sleep

Top 5 Reasons Why I Haven’t Blogged Recently

~ theantelopediaries ~ 2 Comments

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Well, it has been over a month since my last post, and to be truthful the last week or so I’ve been wondering how low I can go.  You know, the feeling you get when you’re already in the mud and you want to wallow in it.  I write because my insides want it, so why don’t I?  I could write reasons, but I’m afraid they’ll be excuses.  Now I realize they really are reasons.

So here are the top five reasons why I haven’t posted in almost a month.

  1.  I don’t get enough sleep.  “Blah blah blah don’t we all.”  Well, I’ve been spoiled since quitting the “labor force.”  I used to blog in the evenings after Polina went to sleep around 8:30.  More recently, perhaps because of the longer days, she has been going to sleep at 10.  10!  I’ll be honest- that’s crazy for me.  I need time to unwind and by then I’m falling asleep myself.  So either I fight through the somnolence and wake up groggy and resentful the next morning or… I go to sleep.  I tried both options, most recently the latter and even IT backfired on me.  In the middle of the night, Polina’s calls for me turn to loud cries if I don’t go to her, so I go to console her and fall asleep next to her myself.  I tend to turn in my sleep, which wakes her up, so she wakes me up, so I have to console her again before trying to go back to sleep myself (which doesn’t come as easily as it used to).  Of course I need to turn again or I wake up lying uncomfortably, so Polina wakes up and on it goes.  Long story short, I’m awakened numerous times at  night, as is Polina, which makes both of us a bit short-tempered during the day.  This sleeping arrangement isn’t working for me, but we have no other option until Polina’s room is ready, and right now we’re in the sanding phase.  My husband is kind enough to supervise Polina in the morning as he gets ready for work so I can get some shut eye.  I would function a lot worse without it.
  2. Polina doesn’t nap consistently at the same time.  To be honest, she was never a consistent napper, but more recently, sometimes she would barely nap.  In the winter, this meant she would go to sleep earlier.  In the summer, it often hasn’t worked that way.  Longer work hours, less time to myself.  Needless to say, it has been difficult.
  3. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the crap I have to learn.  Posting something online isn’t too difficult, but fiddling with appearance or learning about seo and other stuff that would help get your blog out there is time-consuming, at least for me, because I tend to be thorough.  In the end, I realized that I write because my soul feels better after I do.  Any audience I get is more for my ego than my soul.
  4. My husband is not supportive of me blogging when there is so much to do.  First, dinner has to be ready when he gets home.  I’m getting a lot better at it, but I didn’t enter this relationship knowing how to cook.  It takes time to find recipes, get ingredients (let me tell you, sometimes you just want to go to the store by yourself) and then follow directions for cooking with a toddler that also wants your attention.  My hat goes off to people that can do it consistently.  I realized that I only need to cook four meals a week and the rest of the days can be leftovers.  This week I got all my meals made.  I’m getting better at it, but sometimes it is a challenge.  Second, we have a house that has projects involving sanding, painting, cutting and moving.  I told my husband I can’t keep an eye on Polina for many of these projects, so that means we take turns working on weekends.  Blogging, for him, is not a priority.
  5. Lethargy has set in.  I’ve blamed my husband and child, now let me blame myself.  The last few weeks I have been wallowing in the mud that is lethargy.  When I was younger, I could stay up till 2 am working.  I can’t do that anymore.  Bitterness sets in for a number of reasons when I think about the past, things I perceive as unfair, so I don’t want to push myself and lethargy sets in.  Eventually I reach a nadir and that propels me to get off my butt and move, like right now.  Polina is napping and instead of doing dishes, cleaning the bathrooms, or picking toys off the floor, I am blogging with gratitude in my heart.

When a Mother’s Love Isn’t Enough

~ theantelopediaries

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The last week or so Polina has been having a hard time emotionally.  A really hard time.  She starts screaming at the slightest annoyance.  It could be something as simple as me putting a toy in a place she does not want or my husband correcting her placement of a puzzle piece.  Sometimes I don’t even know why she’s screaming.  It has been really irritating, to say the least.

Today, when I returned from a training in time to put her to bed, she was very happy to see me.  Then when it was time to get ready for bed, another side came out. She screamed because I took off her Hello Kitty shirt to put on a warmer shirt.  (We are still sleeping in layers and using electric blankets out here in April.)  I kept telling her that she can wear her Hello Kitty shirt over the warmer shirt, but either she didn’t understand or she didn’t believe me.  (This is a shirt Polina fell in love with at my neighbor’s garage sale last week and which she did not take off for the next four days.  I hid it in the laundry basket and finally washed it today.  As soon as it came out of the dryer, Polina put it on.)

Polina was inconsolable.  She kicked.  She screamed.  She reached for her desired Hello Kitty shirt and tried to pull it over her head.  She refused me putting on a sweat shirt.  She is one strong, willful, determined kid.

