I seem to have gone from no blogs to one blog to fifteen dozen blogs in no time flat. I was writing about things in my life, namely grieving my mother's death, adjusting to being one of my father's caregivers, and preparing for adoption. In an effort to get myself to blog somewhat regularly and to set my standards higher than just journaling for myself, I announced my blog to my friends and family. This led to a certain amount of self-censorship. So I started an unannounced blog, which had a readership of zero, because who knew it existed? Then one of the really great adoption bloggers I read aked her readers to leave their blog names for her blog roll, so I leapt in and did so. Still no readers, and by then I was developing a gnawing sense that I'd give the blog the wrong name, as mentioned before. So I created this blog, named more appropriately, and meant as a place for me to be as honest as I felt comfortable with. But the one blog roll I'm on lists the blog I no longer use. Next, our adoption suddenly sped up, and friends and family were clamoring for details. (Clamoring, I tell you!) So I started focusing more on the f & f blog. Then my husband got all forlorn about it, and wanted to start an adoption blog WITH me, not just join the one I had going. Which brings us up to, let's see, carry the seven, factor of x--does anyone remember, when you're multiplying fractions, do you just go straight across the top and the bottom?--yes, I was right, fifteen dozen blogs.
And since this is the blunt one, I guess this is the place to say I'm more than a little concerned at how much I'm eating and spending money right now. I'm like some parody of a pregnant, nesting woman. But I'm not growing my kids in my body, and there was NO REASON to buy matching bath towels at 10:30 the night before we leave the country to get them. We ALREADY HAVE bath towels. And I knew that. But I bought them anyway. We are living on one income and are about to double the size of our household, and I'm spending money like...oh I'm too tired to come up with a good simile. Like the Pentagon? Like I've got a secret Swiss bank account? Like it will buy me my kids' love?
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
No Alarm Needed
I used to be able to read in the car. I spent hours in the backseat with a stack of library books as we drove to the beach, to the mountains, across the state, up to Canada. My sisters claimed it made them carsick to just see me with a book, but they were so much older that we rarely were traveling together. I kept this ability into my 20s, reading on buses in Eastern Europe during my first stay there after college. Then sometime in my mid-20s, those same buses started to make me feel queasy if I was reading. Now I can barely read stop signs without feeling ill.
I used to be able to sleep on planes. Correction; I used to LOVE to sleep on planes. I once got on a flight in Helsinki, chatted briefly with my seatmate, went to sleep, and woke up in Seattle. The other girl looked at me in awe and said, "You slept the WHOLE WAY." My parents were quite disgruntled to find that when they sat by the tarmac and waited for my plane to pull out so they could wave goodbye, I was already sound asleep. Occasionally when my neck got stiff I'd pop open the seat tray and cushion my head on my arms. That was actually more comfortable, but when I sat back up, I always let loose with the world's hugest belch. (Oh, I'm sorry, did you not want to know that?) That ability faded, also in my 20s. (I refer to the ability to sleep on planes, not the ability to belch.) Now I fuss and fidget, and if I do doze off, the pain in my neck wakes me up within moments. I arrive as groggy and disoriented as the rest of you.
(I also used to be able to drink copious amounts of alcohol without getting sick, but that's not a trait I particularly miss. I'm just adding it because I lost that skill around the same time as the others.)
One thing I'm still good at is sleep. I am a champion sleeper. If I'm having trouble falling asleep because of brain chatter, I count backwards from 100, visualizing each number as I go. I rarely make it past the mid 60s. If I do get down to zero, it's almost always because I'm not visualizing, so I do it again, right, and fall asleep. If the house is quiet and I have no prior plans, I can easily sleep 10 hours. Friends and family know not to bother calling before 9:00 on weekends, and that's just because I'm too embarrassed to tell them to not call before noon. Stress does not affect this. During the horrible month when my mom was dying and I spent most of the time at my parents' house, I'd fall asleep, exhausted, each evening, and sleep soundly until morning.
The one exception seems to be a sort of happy stress. I first noticed in when I was, yes, in my mid 20s and living abroad. A friend volunteering with Peace Corps in Hungary and I had organized a language camp for her students and mine, bringing 20 kids to stay in host families in Latvia and recruiting our friends to teach a language/environmental camp. Every night I'd set my alarm early so I could wake up and keep things rolling. Instead, I'd pop awake after about five hours of sleep. I realized that my body knew the bare minimum it needed to repair and recover from one day, and that was all my mind would allow it when there was so much to be done. I had the same experience before my wedding, and on a one-day basis before major trips. Christmas mornings have the same effect.
