Sleep! – m i a o w

Time After Time

On Sunday, February 2, 2014

Small Z has been going to bed between 10.30pm and 11.00pm. She’s fine with it. Sleeps in until 10.30am or so. Gets her 11 or 12 hours in. Me? NOT SO FINE. In order to get my One Hour Of Sanity – I stay up after she eventually goes to bed. But then get awoken by Small DB at least once during the night. And she’s ready to start the day at 7am. (Incidentally, Small DB is usually asleep by 8pm.)

M suggested dragging Small Z out of bed at 7.30am for a few days in an effort to pull her going-to-bed time back to some kind of reasonable hour. I thought this sounded OK, so for the past two mornings I have wheedled her awake by 8am. Last night she conked out at ten o’clock. My fingers are crossed for tonight. I will be doing an early morning wake up call on Wednesday morning when I’m not here, to make sure the regime is ongoing.

At this rate, when daylight saving ends in about six weeks time, it will be ALL kinds of awesome!! (I dream about such a scenario whenever the clocks change – similar to my rosy thoughts of what-I-can-acheive every New Year.) How does this blog not have a category for Sleep? For god’s sake – it’s the thing I’ve typed about most often over the past six years!! I will make one (and therefore render any further sleeping issues null and void. Excellent.)

As you were.

Fever when you hold me tight

By beth

On Tuesday, March 11, 2014

In Domesticity, Health, Parenting, Sleep!

It has been a hard MONTH. That’s right – I think Small DB has been under the weather that long. Functioning, enjoying herself, but not firing on all six (like a Humber) cylinders. A month ago (or maybe even longer) she had a fever for a week. After a really difficult day on Sunday, the fever returned. I have never felt a kid hotter than she was 🙁

She refused to let us take her temperature with the ear thermometer, but M managed to get one under her armpit long enough for it to register 39 degrees. She was burning up. She wouldn’t take medicine and I had to syringe it into her mouth while she was screaming. She spat it all back at me, somewhat deservedly. The fever eventually broke at about 11pm.

In the morning she was close to being her normal self. We had (compared to the domestic carnage of the day before) an almost blissful day at home. There were DIY salads, clay modelling, gardening…

Lunching on the porch with their DIY salads

365/69 • gave the 6yo a lump of clay and left her to it • #2014_ig_069 #6yo #creatures Thought you might like this @tinkerlab

The Sylvanian's Haute Couture Collection: Autumn 2014

Small Z had suggested that she could sleep in her own room. This was something we tried to implement (at the urging of the outside world) when her sister was born. Like that was going to work [sardonic snort].

However, this time it was her suggestion, after looking at my exhausted will-I-ever-sleep-again face. While she was busy with something I tidied up her room (it’s actually more my study) and set her up a little bedside table. I pulled out a set of small drawers and a bedside lamp.

To some kids, a mattress on the floor with a vintage suitcase for a bedside table in a room full of your mother’s sewing and books and paper would be totally slumming it. But we have raised Smalls with low standards. She was so thrilled 🙂 She said, “I am going to have some time on my own in my own space.” She folded her blanket down, and then made a little bed for Z-Mow and folded her blanket down as well.

My exhaustment has meant my getting-her-to-bed-early action plan has been wavering, and she read until TEN THIRTY. This will change. But last night all bets were off. She was loving her own, tidy, cosy little nook and lay there reading Pippi Longstocking like she was the happiest kid in the world. Which she kind of was.

And at 2am when Small DB woke me up, burning with another fever, I was so glad that Small Z was sleeping in her own space, undisturbed by me getting nappies on, providing drinks, pleading (to no avail) for her to take some medicine – and then lying there listening to the poor smallest one bleating pitifully, “I’m too hot. I’m too hot. I’m too hot.” For two hours…

I dragged myself to work today like a zombie. Fingers crossed that she shakes this thing.

Two days on the hard

By beth

On Wednesday, February 18, 2015

In Bellaluna, Sleep!

Pantry staples have been transferred from shed to boat cupboard. M is manfully keeping his mouth almost shut about the increasing clutter onboard. We are both keen to keep a significantly minimalist environment – but when there are no cupboard doors, the existence of many jars, tins and packets cannot be ignored.

We don’t have anywhere for cutlery yet – no drawers. So I have been stuffing things whereever I find gaps. I know M is inwardly lamenting the loss of his Tokyo apartment minimalism, but has acknowledged that – IT IS A CATAMARAN! There is a whole other hull that has nothing but a mattress in it, and three violins.

Here is the current setup – it’s kind of hard to fit it all in one little square picture. But know this – I am SO thankful to have my caravan here at the moment. I am so incredibly tired, that I am hiding in it right now after sneaking home from work, and will shortly conk out and (hopefully) get a much needed uninterrupted eight hours…

The first day aboard was spent transferring stuff from shed to boat. Yesterday involved our violin lessons, visiting Bramble Farm to pick our own raspberries and then Small Z’s karate class at 4pm. The driving has increased because of the distance to the boatyard and our stamina was well and truly absent by the end of it all.

Small Z threw a savage tantrum at the end of karate. I’m so tired I can’t remember exactly what I did besides tell her to get out of the hall because she was interupting the next class. Two other parents reassured me afterward – I must appear to be fraying at the eges. I feel like I have not had a reaonsable nights sleep for about ten days.

Roosters helpfully awoke me every morning we were housesitting. The Smalls are out of whack in the new boat environment and one, or both of them has crawled in with me the past two nights. Last night I bedded down in the caravan – which is about 20 feet from the boat. Bliss… until the alarm went off at 5am.

Given the current situation, it continues to be most viable for me to do one looooong work day, though how the owner of the boatyard feels about me starting up the car at 5.15am I will not find out until tomorrow. I feel like I will probably be his own annoying rooster for one day each week.

Small DB has her first week of five-hour days at kindergarten – and it will be interesting to see how it goes. It’s a pain in the arse to drive 20 minutes to get here there when we are used to walking four blocks – but she is enjoying it, and frankly, at the moment, it provides a nice shift in the family dynamic. Although I think she will be doing two days instead of three. Three is overkill. We shall see…

Twinkle Twinkle Wah Wah Wah

By beth

On Friday, January 29, 2016

In PartyPie, Sleep!

Z picks up her violin and tries to play a few tunes to practice – it sounds like she’s sat on a cat.
“I can’t play! I can’t play! There’s been too many gaps in my practice and I can’t remember it! And I haven’t practiced my karate either and everyone else will have been practicing and practicing. I’m STUPID. I’m STUPID. Everyone will expect me to be good at karate and I won’t remember ANYTHING.”

She wails and rants and cries in this vein for ten minutes before returning to the violin, tentatively trying ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’.

“Oh!” She says, immediately consoled, “I think it’s out of tune!”
Catastrophe averted, karate forgotten. The more fatigue, the more superlatives… All the females on this boat need A Good Sleep – after three nights of camping, one night disturbed by bad dreams and a late night sleeping over at the Nana’s. Goodnight…