Falling Back Asleep January 30, 2009

There are times when Nicklas wakes up in the morning and I go back to sleep while I’m feeding him. Then there are the times where he seems to feed for ages, and I am awake the whole time. These are the times that it is almost impossible for me to go back to sleep. I lay there, while he and Mike are sound asleep, and I try not to toss and turn because I don’t want to wake Nicklas up. Sometimes I put him back in his cot, but since he’s been sick, I’ve just kept him in with us. The things that go through my mind are amazing and ridiculous at the same time.

Usually I have a song stuck in my head, and it won’t be the whole song, it will just be 2 or 3 lines of it. Then I start thinking about what is on the agenda for the next day. Like today, I have to call and make an appointment to have a  couple of moles looked at. Last night, at 4:30 am, I convinced myself I am going to die way too young from skin cancer. After that, it really was impossible to go back to sleep.

Why is it that when struggling to fall asleep, my thoughts are as dark as the room I’m lying in? They’re never happy thoughts about my gorgeous baby boy, or how lucky I am, or flowers or anything. Its always about death, or bad, unpleasant things.

The last few nights it seems he gets up at 3, I don’t get back to sleep until 4:30, Mike’s alarm goes off at 5:30…I’m lucky that he takes Nicklas with him and puts him in his chair or his walker while he showers, has breakfast and makes his lunch, then just brings him back to me when its time to feed him. So I get an extra hour or so of sleep.

Of course, Nicklas is back asleep now, after his feed, and here I am, wide awake again.

Its A New Dawn, Its A New Day January 22, 2009

Its a new life, and I’m feeling gooood. Or something like that. I would not LOCK IN THOSE LYRICS, WAYNE.

I said I wasn’t looking forward to 2009, but I forgot one HUGE change that I was looking forward to, and that has just happened. G-Dub has flown back to good ol’ Texas, and can stay there until his dying day, if you ask me. I doubt he’ll be coming back out into the public eye too quickly, after the reception PRESIDENT OBAMA got (2.8 million people vs 400,000, need I say more?) and the hullabaloo surrounding the inauguration. Nobody threw a huge party like that for Bush. Actually, I wonder how much of the party was because Bush was gone, and how much was because Obama was in? In any case, it seems to have all gone smoothly, despite the idiot swearing him in (seriously, who can remember 10 words at a time in a situation like that?)  and despite Obama ignoring pleas from the secret service to not get out of the car. I couldn’t believe he did that. But then I can, because that is the kind of man he is. And Michelle Obama…to walk in heels for 2 blocks, she’s my hero. I can’t walk from the living room to the kitchen in heels. She is one classy lady. They are a classy couple, and I hope we haven’t put too much pressure on or raised our hopes too high for his first term. Oh who am I kidding, of course we have. If he lives up to any of the hype it will be a bloody miracle.

In personal news, I’ve taken the first few steps towards applying to university for my Masters degree. So, go me and all that. There is a section on the application where you have to write a brief paragraph on why you want to undertake this program. I thought about that for a while, and came up with several reasons. In the 9 years since finishing my bachelors degree and declaring I would never go back to school again, I have come to appreciate the importance of an education. Since having my son in June of last year, my brain has turned to mush and needs a new challenge. I want to make myself more competitive against the future job seekers I will be up against. It will force me to step out of my comfort zone, and hopefully get a little bit of my confidence back. It will be great networking, both personally and professionally. I haven’t met a lot of new people or made many new friends since we moved here (I can count on one hand, well, one finger, the number of new friends I have) and I think this will be a good opportunity to meet people. It will also be a good opportunity to make professional contacts, through assignments and group work, etc. I want to be a good role model for my son, I want him to know that its ok to like learning, to be educated and to want to be smart. See, lots of good reasons to go back to school.

But for now, while Nicklas is asleep, I’m going to go and watch my Brothers and Sisters episodes I’ve got waiting for me on DVD.

Week 5, Sleeping and Work January 15, 2009

We are technically in week 5 of the walking, though last week was a wash, because I didn’t walk at all! We did walk 2.5 hours on Sunday, to blockbuster and the mall and home. Then I played tennis Tuesday morning, but no other walking. I haven’t got on the Wii Fit to weigh myself in a while because I am not sure I have made any progress, and I feel like if you obsess over numbers too much, then the whole thing feels futile. I do notice my clothes fitting a bit looser though. This week we walked Monday and Wednesday, and I played tennis Tuesday. We will walk again tomorrow morning.

Nicklas has managed to drift off to sleep by himself a few times now, though he alwas puts up a protest. The book calls them “mantra” cries. That is he is not emotionally crying, just trying to get your attention to come get him out of the cot. We have ignored those, and within the 18 minutes she recommends in the book, he is asleep. He’s even been sleeping about 7 hours at a time at night, but it is usually from 7 or 7:30 pm, so I’m not getting the 7 hours when I go to bed at 9:30, 10 pm. He is a much happier baby now that he is sleeping and napping better. He may be going through another growth spurt as he has now had 2 2-hour naps today! No complaining here!

