Must Tune In

I know that pain, stress and sickness has a mysterious ability to manifest in the body...even randomly, a little bizarrely. Yesterday, I suddenly got a searing shoulder pain which felt like somebody had walloped me with a sledgehammer.

I've been stressing about things:

•  the baby's high lead test results (old house renovation project bites back)
•  the heat we'd been having
•  my tyrannical to-do list
•  parenting my oldest who constantly tests my limits and my beliefs in my capabilities
•  asserting myself healthily in my marriage
• not painting as much as I'd like
• planning the rest of the summer stuff we mean to enjoy
• my need for connection with friends + my desperation for space and time alone
• keeping up on the summer reading program at the library
• the chaos of organizing and culling through our basement
• the baby's constant pain from teething all his molars at once
• my sister's high-risk pregnancy scares
• etc.

You know, that sort of thing. 

Anyhow...I had a little insomnia (a once in a lifetime thing for me) during the heat wave, and then the baby kept waking up and the big boys went through a week of waking a lot and then I stayed up late by myself to catch up projects and blow off steam.....and then suddenly....

POW. My shoulder went out. 

This morning on the way home from taking A to the train station I was a genuine mess. With a cup of coffee in my system, only two hours after waking up, I was nauseous, impossibly grouchy, aching and so tired I was falling asleep at the wheel on the 10 minute drive back to the house. It turned out the kids dentist appointment was actually tomorrow and the whole day had no commitments. In the driveway, I sat there with my head on the steering wheel and I had an epiphany. I needed rest and space and recuperation and I needed it now. Pretty genius, eh? I know it sounds obvious but it seemed like a real breakthrough in the moment. :)

I set the boys up with a nest of pillows and blankets and a steady stream of gentle Kipper The Dog programming on the floor next to my bed, closed the bedroom door behind all of us to reinforce the cocooning plan and curled up to nurse Pom and myself to sleep. 

I woke up in the afternoon. 

The soft British accents from the boys show in the background, Pom snoring next to me and the quilt all coiled around my jeans and a smile on my face.  I feel so much more crinkly and alive. I am damp wiping down all the floors where there might be paint chip dust, resolving to bathe the baby more regularly, scheduling follow-up blood testing, reading some boosting advice about personal boundaries and loving assertiveness, praying for my sister, scheduling dates with myself and with friends into the calendar, and making piles excess to give away and store. The world will be okay. I will be okay. Sometimes you just have to take a hint when God hits you in the shoulder with a sledgehammer because tapping you on the shoulder didn't seem to really get through. 

Note to Self:  "Must tune in."

Sweet Sleep

Mattresses are important, people! I had the best night of sleep last night that I have had in forever: dreamless and smooth, rippling on and on, with only a few hip aching moments of dim awareness as I rolled over in the night. I usually sleep pretty well during pregnancy, I'm just lucky like that, or chilled out like that or desperate like that or something. But this pregnancy has been different...our mattress had done its most valiant but there are limits. It had been with us through a decade of marriage and who  knows how many years with another family before us. I honestly think our mattress was from the 60's or 70's. This year it reached astounding heights of absurdity. A and I had begun to joke about going sleep in the soup bowl every night but truthfully it was more like sleeping in a real life game of Chutes and Ladders. There springs poking up, gooshy holes, hard ridges, and broken plastic handles sticking out in gouge-ready positions.

Thankfully, oh so thankfully....I report to you that we are now the proud owners of a new to us, 2 year old mattress that feels like heaven. We lay in bed laughing this morning about the strangeness of sleeping on such a nice bed in our own room, we felt like we were at a hotel! So silly!

Before we carted our old lump-fest of a previous bed to the dump I whipped out a pair of scissors and zipped off the beautiful fabric that covered the box springs. I've been eying it for years and knew even when we first got it that I would someday strip that cloth off for another use. The bonus of ancient mattress sets is the psychedelic, vintage fabric that they come wrapped in. What do you think? Curtains in the bathroom or the kitchen or something more creative?

Peace Hunting

So, we're to the manic part of December. The part when I am counting down the hours I have left to get ready and saying over and over and over..."If nothing more gets done, it's okay. If nothing more gets done, it's okay. If nothing more gets done, it's okay. If nothing more gets done, it's okay. If nothing more gets done, it's okay. If nothing more gets done, it's okay. If nothing more gets done, it's okay."

