Praying for Sleep

Another hectic week has passed. My mother brought the kids home Tuesday. My father drove up so he arrived on Wednesday. Son started school on Thursday but we figured there was no sense in sending Daughter back to preschool for a 2-day week so we waited until today to send her back. My father's 60th birthday was the 30th so we were able to celebrate with him for once. They left early Friday morning and Son's best friend literally since birth spent the night Friday night because as of Sunday he was moving to North Carolina with his father to start school while his mother and baby brother stay here to sell their house so they can go too. Sad times. Labor Day weekend was quiet and filled with bowling and eating out.

That brings us to 4 o'clock this morning when I awoke to the sound of Son's bedroom door opening. It sticks so you can't help but hear it. I thought he was going to the bathroom but then I noticed Mr. T wasn't next to me so when I saw Son go back to his room, I figured he was waiting.

I hear Son moving again and this time I sit all the way up and peek around to see no one is in the bathroom but Son's door is still open. So I lay myself back down and wait for Son to show up and tell me he had a nightmare or he's itchy or he's coughing a lot or he wet the bed or something. But nothing. I check his door and it's ajar but the only light is the light of his galaxy lamp I finally got hung up in his room. I fall back to sleep and am hastily awakened by my bright bedroom light overhead.

"Mommy, there's a praying mantis in the living room."

"What? Huh? Kill the light!" He does. "What are you talking about?" He's calm so I'm thinking he's just living out whatever dream he just had and he's sleepwalking a little. "I went to look for bugs and there's a praying mantis in the living room."

"You went to look for bugs?"

OK. I don't know much about these bugs but I do recall a praying mantis getting into some hotel I was at once with some other students years ago and someone saying something about never killing one of these things but getting it out is no easy fete. In our case, however, I was not quick to believe it could be the real thing. Still, what did he see? Wait a minute.

"Son, the living room has no light in it." (We haven't bought any lamps for that room yet and there's no light fixture so when it's dark outside, it's dark in there.) "How could you possibly see anything even if there were something there?"

"It's green and over by the TV."

He looks awake. He sounds awake. But I'm not convinced he can see a green, practically invisible-to-the-eye bug like a praying mantis in a dark corner like where that TV is currently located.

"Boy, it's 4 in the morning! Why on earth are you up looking for bugs?! Go back to bed!"

By now I have to get up and investigate because, well, I'm awake and you just never know. And where the heck is Mr. T, anyway? If there IS a praying mantis about, he's got a job to do. I see the kitchen door that leads downstairs is not only closed but locked. And now I'm really wondering because Mr. T is nowhere upstairs so downstairs is the only place he can be but he wouldn't close the door and lock it behind himself. I peek outside the living room window and all the cars are accounted for. I take a look over by the TV and Son has come in by now to see what I found but nothing. I open the kitchen door and Mr. T is soon upstairs wondering why so much walking is going on. Daughter has heard the commotion and now my whole house is up at 4:30 in the morning and all I can do is think of the sleep I am not getting. Mr. T finds a toy in the corner and tosses it over.

"Is this it?" He laughs. "No more cartoons for you!"

This morning I ask Son if he remembers getting up. He tells me he got up to watch TV. (So this must have been like 1 or 3 in the morning, is my guess. Time to unplug that thing.) He locked the kitchen door when he saw it was open and he said, "I smelled food so I went to see if there were any bugs." Yes, this is what he said exactly.

I don't know. Is it just me or are little boys just the oddest creatures alive?

More on Clock Works

So this is basically part 2 of the message I posted yesterday.

I had another hectic work week. Plus, yesterday, Mr. T and Son went on a trip to Philly with his summer program group - they are NOT a camp so I use this wordy phrasing intentionally. That left me to pick up Daughter at noon from her school because the 2nd-year preschoolers were graduating and the school was closing early that day. So I took her back to work with me. I took a picture while we were there to send my mother. See?



We stayed about 3 hours - the longest I've ever let her stay because I wanted to get some more things done before I swept her out of there. She managed to stay somewhat adorable to everyone. She hit just about every office, getting stuffed toys from the "magic drawer" of one man; drawing on paper with markers on the floor of one woman; drawing on the whiteboard of one of the other men who - intentionally - has kiddie music as part of his iTunes library - so there she was listening to something Wiggle-like, with a picture of Blue on his whiteboard and she below it adding her own version. The CEO came in after awhile and the first thing I heard was a high-pitched, "Come on!" and a deeper, "Wait up!" Still don't know what they were doing. She played hide-and-go-seek with one of the poor new guys who was trying to eat his lunch and sang one of the songs on the radio to a couple of the girls there prior to that.

