Sleep Deprived Thoughts

You know when your kids is super restless and it takes 2 hours to get him to sleep, but keeping him asleep means having his sharp talons toenails digging into the soft flesh of your stomach, rendering you with only 4 hours of sleep, so you cancel your morning yoga class to enjoy a good 3.5 hours of napping bliss while kiddo is in daycare before you head off to get 6 fillings in your mouth, but when you go to take this luxurious nap you lay there for an hour and cannot sleep? At all?

Yeah, it’s not a good feeling. I mean, at least I’m getting to sit here catching up on some lovely recorded TV shows and stuffing my face with MegaStuf oreos, but that doesn’t feel as good as yoga would have. Or a nap. I desperately need a nap. But I will settle for the second best- Mt. Dew at the RoundTable pizza buffet. This is how I survive. One hour to another hour to another hour.

I’ve been reflecting on all of the lovely advice from IRL and bloggy friends on my post: Be Nice. I feel that it took me so long to learn how to give voice to my feelings, having been labelled shy as a kid, and totally fear of rejection and being judged that I wouldn’t talk about what I was thinking or believed in. So when I learned how to use my voice, I unleashed. A damn has broken and I’m not afraid to speak up. But now I get to learn how to…not speak up, in the moment, especially when it might make things worse. I want to explore this more, about the power in choosing when to speak, now that I know I CAN speak, ya know?

So it’s really about this internal experience/perception/reality vs. an outer experience/perception/reality. Like how everything on Sunday went ‘just fine’ with my siter and family, but I still felt internally awkward because of the conflict. Like when I’m in yoga class and the instructor says “straight back” and I feel like my back is straight, but then I look in the mirror and realize that…um…I’m really swaybacked. Like a broken old nag whose given far too many rides to fatass cowboys. Yeah, the difference between how I feel internally (straight back) and the reality (swayback) is striking.

Insomnia Reframe

apparently my chubby chin is very comforting…

Was it the 5 cups of coffee I drank at noon while out to lunch with a friend? The 3 beers or spicy pasta while out to dinner with my mom friends? The ab pain from all the workouts I’ve been doing lately? The lifetime of anxiety that flares up at the WORST POSSIBLE TIMES (like days I know I’ll be home with Potamus for 15-16 hours solo). A husband who can’t stop coughing at night so I’m unable to even drift to sleep. Maybe it’s a combination of all of those, but man, the other night…yeah…I fell asleep at 5am. Whoa. That meant I got a whopping 1.5 hours total, half of which was spent spooning a sweaty toddler.

But somehow I was able to grasp this thought, I can be a good mom, even though I didn’t get any sleep.

Revolutionary.

Sure, I’ve managed to limp along while being tired, but there is this storyline that I have been saying in my head since…before time (certainly before I had kids) that a good night’s sleep = me being happy/adjusted/able to do xyz. Sleep is very important to me. While I’ve managed to dial back me “I need 10 hours asleep a night” storyline, I still had this going on and was believing it. A good night sleep with Potamus meant a good mama the next day. And a bad night sleep meant CERTAIN grumpypants mama.

So there I was, with 16 hours stretching ahead of me, solo, with a toddler who hates naps. I didn’t have the energy to go out and do fun things, so we stayed home, doing quiet activities, and even rested together a little bit in the afternoon. I managed to hold myself together, even finding the energy to have a conversation with a good friend, do some gardening, and read. I’m not sure where the insomnia-anxiety came from, but I didn’t let it get the best of me. And, it felt really good.

Now, wouldn’t it be fabulous if I was able to remember this all the time? Now THAT would be revolutionary! Or, a good night’s sleep would be pretty revolutionary, too. Ammiright?

 

slow the fuck down

a boy and his dog. a rare moment in the mids of crazy.

I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection as it relates to my parenting style/philosophy/way of being in the world. While my overall anxiety has remained pretty high, some conversations with really good friends, an appointment to begin therapy on Friday, and a quiet night that included 6 WHOLE HOURS in a row, has reigned me back in from the crazy cliff of burnout.

I have this bad habit of going full steam until burnout and it needs to stop. I know it’s part of my personality, and the stressor this time was Boof’s crazy work schedule, but truthfully I’ve been stuffing my anxiety and emotions for awhile. I’m not sure how long, probably since Potamus was born, but maybe even longer. The pioneer-buck-it-up woman has been working her ass off, because, in so many ways, moving forward full steam feels safer than pausing and acknowledging what is going on. That it’s hard. I know I say it with my head and mouth, but I haven’t let myself feel the weight of the difficulty for fear of breaking into a thousand little pieces.

And, while I’ve written about it before, I have come to this realization, that my tool for stuffing all my emotion is Facebook, my smart-phone, endless hours of mindless television. As an introvert, and a sometimes selfish person, I want “me” time. Lots of focus on “me,” and what gets in the way is this kiddo who I love and is trying his best in the world. In an effort to get MY needs met, I end up stressed.

But last night was different. Instead of facebooking, I spent 2 hours talking to different friends on the phone. Potamus was eating dinner, but I wasn’t mindlessly zoning out ‘liking’ things and surfing for the best answer to solve this to-wean-or-not-to-wean question. Or this co-sleeping-until-eternity dilemma. I was intentionally connecting. And, when Potamus had enough of Jake and the Neverland Pirates and his helping of tortellini, we played outside. He toodled around and I chatted with my other friend. And then we came inside and got ready for bed.

He was out by 8.

I didn’t feel guilty for nursing him.

I didn’t feel like I needed to be anywhere else.

I forgot about the dishes/laundry/crumbs on the floor/ and the anger that Boof wasn’t around to help.

We didn’t watch any TV past 5:30 or even listen to music on the TV and dance like we normally do. It was quiet, and focused, but not so intensely goal-oriented.

And I ended up with 6 hours of sleep in a row, and a feeling of being refreshed.

I don’t know if this relaxed way will always ‘work,’ but I do think that Potamus picked up on my calm and focused energy and it mirrored back at him a way to be in the world. I think, if I can’t figure out how to unwind, how can he learn it for himself? I have no idea how tonight will go, or how I will monitor my on-line habits, especially since summer is beginning and I will now be home with Potamus 3-5 of the 7 days out of the week, but I do think that the evening ritual was helped by this long unwind time.

Thoughts? Have you tried slowing down to achieve your parenting goals?