sleep

Sleep cooking

by mayberry on November 16, 2010

This happens to me alllll the time. As I am dropping off to sleep, I think of something I really, really want to blog about. A stupendous, monumentous idea. I draft practically the whole thing in my head. I consider getting up to write it down, but I am too close to sleep. Anyway, this is like a fully formed post. I will totally, totally remember it in the morning!

And of course, you know that come morning, it’s all gone. Goodbye, prizewinning, world-changing post.

This morning, however, I remembered. I remembered that the thing I really wanted to post about, that everyone would read and love and Stumble and tweet. The topic was a recipe that I had invented, something so good that my daughter and I were almost coming to blows over who would get to eat it.

Are you ready for the recipe?

Cottage cheese with cinnamon and vanilla.

I hate cottage cheese!

{ 8 comments }

Add an hour, add a day

by mayberry on November 7, 2010

Yesterday I was supposed to go on a day trip with an organization for which I volunteer. I’d been gone overnight a week earlier, I had a really tedious, time-consuming project to finish this past week, and I have another short trip planned for the end of this week. The thought of being gone for half the weekend was making me queasy, possibly even migrainey, so I begged off. I spent most of Saturday congratulating myself for this decision.

First, though, it was the usual skating+Starbucks with Jo. The barista has mastered three-fifths of our order by now and we are confident that she will get the whole thing down soon. Jo brought home three sample-size paper cups and then set up a Starbucks in her room for her American Girl doll. She used a small wooden chair for a table, two round dollhouse rugs for plates, carefully ripped tissues for napkins, and two toy megaphones (wide end up) for chairs.

Then we attacked the Winter Stuff Drawer. We have a set of huge (about 3′ deep by 4′ wide) built-in drawers in our downstairs hall. The bottom one is full of all our scarves, hats, gloves, mittens, earmuffs, and so forth, plus the odd baseball cap and summer sun hat. We took everything out and started over, getting rid of all the mateless mittens and outgrown hats. We sorted everything by wearer and upgraded our system of inside-the-drawer boxes and bins. When we were done it was a Thing of Beauty. And it better stay that way.

In the afternoon I actually sat and watched a football game for the first time this season (I used to plan my entire weekends around “College Football Gameday”) and got through some of my big backlog of magazines. (I’m coming for you next, Google Reader.)

And then! This morning I used my extra hour to run! This is pretty much unprecedented. All you mamas of little kids: there is hope. I slept 8 hours, worked out, showered, and dressed well before 9 a.m. Another thing of beauty. Maybe I’ll do it again next fall!

Edited to add photo of The Drawer for Kara:

It’s not as good as a locker area or mud-room, but it does house all our winter gear (for the whole family) except coats, snowpants, and boots. The drawers above hold wrapping paper/ribbons; DVDs; and CDs. ALL OF THEM. And then there is a cupboard above with shelves, which holds board games, Wii accessories, some cookbooks and magazines, and some art supplies.

Over on the Reviews tab: a sweeps where you can win books for a school library.

{ 3 comments }

Just another night in paradise

by mayberry on February 10, 2010

(or, just another mommyblog post)

10:47 p.m.: Decide I’ve done enough even though project is not complete; sleep more important.

11:03 p.m.: Actually shut down computer. 16 minutes: Possibly a record.

11:04 p.m.: Contemplate starting load of laundry. Determine that is crazy talk.

11:05 p.m.: Arrive upstairs to discover child in my bed. Haul 50 lbs. of resistant kid across hall to designated sleeping environment.

11:07 – 11:21 p.m.: Brush, floss, moisturize, NY Times Sunday Magazine.

11:22 p.m.: Bed.

11:27 p.m.: Suspicious retching sound. Did dog just barf? Get up to check.

11:28 p.m.: Nope.

11:31 p.m.: Enter child (35-lb version), stage left.

11:32 – 11:41 p.m. Impassioned debate with self. Return child to bed (requires getting out of bed) or defer to apathy? Child’s knees pinning my right arm against my body; child’s flannely arm thrown across my throat.