"She's got lots of energy!" was the phrase most often quoted. Not sure if some of that was politeness on their part but it's best to not stay too long or else the thin "adorable" layer starts to peel away and we come to the part where people - even the ones with little ones of their own - try to put on a brave face but they just wish the kid would pipe down already. I didn't want her to wear out her welcome so we were able to leave about 3. I had to stop by a friend's job first one town away - the opposite direction of home - and she was bouncy then too. Finally we headed home and this is what I saw when I stopped at the store we had to hit before our final destination of home:



And this is where I say what I intended to say when I started this post. See her sleeping there? So fitting for this post. I watched a little personal documentary by Alan Berliner called Wide Awake this morning. It was an interesting piece because Alan is a night owl - like I no longer am (I think). But he was documenting his difficulty sleeping; looking for traces of it in his family tree; getting expert opinion on the sleepiness of America; documenting the arrival of his new son and showing how he is "the protector of his sleep". One of the things one of those experts said was the there is a syndrome called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, a.k.a being a Night Owl. Basically this is a sleep disorder and they say it's starts in adolescence, sometimes infancy (like me). Night Owls work best at night buten when they go to bed at their own time, they have a hard time falling asleep.

Alan was a little concerned about it (after all, he made this film) and yet he knew what all night owls know - there is a peace, a quiet, a timelessness in the middle of the night. That clock may be loudly ticking during the day but after everyone falls asleep, so does the clock and you are off, floating in this space of your very own and it was wonderful. Creativity, for night owls, awakens then. I've written A papers in the middle of the night. I've re-organized in the middle of the night. I've been awakened by business-changing ideas and who can sleep when a new thought is trying to be born? Alan is 40-something and pretty much accepts himself for who he is but he admits - like most of us - that somehow he has to function with the daytimers too - like his newborn son - and there is the unfairness of it all.

The American world doesn't operate on this schedule and so anyone who does is suffering from a "disorder"? Because it's not THE order, it's a diss-order? A disrespected way of being? I say American world because Alan pointed out how there is such a thing as a siesta in some countries, high tea (a.k.a the ingestion of caffeine) in others, so the middle-of-the-day tiredness is not just an American phenomena but we ignore it, push on, wear ourslevs out; they don't.

And me? I'm left trying to find my place again since the kids knocked my clock out of whack. I WANT to stay up later because ideally I will work during the day, be with the family during the day and then have MY time when they fall asleep and I can then get things done. Except something else one of those experts said is that this thing is genetic. And Daughter is clearly a night owl too so waiting for her to go to sleep forces me to go to bed so she'll get bored and go to sleep and then I'm too tired to get back up again!

But I was born with a need for way more sleep than I get anyway so I am battling my clock every day, trying to give time to everyone, including myself. I lose. So then I try to do some of my things during the time I am awake. My kids lose, so then I lose more. I hate it. But I'm stuck with it until the kids are on their own and I can reset my clock.

Everyone was bushed last night after all our little adventures so I got about 9 1/2 to 10 hours of sleep! That is a new record for me. It was like when I was childless and could sleep for 12 hours uninterrupted. I don't know the last time I got that much sleep but I was so excited to get up and not feel sleep deprived. I actually had energy to eat and take a shower and wash some clothes and put towels aways and jump online because my mother is wrapping up our latest project so we can go to print. I even felt like blogging! And right now, I feel like organizing. You should have SEEN Alan's space! Super organized. Hundreds of film sized boxes in rainbow colors; labled drawers. He has to have a touch of OCD. He just has to because he is clearly obsessed with the ordering of things yet I was very impressed and I feel a kinship with him as a result.

In the end, I don't think there was a solution for him any more than there is for me. But I got my 10 hours and right now I feel like I could conquer the world! For now, I think I'll just conquer my house.

Give Me Back My Freakin' Clock!

Kids changed me. I knew that. But I get reminders of how little sleep I get all the time and the reason for that? Those darn kids obviously reset my internal clock while they were floating around inside my body! I used to be able to stay up all night. The break of dawn was my signal to get thee to bed before daylight streams in and turns thee to dust!

If I went to bed at midnight, I could sleep until noon easy. My mother never got it. I doubt she gets it now. She told me of the time when I was a baby and how I sat up waiting for my night-working father to come home. "See? I was born this way? Why do you continue to torture me about sleeping late?"

My first full-time job was a wonderful 5 to 1 a.m. schedule at a newspaper. "Newspapers are open at night?" people would ask. "How else do you think you get fresh, morning news," I'd respond as the light went on in their head and they realized it had to come from somewhere. I worked Sunday through Thursday and I LOVED it. I admit, I hated to go in on Sunday afternoon while everyone else was lazing about, but generally I loved the freedom to go to the mall and park next the handicap spots. And doctor's appointments could be made at any time I chose.

Those were the days. Now?

Now I can barely make it past 10 and when I do, I am forcing myself simply so I can enjoy the precious quiet time that comes when Daughter finally gives up the fight and succumbs to sleep.

Now I am yawning all the time, and I know it's out of fatigue, not boredom. Now I am hating the clock because all it does is taunt me as it ticks relentlessly down to that hour when I must reluctantly go to bed in hopes of getting some rest for the next day, and if, per chance, I can't sleep, then it teases me about how quickly it can run and just how little time I have to really sleep before the sun wakes me from my inadequate slumber.

Those tykes that are currenly stomping over my head are the reason I can no longer hang. They are making me old! They are draining my energy! They are diminutive chronological vampires, forcing me to watch as they get bigger but I just get more tired!

I've got to stop. I'm sleepy now.