Nightmares!

It seems like more often than not these days (nights?) I wake up about four hours after falling asleep in a cold sweat. Nightmares! I am being chased, murdered, attacked, zombies are swarming, tiny adorable children are in peril or they are the killers chasing the adults...

It's freaking me out!

I have always had weird dreams. Sometimes they recur. I have had the same dream about the car driving out of control maybe 20 times in my life. Sometimes I become aware while I am dreaming THAT I am dreaming and I am able to alter a familiar dream so it ends differently.

These are not those kind of dreams...they are fully out of my control. They are riddled with events and people and symbols. They are crowded. I don't know about you, but usually my dreams are pretty sparse. Not too many people are there with me.

The nightmares I am having now are just chock full of other people. I am in a huge crowd, always. Which is a waking nightmare for me as well.

A smart friend of mine informed me that in a certain school of dream analysis they teach that everyone in your dream is you. The murderer is you. The victim is you. You are the monster AND the hero. You are the naked student AND the rest of the class.

I don't know what that means for these nightmares. Am I the psychopathic murderous toddler? Am I the zombie? Am I myself AND my soon to be ex-husband? I don't know.

The other night I crashed at a friends house after a football game. I thought the change of scenery would change my sleeping pattern. No such luck befell me.

Instead I had a dream that when analyzed indicated that I was not processing my emotions that were arising over a significant change in my life.

Yeah. No shit. I get it. I absolutely am not processing my emotions. I am stuffing them so far back down inside me so I don't have to deal with what is going on around me, at least not emotionally.

So listen, Queen Mab, keep these freaking dreams out of my head! I get it. Message received. Give me back my Shemar Moore dreams please!

Sleep Disturbances

I have a long and storied history of insomnia.

Sleep is not my friend.

Apparently, I have passed on this affliction to my youngest child Benjamin.

He is nearly two years old and he is the worst sleeper of The Triad. Where the other two were sleeping through the night well before their third month on the planet was completed, Ben was over six months old before the first time I woke up to sunlight instead of late-night baby cries.

Last night, he went to bed at 8 pm. A completely normal bedtime for him.
He surprised me by going to sleep rather easily and quietly, without the usual 15 minutes of protest and indignation.

I was then quite UNsurprised when about an hour and a half later he started crying.

I went upstairs and took Dylan with me. The boys share a room. I laid down with Dylan on the queen bed in their room. Dylan was asleep in five minutes. Snoring.

Benny, however, went through a truly ingenious series of sleep evading moves over the next 45 minutes.

While I laid there quietly, trying to pretend to be asleep, Benny sat straight up and began clawing at the fitted sheet on the crib mattress. When it proved too snug to be removed even by the most Herculean of efforts, he resorted to punching the mattress like he was in a Tae Bo class for angry insomniac babies.

When the sucker punches yielded no results, he started punching at his own feet.

Then he threw himself onto his pillow, grabbed it in a giant bear hug, stood up and tossed it out of the crib. Shortly thereafter, he lowered out his blanket.

I broke the fourth wall so to speak, got out of bed, put his pillow BACK in the crib, laid him on it and covered him with his blanket.

That scene repeated about five times until he adopted a new tactic: Trying to take off his shirt.

He got one arm all the way out of the sleeve before I got out of bed, replaced his shirt and laid him back down.
That scene repeated three more times until I discovered that the only effective counter move was to actually remove his shirt. Problem solved.

The then turned his attentions on his giant stuffed Mario Bros. mushroom pillow. First, he hugged it like a favorite son heading to war. Then he threw it down to the bottom of his crib under his feet. Then he went Van Damme and kicked the crap out of it. When the mushroom was flung over to the side of the crib, out of reach of his feet, Benny alligator rolled over it pinning it up against the side of the crib slats over and over.

Then he tossed it out onto the floor.

It wasn't long after that when I got tired of the show and fixed him a small sippy cup of milk which put him to sleep rather quickly and I was then able to go lay in my own bed for an hour reading a book which only made me slightly tired.

Then I laid in my own bed, kicking at blankets, hearing noises that weren't there and fighting the urge to start punching the mattress in frustration.

I get it baby, I get it.

Intolerable!

There are many things I can roll with....
A loud ass barking dog roaming my neighborhood and choosing to set up shop in my front yard this morning at 4:50 am is NOT one of those things.

SHUT THE EFF UP LOUD ASS DOG!

If you're reading this, you damn dirty barking monstrosity, let this be your fair warning that next time you come over here barking like that I'm gonna turn the hose on you. And if that doesn't work, I'm throwing shoes. And if THAT doesn't work I'll enroll you in Charm School with Ricki Lake, because seriously, Barking Dog, you need that kind of help. Bitch.

Exhausted!!

As if the multi-kid sleepover we had Monday night wasn't enough...

