Why I Bribed My Daughter and How My Son Became The Slayer of Snakes

My four year old daughter gave up naps shortly after she turned one. It has been a long three years. Today, after putting my son down for a nap, I tried to convince my daughter who look exhausted to lay down and take a nap with me. She wanted to play. As I fought sleep I finally resorted to bribing her. I am not proud of this, but I told her that if she would just go to sleep then I'd take her to the store and get her a toy.

She went to sleep.

The joke was on me, though, as by the time my daughter fell asleep I only got to nap for fifteen minutes before my son woke up wanting to play.

Two hours later my daughter woke up. She came down the stairs and the first words out of her mouth were, "Can we go get a toy now?"

I'm a woman of my word so I took them to the store. My son picked out a sword, which against my better judgment I bought him. He uses his baseball bat, tennis racket, sticks and anything else he can find as a weapon to hit his sister with, so a sword was probably not the best idea. Before buying it I told him that he could not ever hit his sister with it and if he did I would take it away.

He said, "No, I'll smote snakes." And that he did. He spent the rest of the afternoon hunting and smoting imaginary snakes throughout our house.

Who Need Sleep

I have a long history of trouble sleeping: restlessness, insomnia, restless leg syndrome, night terrors, sleep walking, talking in my sleep. Yeah, I know. I'm a bit messed up. My freshman year of college, second month at school, my grandfather died and the insomnia was exacerbated. I wouldn't sleep for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. Needless to say this wasn't that conducive to a rigorous class schedule, combined with the demands of being a college athlete. I was a walking zombie and it wasn't until well into my sophomore year that my sleeping became a bit more regular.

Ever since, this insomnia is triggered, every once in a while.....sometimes for no real apparent reason. A few weeks ago I began suffering from this again. I am miserable. I am so unbelievably tired all the time and simply cannot sleep. I am barely making it through the day which isn't ideal with two small children. Everyday around 2 pm I become so tired that I could literally collapse. Unfortunately, I can't just leave my children to run wild, so I fight through it, sometimes miserably and then plan to go to bed at a reasonable time.

That reasonable time comes and I toss and turn, sometimes for hours, until I just give up. My head pounds, my eyes burn, it takes incredible effort at times to even find the energy to speak when that time of day hits where I literally feel like all systems are shutting down.

I can't take anything because I am still breastfeeding and frankly I'm not a fan of taking medication to help me sleep. I did it a few years back and just felt so groggy all the time that it really wasn't worth it to me to get knocked out for a few hours and still not feel refreshed.

There's not a real point to this disclosure of information other than to say that I am tired beyond exhaustion, that is part of the reason some of the writing has been light, and that I am hoping and praying for sleep.

Mommy's Gone Catatonic

I hurt my neck, shoulders, and upper back two weeks ago. Not really sure how but it feels like a combination of extreme whiplash, stiff neck, and pinched nerve. I have been very uncomfortable to say the least.

I was given muscle relaxers, despite my hesitation to use them. (I'm pretty anti-medication; unless absolutely vital I'd rather just tough it out instead of depending on medicine for relief). I was in so much pain last night that I broke down and took one. It helped a little in that my husband was able to rub my neck and shoulders very lightly without me crying out in excruciating pain. However, all day today I was in a fog. Beyond tired, barely functioning. Just wiped out. At one point I closed me and the kids in a bedroom and layed on the bed as they played, barely able to keep my eyes open. It was awful.

What I learned is that I can never take this particular muscle relaxer again if I want to be able to function at all the next day. It's strange too because I usually have a very high tolerance with medication. When I go to the dentist, no lie, they give me a minimum of 10 shots before I am numb. They've never seen anything like it. When I had a cap put on my tooth I received 16 shots. It was excruciating the next day when the numbness wore off. So, it's a little strange that one pill, in a low dose, had such an effect on me.

So, I am fairly certain that the next time I am prescribed a muscle relaxer I'll politely decline and just find a way to live with the pain. I think a chiropractor may be my next stop.

Worthwhile

My son became very ill Sunday evening with the flu. (Not the swine flu, just the old-fashioned flu..haha). He's had a very high fever, which has pretty much wiped him out. After dropping my daughter off at VBS the past three days we returned home where I have laid in bed with him, just holding him as he has dozed on and off. Yesterday, he was so sick and his fever so high that my mom thankfully offered to pick up my daughter so I could keep him in bed and let him sleep.

Sick kids break my heart, but this bout has especially tugged at my heartstrings. He just looks so weak and pathetic. In three days his feet have not touched the ground. For two solid days his body didn't leave mine; he was carried everywhere, held at all times, and slept on my chest. If I even thought about using the rest room he would cry pathetically and say in the saddest voice possible, "Hold me mommy. Please." It has been exhausting and I feel bad because my daughter has had to entertain herself for most of the past three days while I have been tending to her sick brother.

The plus side of this has been just getting to relax with him and cuddle with him so much. He's a pretty affectionate guy in general, a total mama's boy who is usually pretty willing to cuddle anyway. This has only exemplified that and while I have slept very little over the past three days just being able to comfort him while he has been so miserable makes it all worth while.

Exhaustion

Both of my kids fell asleep at 4 pm today on the way home. My son woke up at 5:30 and despite numerous attempts to wake her up, my daughter would not budge. At one point she opened her eyes, looked at me and whispered, "Mommy, I am just so tired" and rolled back over and went to sleep. A little after seven she woke up hungry. I thought for sure I was in for a night where she would be up until midnight.

I put both kids into bed a little before 9 pm and there they remain fast asleep. For whatever reason they are beat. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that they don't wake up at 4 am tomorrow ready to start the day.

Sleep Baby Sleep....No, Not Now!

My kids are not good sleepers. They have never been. My mom says I deserve it since I apparently never slept as a child either. However, on Thursdays it is important that they nap because my daughter has dance class at 4 PM and no nap means she will either fall asleep on the car ride there or will be incredibly tired during dance and fall asleep on the way home. Neither of those is a good option. So, I try to pull out every trick known to man to get her to sleep (she gave up naps about a year ago but still could probably use at least a 30 minute power nap) Nothing works.

As predicted, both kids usually fall asleep on the way to dance class. That means I’m waking both of them up after only a 10-15 minute nap and while my daughter usually does fine with that, my son is a disaster and I then have to keep him happy for the next hour while my daughter dances.

The rub is that they have 14 other hours (give or take) during the day that they could decide to take a nap. My kids pick the one-hour A WEEK that it is totally inconvenient for them to do so. What is up with that?