11:42 p.m.: Dude, talking in your sleep = automatic eviction.

11: 47 p.m.: Back in bed, sans child.

12:01 a.m.: Crying. Yeah, I heard it even before my husband elbowed me in the back.

12:01 – 12:17 a.m.: Impassioned debate with self. Wait one or both of them out? Get out of bed (definitely faster)?

12:18 a.m.: Guess which one I picked. It was the “please *whimper* come here *whimper* Moooommmmmmy” that finally got to me.

12:31 a.m. Back in bed. Notice it is now nearly two hours after I decided I should go to bed “early.”

P.S. I know exactly why this happened. The night before, I said, out loud, that bedtime had “gotten much better for us recently.” Kiss. of. death.

{ 11 comments }

Do. not. disturb.

by mayberry on June 29, 2009

If there is one thing you can do to really, really make me mad, that is interfere with my sleep. That includes you, offspring over the age of two (she says, generously). What I would like is some kind of complete sensory deprivation chamber to hide in between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. nightly. It would be temperature controlled, soundproof, and dark, and would of course contain my beloved Tempur-pedic pillow. I suppose it would have to have some kind of override switch for emergencies, but woe betide the person who misused it.

After having my slumber disrupted for the past eight years by pregnancy, nursing, babies, kids, dogs, and spouses, I have a huge chip of entitlement on my shoulder. I feel that I am owed a good night’s sleep every single evening for the rest of my life. I don’t think that is unreasonable. Unfortunately, those who share my home and my bed don’t seem to understand this. Doors are left wide open; dog collar tags jingle mercilessly; clothes are retrieved, forgotten, retrieved again; children stop by to mention that they went for a walk and saw a “golden yellow” snake; floorboards squeak and creak. And I lay in bed seething (not very conducive to sleep either).

My birthday is next week. You know what to get me.

{ 15 comments }

Will you still need me, will you still feed me?

by mayberry on November 17, 2008

Last night I made my son two reckless promises: That he would not die until he is a hundred years old, and that when he did, I’d still be with him.

We were listening to a Classical Kids CD called Mr. Bach Comes to Call, in which the ghost of Johann S. appears to a little girl who is begrudgingly practicing the piano. She is soon won over by the jolly old man and his tales of a busy, happy, music-filled life. At the end of the disc Bach mentions a composition that he was unable to finish, because “everyone has to die sometime.”

We’ve played this CD probably a hundred times, but last night Opie stopped to think about that line. His face grew fearful. His voice quivered as he asked if that meant he would die. “Yes,” I told him, but not for a very very very long time, when he was a very very very old man. “How old?” he pressed, and that’s when I told him a hundred years (the biggest number I thought he could grasp–as it turns out, he didn’t, and I had to count almost all the way from 3 to 100 to show just how far that was).

Still he wasn’t satisfied, and his voice continued to teeter on the brink of tears. “But when I die, you won’t be there.”

“I will,” I said, tears sliding down my own cheeks. “I will always be with you.” Because I will, I thought. In Heaven, in memory, in some little sliver of DNA, one way or another. Unwilling and unable to explain all that, I defaulted to the simple lie. And then I perpetuated it by promising that Daddy would be there too, and Jo, and even our dog.

I know I’ll break a lot of the promises I make my children, intentionally and not. I just wasn’t quite prepared to discuss one of the universe’s greatest unknowns right there in the dark, at 9 p.m. after a full day of solo parenting. (And you better believe I was the one who stayed awake staring at the ceiling when it was my turn to go to bed.)

{ 26 comments }

Sleep is for suckers!

by mayberry on September 8, 2008

1. My review of mom-blog-thology Sleep Is for the Weak is up today at The Full Mommy.

2. Speaking of sleep, my son is trying to kill me. No matter what we try, it takes an hour to put him to bed. An hour of hands-on shushing, corraling, returning-to-bed time. It just seems to take him that hour to wind down enough to fall asleep. Short of drugs (which believe me I have contemplated), what else can we do?