Last night before bed I got a terrible nosebleed. Yay! It took like a half hour to deal with. Horrible.
Then in the middle of the night my highly tuned body woke me up with major alarm signals. I was bleary eyed trying to figure out why I was waking up at 3 am...then I realized. I got my period. GREAAAAT!
FanTAStic!
I am not happy AT ALL!
I am on the phone AS I TYPE with the doctors office. This is shenanigans!

All that frickin pain for nothing!

ANYWAY!

I dealt with that and went back to bed only to be woken up at 4:30 am by the baby's crying. Ugh. Of course!

I listened for awhile to see if he would calm himself down or keep escalating his annoyance.
He escalated.

Of COURSE!!

So I went into his room and he was not sopping wet, not puked all over himself, not covered in poo, not trapped in the crib slats...hmm...just bored I guess.

I took him out of the crib, changed him for good measure and then laid down with him on Dylan's toddler bed. THANK GOD I'M SHORT. I actually can fit in that toddler bed! Ha!

He didn't seem to want to relax with me, preferring instead to pull my hair and slap my face. Not cool.
So I put him back into the crib, gave him a little bottle of milk and tried to go back to bed. But every time I would try to leave his room, Ben would howl. Great.
Back to the toddler bed for me, though, with my two big kids taking up all the room on MY side of MY bed, I probably had MORE space in the toddler bed.

So that's where I spent the next three hours of semi-sleep. In the toddler bed. Ben woke up again at 7:30 am and decided he was done with sleep, maybe forever.

I took him out of the crib and tried to get him to relax with me, but he was having none of it. He resumed slapping me and pulling my hair and also throwing baby books. Nice.

Eventually I gave up and brought him out into the living room for some cereal and I got my coffee started. It's gonna be a loooooong, tiring day.

Interesting...

Our pediatrician told me I was crazy to still have Ben in our room and that he was only waking up at night for "social visits"

So last night he slept in his crib in Dylan's room.
he went to bed around 8 pm...I didn't hear a peep from him until 4 am.

HALLELUJAH!

I actually slept! At night! A lot!!!
It was great!

That's the good news.
The bad news is that my boobs didn't get the memo and by the time the baby wanted something to eat they were boulders strapped to my chest and I was soaking wet.
Fun.
Nothing sexier than a rock hard tit.




PS: What do you think of the new masthead photo? I love it. It totally symbolizes the change in seasons and my melancholy as of late.
But what do YOU think?

Feeling funky

I haven't been posting a lot lately. I've been sort of in the dumps moodwise.
It's probably the combination of the changing seasons, sick kids, sleep deprivation, money troubles and my usual malaise.

Whatever it is, it's getting worse.

Lately I'm having trouble sleeping at all at night. Not just because the baby STILL wakes up two or three times, but also because I just can't fall asleep or stay asleep. My old friend insomnia.

I tried taking over the counter sleep aids, but they don't work fast enough so I lay there not sleeping, trying to sleep, wondering why I'm not sleeping, thinking about all the things I have to do the next day, trying to forget about all the things I have to do and the sleeplessness multiplies with every thought I have...it's quite annoying.

Probably because of that I'm super irritable all day, well, partially the no sleep thing and partially because the kids are making me nutso.
Elizabeth keeps on trashing her closet and her room even after I clean it up perfectly and reprimand her for her pigginess and make her swear she'll never ever EVER do it again. A few days later all her clothes are on the floor of her closet again....sigh.

I give up.

Bob went in and cleaned out Dylan's room yesterday. He even shampooed the nasty nasty carpet, which is about to get ripped out next spring I think. I actually told my mom to buy Dylan a floor for Christmas.

Maybe I AM ruining Christmas.

So yeah, there's that...
And Benjamin ugh, he's lucky he's cute. He's a terrible sleeper. Won't stay asleep at night, he just wants to get into bed with mom and cuddle, which is cute, but makes it additionally hard for me to sleep.

I'm seriously considering going to the doctor and getting put back on the crazy meds...and Ambien or something like that...it's most likely the best thing for everyone if I don't go completely insane or get totally depressed.
Right?

Rock a bye baby...

Last night was perhaps the WORST NIGHT EVER in terms of baby wakefulness.

Not only did Ben wake up every two hours, for the first time since birth he wanted to STAY up all night long. No thank you baby sir.

When he woke up at 11 pm, I nursed him, put him back in the crib and he fussed. I popped his paci in his mouth and he quieted down and went back to sleep.

When he woke up at 1 am, I nursed him, put him back in the crib and he fussed. I popped his paci in his mouth and he spit it out and screamed at me. I picked him back up, snuggled him for awhile and he went back to sleep.