I have put him on a wait list for a local child care centre. I told them I was hoping to start him around 12 months, so in another 5 months. But the way things are around here, if something comes up earlier, you have to take it because it could be many months before something else comes up. The thought of putting him in day care a couple of days a week makes me really sad, but I know it will be good for both of us, as he will get some socialization and I will get some time to myself. I am trying to find a casual job, around 10 hours per week, preferably on weekends. But they’re not easy to come by. So next Wednesday night I’m attending an information session for post-graduate studies at the university around the corner from our house. I’m interested in the Masters of Business with a focus in event management. We’ll see what comes of that, though. As I’d have to get my bachelors from the US to align with a bachelors from an Australian university. Fingers crossed!

I have to say, once I got my bachelors degree, I had zero intention of ever going back to school again. But since I haven’t worked in over a year now, and I’ve had a baby, I feel like my brain has gone a bit mushy, and I am ready to challenge it again and to start learning again. I also think the thought of having to help Nicklas with his homework is a bit daunting, as I feel I’ve become quite dumb. Oh I know I’m not dumb. But I haven’t had to use my brain for too much in the last 15  months! Its time to make it active again! And as a friend pointed out…if we have to work until we’re 70 years old, might as well be getting paid well to do so!

Baby Sleep January 8, 2009

I read 3/4 of a book called ‘Save Our Sleep’, by an “international baby sleep expert”. I must remember to check the book and see if that’s a self-professed title or if she has some qualifications, because I know one qualification she doesn’t have, and that’s a child.

Nicklas, by all accounts, isn’t a HORRIBLE sleeper. He’ll have a 2 hour nap in the morning and a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, and he sleeps somewhat decently at night, though I can count on one hand the number of nights he’s slept through. The big issue is that he has to be fed to sleep or “danced” to sleep (Mike usually puts the iPod on and dances around with him until he falls asleep).

What I want is to be able to put him in his cot and have him just fall asleep. No fussing, no screaming, no tears. This book has apparently worked for a lot of people, and maybe there’s just something I don’t get. Or I’m too soft to follow the procedure. What I got from it was that you put bub in the cot and leave them for x amount of time, depending on their age. Then you go in and stay with them until they’re asleep (if they haven’t gone to sleep already and if they’re upset). Well, I left Nicklas for the 18 minutes, and when I went in there, he had tears all over his face, SNOT all over his face, his face and head were bright red, and he had his head against the cot, looking at the door, arms outstretched through the slats, looking for someone to rescue him. Needless to say, I picked him up, took him into our room, and fed him to sleep.

Our next kid will be in his cot from day 1. Nicklas was in our bed for the first 4 months, maybe longer, but I think that started because I couldn’t walk/sit up for the first 3 weeks of being home and it was just easier. Hopefully the next delivery will be easier and I’ll be up and about much quicker.

I’m hesitant to do the whole leave him until he cries himself to sleep thing. Some experts say that can be emotionally damaging to a baby. Which I can see being true, but in some ways I think its probably being a little over-sensitive. Like with the whole “don’t mark exams in red because it is damaging”. Bullshit. We’re raising a generation of pansies if we’re going to stop marking grades in red and stop calling school “school” because it has a negative conotation to it.

But I have digressed. I am hoping that one day, or one night, Nicklas will just decide he doesn’t need the boob or the music to go to sleep anymore. He did it a couple of times when he was about 2 months old, but hasn’t since.

Dreams January 5, 2009

I have had some weird dreams the last couple of nights. The first weird one involved my having twins, and naming one of them “Philip Hildebrand”. Hildebrand being the middle name, of course. As a first and last name, that is a decent name, but as a first and middle? I don’t think so.

Last night I had a dream that Nick and I were a part of Katie Holmes’ entourage, and we had all been picked up by the police at the mall and asked to go back to their home, because it was to be searched. They believed Tom and Katie had mob connections. We got in the car, and I was sitting in the front with Katie, and said, “Where’s Nicklas?” And he’d been put in the boot (trunk!) of the wagon. I said, “He can’t sit back there! Pass him up here!” And they took him out of a seatbelt and I put him on my lap in the front. Ha! Then, for some reason, someone had taken my eyes out of their sockets, to fix them, and they were trying to put them back in, but they weren’t quite going back in where they were supposed to.

I don’t remember much else of it, because I was awoken by Mike and Nicklas so I could feed Nick. He fell asleep, like he usually does during his 7 am feed when he’s been up since 4:30! The little monster. I really wish I knew why he woke up every morning at 4:30, 4:45. He did sleep from 7-3, then 3:30 til 4:30, so that’s ok I guess. It would be better if I had gone to bed at 7 last night also!

Weight loss update: Not sure if I’ve lost any weight, given that Mike had two 4-day weekends so we didn’t do anything. Although, yesterday we went for a walk to Blockbuster and then to Australia Fair then home…about 5.2 kms (not including the walking around the shopping centre) and 2.5 hours. So I don’t feel too guilty that I am not walking this morning, especially since Nick is sleeping and I’m playing tennis later tonight anyway. I haven’t got on the scales lately, because I don’t really want to see all the damage from Christmas. I’ll check at the end of this week after a full week of tennis and walking.