random thoughts: sleeping

I wonder if the Proverbs 31 mother/wife/business owner extraordinaire ever had trouble sleeping, or if she was just so exhausted at the end of every day that she fell into a coma for 6 hours a night? sigh...

happy older mother's day (video)

DH actually found this and showed it to me. It gave me a warm grin. Please enjoy.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50146662n

amazing mountains

Tuesday evening, our water heater went out.  Thankfully, we didn’t realize this until after we gave our son a bath (granted, it wasn’t quite as warm as usual, but he survived).

That evening I took a sponge bath with water heated on the stove. The next evening, I took a shower at our recreation center. Thursday, I didn’t bother. I was determined to get the thing replaced that day.

Thursday morning, I came home after dropping off the boy at daycare to find DH on the floor with a pile of rags. Turns out the broken water heater let loose a bunch of water which leaked into the hallway, into our son’s room, into the dining area, and even into the drywall in the spare bathroom. Instead of saying anything, I opened my mouth and started crying into my hands.

You see, as we discovered shortly after replacing this floor not two years ago, the cheap crap we bought from the enthusiastic and uninformative sales person is part particle board underneath. Read: moisture travels fast if it gets underneath. It got underneath and crept like the plague across our floor. Our floor is now ruined. The entire thing (hallway, dining/living room) has to be replaced.

The contractor, whom we adore because he’s honest and straightforward (and unfortunately didn't know before buying this floor), stopped by to assess the damage and outline next steps. The boards will be removed, the concrete floor will be sanitized to prevent mold, and dryers will be set up to dry the surface before the new floor can be installed. Depending on how many days it takes the floor to dry and how long it takes to get the new flooring in, this whole process could take weeks. WEEKS. In the meantime, the insurance adjuster is coming over today to see if he can agree with the contractor on what needs to be done. I’m just praying for God’s providence, which I’ve already seen in the man from our church who was able to come and install a new water heater yesterday (just in time for us to shower and wash a LOT of dishes before bed).

I wouldn’t care so much about the timeline except for the vision of this little red-headed boy crawling around on cement surrounded by dryers. For days. Maybe longer. Will we need to stay at my mom’s for part of this disaster? Maybe. Who knows.

Funny how life’s little hurdles become giant mountains when you’re trying to keep things sane for the sake of a little one.

This morning, I walked into my son’s room to get him up (I could hear him babbling in there). He saw me, sat up, and smiled big as the moon like he does every morning. We talked about whether he slept well as I changed him, handed him his toothbrush, and got him ready for daycare. I gave him his milk, brushed his hair, and started dinner in the slow cooker. It's been a good morning after a really hard week.

Every hardship is worth it. Motherhood is completely amazing even when I’m scaling mountains.

random thoughts: working rhythms

Last week I had almost nothing to do at work, and it was horrible. Today I have tons of work to do, but I'm surfing the Web looking for meaningless pieces of information about nothing in particular, procrastinating against the very thing I was dying to have a few days ago. Apparently I'm lazy when I am busy. That's my working rhythm.

random thoughts: juggling it all

Never mind juggling it all: I now consider it a success if I’m able to stay on top of meals and laundry – the rest can kiss my bottom.

toughing it out

“Overall, I think this was a pretty successful day,” my mom said. It was Monday, which is the weekday I have chosen to stay home with my son and give him one less day in daycare. She came over early that morning, and we shared some coffee cake and coffee before heading to a hardware store. After the store we headed to her place, and my son took a 1.5-hour nap. While he was sleeping, we poked around in her backyard, and I ended up sawing off a couple sections of tree roots that were pushing up patio bricks. Actually, I was kind of surprised I could do it so easily – proof that picking up a 25-pound kiddo about 342 times a day really bulks up arm strength.  After his nap and lunch, we stopped at the grocery store and then back to my place. She left to take care of some other business. And it was me and the boy until DH got home.

I’m not sure why, but Mondays have become incredibly exhausting for me. Maybe it’s picking him up so often (since he’s not walking yet). Maybe it’s managing him through the things-he-should-stay-out of, irregular teething pain fits, trips to the store or wherever else I can take him to get out of the house, fixing dinner, planning dinner, changing diapers while trying to keep him from jumping off the changing table… On second thought, it’s becoming clear to me why I’m so tired by 6:00 Monday evening.

I must be complaining about this a lot, because DH is starting to suggest that I consider going back to work Mondays and extending our son’s daycare to five days a week. I have a pang of guilt mixed with determination whenever he suggests it, though: guilt because I know how important it is for my son to have more time with us at such an early age; determination because… well, I guess I’m determined to tough it out.

I’m beginning to wonder if I can survive my own determination. It’s an odd type of tiredness I feel, like there’s not enough coffee in the world in the morning, not enough wine in the evening (though I keep that in check, too), and I can’t get to bed early enough. It makes me fully aware of my midlife status, as much as I resent the implication that somehow it’s okay to feel older and therefore weaker. A quick look at the bags under my eyes only confirms the obvious. I’m just not as physically resilient as I once was, and taking care of myself is more critical to my well-being and my ability to handle life’s demands.

I checked in with my best girlfriend, and she assures me that things will calm down when he gets a bit older – say, four. By that time, my son will be done with the odd napping and the teething and at least some of the tantrums (not to mention being potty-trained). I’ll probably be more intellectually tired then, but that seems more doable. In the meantime, I guess yoga is my second best friend. I’m in it for the long haul.

what to do when your child is crying

Run through the mental list: Diaper? No. Hungry? No. Teething? Possibly. Randomly cranky with no foreseeable resolution? Getting warmer.

Distract by walking outside.

Fix a Manhattan.

Sing a nursery rhyme.

Put the child down so he can bang his fists on the floor and get it out of his system.

Stare at him in disbelief.

Stare at your partner in disbelief.

Stare at your Manhattan in disbelief.

Cuddle the child. Maybe he’s hurt or in pain.

Hear your child scream all the louder because you accidentally squeezed him a little too hard.

Sit down with him.

Stand up with him.

Hand him a cracker. Peace in the universe at last.