (the only thing I could find with no lights) and sat on the floor, attempting to mop up the sticky wet stain I couldn't even see. Himself slept grandly on. Finally, after the towel would absorb no more, I rattled around the Hobbit Hole, trying to decide what to do.

The darn fans made such a racket, I wanted to scream. The living room, bathroom and kitchen were out of the question. There is no comfortable furniture in Baby Girl's room (well, the rocker is comfortable, but it is full of books that need shelving) or the den, so reading was out. Finally, I settled on scrapbooking. I had set up shop yesterday afternoon when Himself and I were hiding out from the fans, so I switched on the lamp and began a two-hour scrapbooking session.

At 5:30, I decided I should try and get some sleep. I vetoed any thoughts of getting up at 6 a.m. to exercise, so I gleefully shut off the alarm and tried to sleep. Himself wiggled over to hold me. Baby Girl decided that now was a good time to reassure Mom that she was indeed alive and well in her cramped quarters. For a minute, the fans sounded a little like over zealous white noise.

I slept for an hour and ten minutes. A record!