Unhealthy Sleep Habits, Unhappy...Everybody

Once, when Lu was two and a half, I was bragging to someone at a party (a sweet woman named Kristina) about what a good sleeper Lu was. I  pitied this poor woman, who was pregnant and worried about the fact that she still had to stroll her kid around the block to get it to sleep, and what would she do when the new baby came. Oh, bless your heart, I thought smugly, you not only have created bad sleep habits, but you've also gone and done a super crazy thing like have another baby. God smote me. That very night, my perfect sleeper began escaping from the crib, setting into motion a set of bad sleep habits that it took a good three months to undo.

Fast forward six years (yes, I was crazy enough to have another one) and here I am again (though Milo is a full year older than Lu was when the sleep shenanigans started). I am not sure who I bragged to, but I am being punished. Milo's sleep-related crimes:

Waking up in the middle of the night. We have let him come "sleep" in our bed. He ends up perpendicular to us both, usually with his feet in my ribs. Oh, and he snores which amounts to two men sleeping and snoring and one woman seething.

Waking up at 5. Almost every morning. Like some kind of rooster that says "DADDY, IT'S WAKE UP TIME." We let him in the bed with us and tell him to go back to sleep, it is not wake-up time. Instead he explores our facial orifices and asks every few minutes, in a stage whisper, "IS IT WAKE UP TIME YET?"

Peeing in the bed. This I can forgive, as he is three years old.

Peeing on the bed. As in, removing his pants and underwear and taking a protest piss onto his mattress. After he does it, he will yell, "MOM, I PEED!"

Getting out of bed, turning on the light and playing with his toys. Honestly, if he is quiet, I don't care if he does this. But he can now open the door to his room, the snack drawer, the front door, etc. so this requires a whole new level of Milo-proofing that we are too disorganized to manage.

Being a sleep-deprived jerk. Even the teachers at school have commented on his, er, attitude.

We are all tired. Even Clifford. This has to stop. Do they make pediatric doses of Ambien?

My Best Thing

I have a lot of good things to report today — small things, little happy tasks done (not the least of which was sending the children off to school and out of this house). It would be hard to pick even two of those for the proverbial Two Best Things. But I can pick ONE BEST THING: my friend Amanda is cancer-free today.

After a pretty grim diagnosis six months ago, she endured chemo and is now recovering from a double mastectomy and reconstruction — trials for the spirit and body I hope never to know. She managed with vulnerability and bravery, humor and aplomb.

And today she got the kind of news that makes you want to kiss a pathologist or get prostrate in thanks: no tumor, nothing in the lymph nodes, nothing for radiation, nothing to see here.

I offer a great yawp of a yay to the universe. Hug your healthy bodies.

C Stands for 'Can Do Better'

Lucy made a 79 on a book report. A BOOK REPORT. A book report where she mainly just had to decorate a pumpkin like a character in the book (a picture book, at that). She made a C on an arts and crafts project about a book. This from the child whose past-times are reading, writing and drawing/gluing/decorating. When we brought it up, she was not worried about the grade. She did her best, she said. Jason and I tried to be loving and supportive, restrained and encouraging. But what's the right way to say, "That wasn't your best, kid. We know how smart you are. And we want to see an effort that reflects your intelligence." Well, I don't know the right way, but that's pretty much exactly what we said.

I was more proud of the things I didn't say:

  • "This will go on your permanent record."
  • "We don't make B's, let alone C's in this house. Unless you count some lesser academic moments by both your parents. But we are notorious underachievers. You are better than that."
  • "You'll never get into a decent middle school with grades like that."
  • "Think about your future."
  • "We may be underfunding your 529 slightly and are counting on at least a partial scholarship. Pick up the grades or pick up some golf clubs."

This conversation caused much gnashing of teeth and dramatic wailing. At one point, she blamed me for her bad grade (which she finally gave up defending as good) because I bought her an ugly pumpkin. She seemed unconcerned about the grade, but offended by our conversation.

I don't want to pressure her. Except I do. But I can't make her care as much as we do.

Vote Ronnie!

Milo LOVES Mitt Romney. But, to the relief of his progressive parents, not because of any nascent right-wing political leanings or plutocratic ambitions. The opposite, rather. Milo loves Mitt Romney because he thinks he is the plumber. Whose name is Ronnie. As in, when he comes over, which is not infrequently in this aging house of ours, we ask the kids to use their manners and call him "Mr. Ronnie." Which sounds to a three-year-old just like "Mitt Romney." Milo started identifying Mitt Romney on the radio a couple of months ago: "Hey! They talk about Misto Wonnie!" And I laughed and tried to explain that Mitt Romney was...well, I had no short answer, but left it at,  "No, they are talking about Mitt Romney and he is running for president. MISTER RONNIE fixes the sink."

But then today on the way home from school, he was flipping through the New York Times Magazine (not reading it, just to be clear), and he saw a picture of Mitt Romney and said, "Misto Wonnie! Where his mustache?" The real Mr. Ronnie, who also has a lovely head of salt and pepper hair, but can actually fix things, does indeed have a mustache. That, a tool belt and the trust of a three-year-old? Some campaigns are built on less.

I'll Show You Mine If You'll Show Me Yours

Warning: this post contains strong emotions. If you want a glib update on the kids, tune in later. I have been thinking lately about vulnerability. About how all of us pretending we are okay all the time is putting a layer of padding between us. Sometimes the layer is comfortable. It's polite. Maybe when you ask how I am, you just want to hear that I am fine, that's as deep as we need to go.

Or maybe you would want to hear that I have not been fine. Maybe we can peel away the polite padding of pretending, and I can tell you that for the past two months, after a year and a half of hard work on a thrilling but stressful project in a dysfunctional situation, I came out the other side and realized I had a different kind of work to do. I needed to work on myself. So I have been doing...nothing. Well, not nothing. But not much besides thinking my thoughts, feeling my feelings, trying not to worry about the undone tasks and unearned wages. Oh, and also going to therapy. I have been calling it my nervous breakthrough.

And my breakthrough is this: I am good enough. In every way. I don’t need to pretend to be anything or anyone I am not to impress any person I really care about. And that might not sound like much of a breakthrough, but this understanding has recalibrated my heart in a way that lets me feel, deeply, the joy of my life.

And a big part of my joy is the amazing people around me, who I have been letting into this process. I have been vulnerable — told the truth about my sadness and my pain and how I am getting better. And this vulnerability has created an opening for other people’s fear, despair, need and joy. Without the polite padding, I have felt more love and connection to the people who matter to me, and from what I can tell they do, too. I have felt, more truly, my very worthy self.

This is not to say we always — or ever — have to talk about our feelings. I am not telling people in the grocery line, “So, the other day in therapy…” But maybe we could consider that our constant burnishing of the rough edges of our lives — only good news, only perfect photos on Facebook, everything's always fine — is keeping us from each other.

Maybe a good start is knowing that when I ask you how you are, I promise that I really want to know.