Yesterday we found out that our adoption trip will be next week. NEXT WEEK. School isn't quite over yet. I am moving schools next year and need to box up my classroom. The bedrooms aren't ready yet. (A friend said, 'Oh, you can do all that when they get home. All they need now is a bed and furniture.' I was too embarrased to admit that when I say the bedrooms aren't ready, I do NOT mean that the bedrooms have yet to be tastefully decorated. I mean there is an unmade bed and an unassembled bed in one room, and a whole bunch of file cabinets, craft supplies, a desk, a work tables, and assorted other crap in the other.) I took today off school to start working on things, went to bed at a reasonable hour last night (11:00), and set the alarm for 8:00.
I woke up at 3:00. Then at 4:15. Then at 4:45. I made myself stay in bed until it got light out, and was downstairs by 5:30. I have a strong suspicion I'll be waking up early every morning for quite a while.
I used to be able to sleep on planes. Correction; I used to LOVE to sleep on planes. I once got on a flight in Helsinki, chatted briefly with my seatmate, went to sleep, and woke up in Seattle. The other girl looked at me in awe and said, "You slept the WHOLE WAY." My parents were quite disgruntled to find that when they sat by the tarmac and waited for my plane to pull out so they could wave goodbye, I was already sound asleep. Occasionally when my neck got stiff I'd pop open the seat tray and cushion my head on my arms. That was actually more comfortable, but when I sat back up, I always let loose with the world's hugest belch. (Oh, I'm sorry, did you not want to know that?) That ability faded, also in my 20s. (I refer to the ability to sleep on planes, not the ability to belch.) Now I fuss and fidget, and if I do doze off, the pain in my neck wakes me up within moments. I arrive as groggy and disoriented as the rest of you.
(I also used to be able to drink copious amounts of alcohol without getting sick, but that's not a trait I particularly miss. I'm just adding it because I lost that skill around the same time as the others.)
One thing I'm still good at is sleep. I am a champion sleeper. If I'm having trouble falling asleep because of brain chatter, I count backwards from 100, visualizing each number as I go. I rarely make it past the mid 60s. If I do get down to zero, it's almost always because I'm not visualizing, so I do it again, right, and fall asleep. If the house is quiet and I have no prior plans, I can easily sleep 10 hours. Friends and family know not to bother calling before 9:00 on weekends, and that's just because I'm too embarrassed to tell them to not call before noon. Stress does not affect this. During the horrible month when my mom was dying and I spent most of the time at my parents' house, I'd fall asleep, exhausted, each evening, and sleep soundly until morning.
The one exception seems to be a sort of happy stress. I first noticed in when I was, yes, in my mid 20s and living abroad. A friend volunteering with Peace Corps in Hungary and I had organized a language camp for her students and mine, bringing 20 kids to stay in host families in Latvia and recruiting our friends to teach a language/environmental camp. Every night I'd set my alarm early so I could wake up and keep things rolling. Instead, I'd pop awake after about five hours of sleep. I realized that my body knew the bare minimum it needed to repair and recover from one day, and that was all my mind would allow it when there was so much to be done. I had the same experience before my wedding, and on a one-day basis before major trips. Christmas mornings have the same effect.
Yesterday we found out that our adoption trip will be next week. NEXT WEEK. School isn't quite over yet. I am moving schools next year and need to box up my classroom. The bedrooms aren't ready yet. (A friend said, 'Oh, you can do all that when they get home. All they need now is a bed and furniture.' I was too embarrased to admit that when I say the bedrooms aren't ready, I do NOT mean that the bedrooms have yet to be tastefully decorated. I mean there is an unmade bed and an unassembled bed in one room, and a whole bunch of file cabinets, craft supplies, a desk, a work tables, and assorted other crap in the other.) I took today off school to start working on things, went to bed at a reasonable hour last night (11:00), and set the alarm for 8:00.
I woke up at 3:00. Then at 4:15. Then at 4:45. I made myself stay in bed until it got light out, and was downstairs by 5:30. I have a strong suspicion I'll be waking up early every morning for quite a while.
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