Traveling is a lot of  pressure, celebrations are a lot of pressure, big multi-point execution plans are a huge amount of pressure. Especially when you aren't really a big picture person. I get all bogged down in the four thousand details I dreamed up...the pages and pages of recipes for cookies I want to make, the many little ideas I have for meaningful family traditions, the lists of ideas for gifts I dreamed up, the swathes of thoughts on fun games for kids in the car and what to wear on Christmas day, and all those cards that I still haven't mailed. *pant pant pant*

Am trying to let go...and find moments, swathes even, of peace wherever I can. If I don't, I find that I suddenly hate all those brilliant ideas I had. I want to enjoy all the activity and yet not drown in doing instead of being. This week I'm not going out much, we're going to just be here at home, and we're spending time working on making handmade gifts, wrapping things and reading extra stories.  We're busy, we're on a Peace Hunt.

Here's to taking a little extra time to think, sip, digest and close our eyes and let the pressure slip off. The idea that it's all on us is a complete illusion. Nothing rests on any one person but the imperative to live meaningfully, so, "Peace on Earth ya'll...and goodwill toward all mankind." That's what it's about.

You Can Lead A Kid To His Carpet Square.....

So, basically, what I wanna post about tonight is...how do you make kids sleep? And yeah, yeah, I know that whole thing about leading a horse to water but really. When we're talking about kids, who never seem to want to do the things they need, and when we're sure they still need it...how do make it happen?

Specifics. Dee doesn't like to sleep. Honestly, neither of the two older boys do. Ru tries to stay awake as much possible, but he's slightly more responsive to verbal reprimand. Basically, they both try to squirrel around instead of sleep (at naptime and night), but Ru will listen when I finally break down and give them a good stern scolding. My little Dee on the other hand will not sleep. Until he wears himself out.

At naptime, he will talk and play and sing and shout and walk his feet up the wall and toss his pillow around and anything else he can think of without actually getting out of his bed and only fall asleep after an hour or more of messing around. The other way to get him to go to sleep is for me to sit there in his bedroom and say over and over "No talking. Go to sleep." *wiggle wiggle wiggle* "No playing, lie down and go to sleep." *wiggle wiggle wiggle* "Close your eyes and stop singing, its time to sleep." etc.etc.etc. ad nauseum

I had been doing that, but I'm wearing out. This takes a lot of patience and also a lot of time out of my day since it takes about a half an hour of reminders till he finally goes to sleep.

At bedtime, forget it. The boys both fuss and cry and ask for one more drink of water FOREVER...we just go to bed and ignore them at this point. I hate it but, we have no idea how to teach them to go to sleep.

I thought that if I sat with them at naptime and used those verbal instructions: "Close your eyes. Lie down. Go to sleep. This is a time for rest...etc." They would start to do it without being told and I could give fewer and fewer reminders and basically pull out and see them go down easily after a fashion. No dice. Part of what is wearing me out is that there seems to be virtually no improvement.

You might say, "Maybe he doesn't need to nap anymore?"

I can't imagine that being true. By dinner time with no nap he is a freaking basketcase....out of his mind with bad behavior and over-emotionality, and he's also only two.

So, yeah...whaddya got? How do you all make kids sleep?

Time for a Weekend, Right About Now....

Have been looking at real estate listings so long that all the MLS numbers drift together and I can't remember whether a colonial or a cape cod traditionally has dormers or if Zillow or Bing has better aerial shots of neighborhoods. Am quite dizzy with it all.

I am hormonal. I hate it but, folks, its the honest truth. I am crying about silly things (twice this morning!), panicking constantly about how messy and disorganized the house feels and freaking the hey out about feeling generally unsettled. I am normally quite happy to be a rolling stone, play up my spontaneity and make lemonade with whatever life is handing up at the moment. No plan? No problem. We'll figure something out.

*looking slightly nervously* Don't tell anybody but, I really want a secure, stable plan for the future, and I want it somewhat desperately at the moment. There is this ticking, buzzing little guy with a twitch at the control center in the back of my brain lately who keeps shrieking "WHAT ARE WE DOING???? ARGH!!!!!! RUN AWAY!!!! MUST HAVE SECURITY!!!!" He's terribly helpful.

But, yes...I'm trying to be good-natured about the fact that we currently don't know what we're doing about:

• A's work situation
• Buying a house
• Buying a car
• Staying in the area
• Where in the world we'll put the baby's things

Etc. etc. I know that in real life there is always this real element of uncertainty....even if we think we know our plans...its an illusion...random change happens to all of us, however secure we think we are. That said, my pregnant, hormone riddled brain wants to at least attempt stability for the next few months. This is a stressful time for me to be trying to wing it.

But, honestly...even though I'm bursting into tears every few minutes and feeling basically always on the edge of minor panic...things are pretty okay. Spring is coming. The baby is healthy. I'm feeling pretty good. We are all healthy. And there aren't any big bad things on the horizon that we can see at the moment. Must be a good time for a weekend, eh? Happy R n' R to all of you.....