When he woke up at 3 am, I nursed him, put him back in the crib and he fussed. I popped his paci in his mouth and he spit it out and screamed at me. I picked him back up, snuggled him for awhile but he wouldn't fall asleep. Then I got a bloody nose. So I put him down and ran to get a tissue. Then he cried while I bled on a tissue. Then I laid down in my bed with him and he fell asleep. I put him back in the crib and he woke up. He didn't cry though, he just cooed and oohed to himself for about a half hour. Then he fell asleep.

When he woke up at 5 am, I cursed him, then I nursed him. Then I snuggled with him in my bed until he fell asleep. I put him back in the crib, he fussed, he cooed and oohed. He screamed a little bit. He finally fell asleep. This is when Bob jumped up, looked at the alarm clock, glared and me and Ben and slammed his head back onto the pillow...all while still half-asleep. He pulled a pillow over his head and started snoring again went back to sleep without snoring at all, because he DOES NOT SNORE! Heh.

When I woke up at 7 am I was bleary eyed and exhausted. I woke up to the house phone ringing. I was in the middle of a crazy ass dream that combined all the horrible school nightmares (nudity, not ready for a test, can't find my locker) with all the regular nightmares (getting chased by criminals, living in a WalMart, etc.) I was partially glad to wake up from that, but partially like, seriously? Who is calling me at 7 am????!!?

It turned out to be someone offering Bob a side job, so I can't be TOO mad. But still. 7 am? That's way freaking early.
The baby slept until 7:30 am, which means I got to take a shower this morning! Yay!

Naturally, I have turned to coffee to help me get through the day...If I could INJECT coffee right into my veins I would. It's just gonna be one of THOSE days.

I'm hoping this performance of Ben's is a one-night only engagement. I can't do a night like last night ever again.
Ever ever.

Did you read that baby? Never ever!!

It's for the environment....

You may or may not recall that Bob and I have been duped into supporting the "family bed".
We have been tricked into this by our terrible children who refuse to sleep alone in their perfectly good beds.
We can get them to fall asleep in their own rooms (which I am seriously considering converting into a gym and a sewing room for me, respectively, if they don't start SLEEPING IN THERE!). However, we cannot get them to STAY asleep in their own rooms.

The baby already sleeps in our room, as it's just damn easier that way when he wakes up in the middle of the night. So we leave the light on in our closet in order to sort of slightly have vision at 3 am. That light must work as some sort of kid beacon.

Inevitably, Dylan and Elizabeth will wander in to our bedroom in the middle of the night and request to sleep with us in our bed. Since we're too tired to argue and too sleepy to get out of bed and return the kids to their proper beds, we give in.

This results in a fun puzzle of legs and elbows and a rousing game of blanket tug of war. Usually whoever shows up last has to sleep at the foot of the bed, like a dog, curled up amid the stinky feet. Sometimes when it's Dylan's turn to sleep at the end of the bed he will roll over and fall off the bed. Usually there is a big pile of laundry there to cushion his fall. That's just good planning! He usually doesn't wake up when he falls off, so we just leave him in the laundry pile until the morning. Which apparently to these kids begins at 6:30 am. JERKS!

Yesterday afternoon I tried to persuade Elizabeth that this arrangement was no good and would have to be discontinued.
She, of course, resisted and put up a rather interesting argument in favor of continuing to sleep in our room.


Me: You are going to have to sleep in your room tonight, like a big girl.
E: No, I can't.
Me: Yes, you can.
E: I can't! I can't! We have to save on the cable bill!
Me: What?
E: We have to save energy!
Me: What?
E: We have to turn off all the lights and all the things. That is called saving energy.
Me: Yes.
E: So we have to turn off the light in my room to save energy so they don't turn off the cable!
Me: What?!?
E: We have to turn off the light! I can't sleep in the dark!
Me: I think we can leave the light on in just your room so you can sleep in there.
E: No NO! We can't! We have to save energy!!!!


Ah. So green, so crazy.

Does everyone have this dream??

No not the one about racial equality...though that is a wonderful dream...

I'm talking about the dream described by Heather Armstrong today on her blog, you may have heard of it...
She describes it thusly:

...my high school contacts me to say that because of some computer glitch my senior year didn't count, and if I don't go back and redo that year of high school then I have to forfeit my college degree.

Yeah I have that dream at least once a month. In the dream not only do I have to return to high school, but I can NEVER REMEMBER WHERE MY LOCKER IS!!!

Though that's not quite as entertaining as the dream I have in which the college English class I've been skipping makes a radical shift during the quarter and by the time I arrive back to take the final it has become a witches coven...
But, have you been to a college level poetry class lately...all witches and bitches to begin with I'm sure. The guys too.

So, this is it....

Ever been sick with a lingering, nagging cold for so long that you just finally give up and say, alright fine I guess this is just my life from now on. I'm just going to be that sick, hacking person on the bus forevermore.