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Bedtime non sequiturs

by mayberry on June 30, 2008

Mommy! Where do rabbits live?
My favorite large construction machine: is a forklift.
Later can we go to the airport?
Mommy! Did you know, that in Star Wars, Luke Skywalker’s uncle’s name is Owen?
My fire truck is not sleeping.

And that’s just one night’s worth.

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Rosy-fingered haiku

by mayberry on October 26, 2007

Small boy up at dawn
Declares “Mommy, it’s oh-clock!”
Abandon all hope

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Why don’t you just let him cry?

by mayberry on July 6, 2007

How about because I’m not a heartless bitch? How about because he’s a tiny baby and he needs me? How about because I didn’t sign up for the shortcut route to motherhood, aka “how to ignore your infant’s needs for your own convenience”? How about because he’s hungry, or scared, or lonely, or cold, and he doesn’t know how to talk? I’m his mom. I think I know him a little better than you do.

Spare me the “he’ll never learn to fall asleep on his own” crap until my kid is bigger than a loaf of bread, OK? Unless you’re right here under my roof, all night, every night, figuring out that this cry means “I’m starving” and that cry means “Don’t leave me,” that he burps best if you hold him like this and that he likes the blue blanket best, then keep your helpful hints to yourself.

You asked me how he was sleeping, I told you, now I wish I’d kept my trap shut. I didn’t ask for advice. A little sympathy would have been OK. A remark that I could just “give him a bottle” would not. My kid is not waking up at night because he is breastfed. He is waking up because he is a little baby. Do you actually think I would stop nursing because of your brilliant suggestion? Breastmilk is the best food I can give him, and I’m not going to stop just because you think a can of formula is magically going to zonk him out for 12 solid hours a night. It worked for you? Fine, keep on believing that tired old myth. I’ll stick with what I know my kid needs–whether you like it or not.

I wish I could have just handed them this instead. Today’s Parent Bloggers Network Blog Blast posed the question: What’s the most annoying question you were asked as a new mom, or while you were pregnant? Post yours–and the snarkiest answer you can muster–and submit it to PBN. There are prizes involved (beyond the satisfaction of telling someone off). Get all the details.

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A kid-free weekend: Let me count the ways

by mayberry on June 25, 2007

2: hours we traveled out of our way (but at least the forest/lake scenery was prettier than the endless farms that we should have been passing, had we not missed our turn)

1: sign I saw that caused me to regret not bringing my camera (a gas station called, I SWEAR, the “Kum&Go”). Oh good, a guy named Dave did take a picture.

1: unnecessary showers I took just because I could

8: times my son threw up while we were gone

3½: hours my dad spent on the floor keeping the vomitous boy company

180: extra minutes of television Jo watched while Grandma and Grandpa were cleaning up vomit

200: sit-ups my mother claimed to do while keeping vigil over napping, sick child

2: family historical sites we passed (Eau Galle, and my grandmother’s hometown – I have her class ring from the local high school, class of ’26)

40+: years that my grandmother’s former boss, an insurance executive who lived in the city which we visited, sent her a box of candy at Christmas

7: tapas dishes we tried, + 1 to-die-for order of blackberry-goat cheese empanadas with vanilla-thyme ice cream

2: things from home I missed (my Tempur-Pedic pillow and my electric toothbrush)

2: kids (+1 dog) from home I didn’t really miss, except I felt bad about the barfing

2: presents I bought for myself (pants, book)

4: presents I bought for the kids (fire-truck flashlight, kiddie gardening set, sunflower seeds, nasturtium seeds)

6: sections of the previous Sunday’s New York Times I brought with me

6: sections of the previous Sunday’s New York Times I actually read

P.S. Thank you all for the nice comments about our backyard. Of course you’re all invited for a cold drink (beer, wine, mojito, milk, take your pick) anytime you’re in Mayberry!

Also, I should say that Opie is fine. The throwing-up lasted a few hours, and then (apparently) he ate like a horse for the rest of the day.

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