Seven Sleepy Takes

-1-

The last time I did NaBloPoMo, I was not also blogging at Faith & Family. Writing five posts a week there plus posting daily here keeps me busy! Twelve blog posts a week is a considerable number, especially since I've been trying to write something substantial(ish) every time instead of just posting links or pictures or whatnot. That's because this is week one. We'll see how things are going by week three.

-2-

One downside of being a co-sleeping family is how difficult it is to recreate our home sleeping situation when we're on the road. It's usually not too bad in hotel rooms, where we can get a room with two queen beds and each share one with a kid. But traveling to people's homes is much more challenging.

This weekend we're back in our hometown staying with Bryan's parents.  They have a room with two twin beds and a room with a double bed, plus a crib which we can move from one room to the other. This weekend I'm sleeping in a twin bed next to Blaise in the crib while Bryan and Camilla share the double. Previously I've slept in the double with Blaise while Bryan and Camilla slept on the floor, but we're hoping this will work better. I miss having them in the same room with me, though!

Co-sleeping families: do you have creative ways to handle sleep while you travel? Especially if you've got an older kid who will not sleep alone?

-3-

Camilla has recently been talking about how she wants to live "with Mama and Daddy forever and ever." When questioned, she also says that she wants to sleep in our room forever, not have her own room. We think this is pretty cute and we kind of treasure it, because it'll be no time at all before she's moving away to go to college. (Sob.) (Not really - that seems impossibly far away, currently my main thought when I consider my children going to college is that by then, I'll definitely be sleeping through the night every night.)

-4-

Speaking of sleep, Blaise has responded to the end of Daylight Saving Time by choosing to rise daily at 5:15am. What is this kid thinking? And how in heaven's name do we fix it? Anyone have any brilliant ideas?

-5-

You know, I write five posts a week for Faith & Family and sometimes I have trouble coming up with topics, so I do this thing where I sort of mentally cast around the pond of my daily life looking for material. I figure if I've been spending energy thinking about it, then it has potential to be a post. But a rather ridiculous amount of the time, the topics that I come up with are related to sleep.

Sleep used to be such a non-topic in my life. It was sort of like.. protein. I needed it to survive, and I made getting it a decently high priority, but other than that I never thought about it.

And now I think about sleep ALL THE TIME. I think about how much I love it, how I used to underappreciate it so much. I think about how to get more of it. I dream wistfully of the days when I will be able to obtain it with ease once more.

Having children makes you crazy.

-6-

My poor boy's pathetic little post-flu cough is breaking my heart. It sounds so sad. I'm surprised he's not more grumpy than he is. (He's mostly not grumpy during the day, and only about 30% more than usual at night.)

Last January's RSV bout was probably the hardest thing I've had to go through as a parent, but I will say this: now I feel more confident dealing with respiratory illnesses. When the doctor says, "watch for trouble breathing" I can nod firmly because I know exactly what "trouble breathing" looks like. Hooray for that.

I mean, hooray, I guess. Can you tell I'm a glass-half-full type of girl?

-7-

Blaisey just woke up and as I nursed him back to sleep I was thinking about how so far, we've got a rate of 100% on Unexpected Nicknames for our children. If you'd told me before we had Camilla that we'd end up calling her Billa for more than two years, I would have said, "Huh, really? Maybe we should think of a different first name so that doesn't happen." Yet "Billa" just sort of happened organically, and now that we've pretty much stopped calling Camilla "Billa," I really miss it.

The same with Blaise. We call him Blaisey all the time. It was Camilla's invention (anyone could have come up with it, but an adult probably would have stopped himself) and we're all hooked on it. It's kind of lame as a nickname, but we use it anyway, and weirdly, it fits.

And now if God (as we hope he does) blesses us with more children, I'm going to wonder as we brainstorm names for each one what the unexpected nickname will be. But I'm not going to worry about it. It's turned out pretty well so far.

(more quick takes at Conversion Diary)

Comments

[Sonetka]

For the 5.15 wakeup ... I don't know. Sorry. Daniel did the same thing until he was about two and a half, and still gets up pretty early. We haven't set an alarm in years. Some sort of Up With The Lark gene on the Y chromosome? Hopefully Blaise will become more in tune with the rest of the family soon!

[Debs]

I call my month old daughter Sausage, and when I swaddle her up I call her my sausage roll, so I'm not sure I'm too good at the inventing nicknames thing.

[Laura]

My kids are old enough (and have been for over a year) that I get a decent night's sleep most nights. And you know what? I still marvel about it! I think surviving the early years of parenthood may mean that I will never take uninterrupted sleep for granted again.

On the lark thing though, I'm still feeling your pain. I dread "falling back" every year. Even my 6 yr old was getting up before 6AM. You'd think he could fend for himself and let us sleep, but no. I will say that in my experience, they do eventually adjust. As long as the rest of Blaise's day (meals, naps, bedtime, etc.) is on a regular schedule, his wake-up time will gradually get later. The hard thing is to resist just waking up and starting the day at 5AM when you have a little one that wants to be up.

I'm sure it's a lot of work, but I'm really enjoying reading your daily posts here, as well as at F&F Live!

[Isis]

My son is now 7 yrs old.He doesn't bothe his mom & dad in nights.

[heather]

I call my son "Bubba-Joe" and my daughter "Chicklet," neither remotely related to their names. I'm enjoying it now, because I assume they'll outgrow them sooner, rather than later!