That's me.
Except I don't ride the bus.

I've been sick with some sort of barbed cold virus for about two weeks now and I want to transfuse all of my bodily fluids in a radical attempt to flush it out.
The kids and Bob are also still afflicted with some form of sickie. Elizabeth has lingering pink eye, Dylan has a cough, Bob and I both have sinus infections and hacking coughs.
We're the Tuberculin Family!
Nah, but like that.

Last night Dylan woke up and escaped his crib at around 2 am ish...Bob brought him into bed with us (a bad idea) and Dylan hacked, kicked and scream-cried until Bob retired himself to the living room couch...aka the comfort cruise...aka it's not comfortable.
Finally Dylan fell asleep and joined the cacophony of his sister's phlegmy breathing. I swear, it was the emphysema ward in my room last night.
All moaning and groaning and hacking and rattling coughs.
Ugh.

Left alone with the children I had to fend for myself and protect my bed space! I actually moved from my side to the middle, then to Bob's side of the bed, just trying to keep some playing field for myself. No matter where I went there they were, feet in my back, breathing their hot germy breath on my face...ugh.
It was a deranged game of Twister.

Right foot in mommy's hair, left foot in mommy's rib! Now everyone COUGH! HACK! SNARFLE!!!!

Gah!

Not to mention the baby INSIDE!!!
Before bed last night, Elizabeth and I spent at least a half hour watching him kick the remote control off my belly with such ferocity. He's a dang mule!
Elizabeth just kept saying "This is awesome! This. Is. AWESOME!"

Yeah. Awesome.

In baby news...we've set the date for his birth. May 12!
Yay!
A finish line!
This will end our streak of single digit birthdays. I'm the first, Dylan the second, Bob the third and Elizabeth the ninth of our respective months.
Twelfth is cool though. Twelfth is cool.
Oh heck. I'd have this baby on the twenty-eleventh of Octvember if it meant a night of peaceful sleep.
Though, as you can see from the above words I've typed...that's NOT happening any time soon.

Craaaaaaaaaaaaap

This is how I woke up this morning...

"Mommy! Daddy! What doin?"



And that face was in MY face.
I looked over at Bob and he said, "I didn't get him out of the crib!" and I certainly didn't get him out.

Ah nuts.
He got HIMSELF out.




He HAD been practicing with getting into the baby bassinet...but I never thought he'd EVER EVER EVER get out of his own crib all by himself. Let alone be able to open his door and run through the house while we slept.
Our whole way of living is over.
Crap.

Who needs sleep when there's coffee?

Last night Dylan woke up howling at midnight. I was still awake so I went to check on him. Though it seemed he would settle back down, he never quite did. So I went into his room, scooped him up and snuggled on the couch with him.
He fell right back to sleep, snoring of course, and after I wiggled out from underneath him, I too fell asleep on the couch. Not the MOST comfortable!
I woke up around 6:30 when Bob was getting ready for work. Now, almost three hours later, I'm a SMIDGE tired and just made more coffee to get me through the day. Only 12 more hours!!!

Two nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night (4 am) with a mother's intuition to check on Dylan.
He was awake, in his crib, watching TV. He sometimes falls asleep with the TV on in there (bad mommy!!!) and we apparently forgot to turn it off. He was watching Adult Swim. Quite inappropriate!
I turned off the TV and he screamed so loud that I swear my eardrum popped.
So I lifted him out of the crib, made a blanket bed on the floor and tried to get him to go to sleep there. He crawled over and turned the TV on and started flipping the stations.
I couldn't sleep, he WOULDN'T sleep. But there we were, on the floor until about 6:30 am, when I finally let him out of his room. That was a great day. He ended up napping at 11 am instead of his usual 1 pm and slept a good solid three hours before we had to head into town for a myriad of errands.

Two nights before that, I heard noises under the house and woke up Bob the Defender!!!
He went to investigate and found that there was a pack (yes, a pack) of javelinas under the house and around the house. He estimated about 20 of them.
As he tried to shoo them away (rocks and pumpkins do not work, shooting them with BBs does) I went to get Dylan who was shocked awake by the very scary sound of rooting javelinas under the floor in his room.
He came and laid in bed with me that night, but only for an hour or so because he won't sleep in a bed and I couldn't take his constant flipping around and trying to tickle me (teedle teedle teedle <= that's what he says when he tickles)
So he got a trip back to his crib after the herd dispersed. He was back asleep in about 10 minutes. It was 4:30 am.

So yeah. I'm stinking exhausted. I'd like to sleep ALL night tonight if possible.
I'm going to wear earplugs, an eye mask and set deterring booby traps around the property to fend off intruding wildlife.
Maybe I'll just sleep in my car.
With the spider ghosts.

Eh.
Anyone want to spring for a hotel room for me tonight?? Anyone? Bueller?