Perhaps I would have acquiesced to her demands if she didn’t already have a runny nose the past two weeks, probably from me acquiescing to her demands to run barefoot around the house. I don’t know how other people are affected by a child’s screaming, but Polina’s screams tear at my insides.  It is difficult to bear.  My mother would have left her alone to cry it out.  Peter’s mother would have spanked her a long time ago.  Neither one of these is appealing to me.

It occurred to me that there is a third way, and that is to surround her with love until she calms down.

I tried to do that.  She pushed me away.  She kept screaming.  I was at my wit’s end.  Love and irritability are not compatible.

“Please stop,”  I said.

She gave me the sign for “owie,” tapping her head with her fist.

“Where is the owie?” I asked. She pointed to me.  I was giving her an owie because I took off her Hello Kitty shirt.  Or maybe it was because I was telling her to stop.

This was ridiculous.  My child has a runny nose and I wasn’t going to let her sleep in a short sleeved shirt. I finally got her other arm into the warmer shirt, pulled out the Hello Kitty shirt and put it on.

And just like that, she stopped crying.

She got what she wanted.

“Night night,” she said calmly.  If it wasn’t for her red face and the beads of tears under her eyes you wouldn’t have known that she just had a fit.

I lay down next to her as she fell asleep.

“I love you,” I said.

Polina pointed to the ceiling and said something in her own language.

“I love you,” I said again, and kissed her head three times, a nightly ritual, and put her hand in mine.

A few minutes later, she fell asleep. I don’t know how much love it takes to quiet someone.  In the end it was the Hello Kitty shirt that quieted her down.  But I hope one day, she’ll know, and it will be enough.

Sleep (Dis)Continued

~ theantelopediaries

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I’ve been feeling like a slug lately. I don’t know if it’s the lack of sleep from my child waking me up during the night, or the heat from the sunshine, which has been appearing a lot lately, but I feel worn out, spent.

My husband tells me to sleep when my baby sleeps, which begs the question- when do I get to do what I want to do? Only when she is unconscious can I go back to doing what I was doing when I was single… sort of. So I’m writing this blog while my daughter is asleep. I can feel the fatigue weighing in. I’m going to have to keep it short so I can nap and be ready for second shift.

I barely made it to Bodyflow today, which, if you don’t know, is an exercise routine that combines yoga, tai chi, and pilates. I was twenty minutes late for an hour class. My antelope is good for about an hour in the morning, then the fussiness begins. I can get a few minutes for myself to get ready by putting her in a bouncer, or a few minutes by putting her in her table chair for breakfast, but after that, it’s waaa, waaa, waaa until I pick her up.

I hate putting her down and letting her cry. That’s why it takes so long in the morning for me to get ready. I occupy her until she doesn’t cry, mostly, and then I take a shower and get dressed. Getting ready means putting her on my bed while I dress. She doesn’t want to be away from me.

Why not get ready during the hour that she’s good, you may ask. Because that’s when I catch up on my zzzzzzzs. My husband is with her in the morning while she’s good and he gets ready for work. Then it’s showtime for me again.

On the positive side, she did take to the “kid’s club” (aka daycare) at the gym today when I dropped her off. But when I came back 45 minutes later, she was wailing in the bouncy seat. As soon as I picked her up, she stopped crying. I love her so much. Does she feel my love coming through? Is that why she stopped? Am I being melodramatic?

I felt so out of shape at Bodyflow, even though I’ve been jogging 2 miles weekly, that I did not “master” the moves the way I have in the past. I did not get upset at myself. I did the moves the way I could, and was one with my ego.

The fact that I couldn’t do the moves didn’t matter. What mattered was participating in the class. What a liberation. I love my instructor, Linda. She has a calm and gentle quality. Some fitness instructors work you mercilessly, or encourage the competitive complex, but not with Linda. I get a good work out, physically and spiritually.

My legs feel light under me, and I’m lying on my back. My eyelids feel like ski slopes. I need to go. Good night. Ehm, good day.

Originally written June 18, 2013.

Put Her Down? Really?

~ theantelopediaries

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I don’t understand why anyone would describe helping their child to fall asleep as “putting him/her down.”  It sounds like their child is being euthanized.  Isn’t that how we describe someone euthanizing their pet, “putting them down?”

It kind of creeps me out when I hear it.  I avoid saying this, opting for phrases such as “lay her down to sleep,” or simply, “she finally took a nap.”

Originally written June 12, 2013.

UPDATE October 21, 2013

Since I last wrote this some four months ago, I am less judgmental about people using this phrase, because I have caught myself using it. 

During times when I tried to get Polina to go to sleep and she wouldn’t, and then she finally, after numerous attempts, did go to sleep, I have said, “I tried to put her down several times” and “She finally went down at…”  My use of this phrase is tied to my feelings of desperation at the time I am describing it.

I still prefer not to use it.