No Sleep

Sometimes at two-ish, my kids begin to do this no-sleep thing for a while. They will go to bed fine, and then wake up ready to par-tay somewhere around 2 and it will take HOURS to get them back to sleep again. M had been such a beautiful sleeper up until now--always willing to go to bed when I told her. But those golden days are officially over.

First, she's in a big girl bed now, well "in" is a bit of a loose term, since she lasted in the bed for a week or so and has since insisted on sleeping on the floor near the bed. Whatever.

Second, she climbs, breaks locks and can pretty much barrel through all barriers in her path. This is bad on so many levels.

There have been nights of no sleep for me (and for participants of this house depending upon their ability to sleep through banshee wailing)--oh so good for my brain always verging on a migraine. There have also been days of essentially no nap, which result in late afternoon snacks like the one pictured above.

All of this iffy sleeping has resulted in a change in our hopeful plans for spring break. We had hoped to go to Conference in Salt Lake. We had thoughts of spending Easter with Utah family members, but when the no sleeping began, we nixed those plans in favor of ever being asked to visit anywhere again. CE is NOT happy. She really wanted to go to conference (I tell her it will happen again in six months) and she really likes to play with cousins and other family (I tell her it's not nice to make family unable to sleep). I do too, and someday, Miss M will again sleep somewhat reliably and we will be able to hazard traveling. Until then, each time I wake up having slept through the night seems a new gift. Trust a non-sleeping two year old to encourage gratitude for ya!

Roses and other things with names

I was listening to the radio this morning on the way home from running. One deejay was relating his major faux pax (only recently discovered) of calling a nominal acquaintance by the wrong name for a year and a half. A caller instructed him to apologize IMMEDIATELY that there is nothing more important than a name and he had breached that. Okay, maybe a little intense.

But names are very interesting and they do have power. I have loved as my children learn to say and then spell their own names. CE learned early on that her name started with C (a name commonly spelled with an S). When teachers or other adults would write her name for her and misspell it, she refused to accept whatever item carried the misspelled name. If there was an S, it was NOT her, end of story.

A few months before CW was born, a new family in our ward had a baby boy with the same name. They are so close in age and have enjoyed best buddy status. They always refer to each other by first and last name, to avoid confusion, I guess. They run their names into one very quickly articulated name, often difficult for new people to understand what is being said.

Bam has been my only kid who heavily identifies with his WHOLE name--first, middle and last. He was asking a buddy what his middle name was and the buddy looked very puzzled. I'm sure he has a middle name, but I don't think he really knows what it is yet. And Bam could not understand how that was possible.

I'm the Sunday School teacher at church and we've been talking about the Old Testament: where Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai becomes Sarah, and where Jacob becomes Israel and names places and builds a lot of rock towers. (that's as far as we've gotten) In traditional American culture, when women marry, we take our husband's last name. I was in law school when I got married and I had a professor/boss who had married later in life and kept her name--as it was the name under which she had built her career. She advised me that it had been the easier choice at the time but infinitely more difficult ever after, as they had a child together and as it was confusing and requiring of explanations every time she went somewhere, took her child out of school, etc etc. I just added my new last name onto the end, since I never had a middle name before, now I do. It never occurred to me to worry over this decision, but I didn't have a body of professional work tied to my first name. And over the years, it has seemed to me that becoming a wife and mother is such an identity change, an expansion of self that a new name seems fitting to commemorate the newness of this life that I have now. Perhaps that's why the Lord went about changing names in the Old Testament, to commemorate the vast changes of the lives of these prophets (well, Sarah wasn't the prophet, but boy howdy, a post menopausal child is definitely a CHANGE), to allude to them and those around them that NOTHING would be the same because of covenants made and paths taken/not taken.

While my name alludes to my marital status, I am the one that has to remind me of covenants I have made and paths taken. I know that the choices I make change me and my future in ways as complete as a name change is, though one not requiring a visit to the Social Security office. I want that. I want those decisions to change my heart in such ways that though my name may be the same, nothing else about me will be. I want to be as proud of those changes as CE was of the spelling of her name, as clear as CW was on who he was in relation to his buddy and as completely embracing of all that my covenants have made me that I don't want to leave anything out, like Bam and his whole name.

Digging Out

DH has exchanged the big ugly cast and the "no weight" admonition for a new boot (very similar to the old boot) and a "careful weight" admonition from the doctor. He is back at work and back at bishop stuff full time. We are back at school and all other events and I am forty years old.

Forty is a bit old to be running around on no sleep with people I love who are visiting and people I love who are invalids.

Today is the first day since my birthday that I do not have a headache (knock wood, the day ain't over yet!).

This is the first time I am mentioning (outside my head) that the rolling migraines (where as one seems to be waning, the next one begins the cycle of disturbed vision, tinglies and other things I don't remember the words for) began on my birthday and did not leave until Monday night. That the ensuing week was filled with sinus headaches sprinkled liberally with migraines. That each day I would put M down for a nap and connive and bargain and beg until Bam would take one too (or at least be calm in front of Scooby Doo on the portable DVD player in his bed) and then I would take a nap too until I had to go pick up the big kids from school. We have been subsisting on leftovers--from our weekend of yummy food and from the kindness of ward members who ignored me when I said we didn't need meals because of DH's surgery (I'm still very bad at accepting help, but I'm trying to be gracious at least when I'm ignored and help is given anyway). And I have purchased bread for my kids' lunches instead of making it and then I have been making white bread in the bread machine when I couldn't even get to the store because I was out of ground wheat flour and too tired to grind more. My house has been messy and dirty and I finally got last week's clean laundry put away on Friday, just in time to start washing again Saturday morning.

I have not wanted to say anything about this past week because it would be possible for someone to believe that the cost was too high, that my mom and sisters should not have come. And that is so far from true. I began to think that part of putting on a game face may make me dishonest, making me look like it's all easy to me (when it's not). That this game face business may also fail to show those I love how much I value them and may really be sending a far more flippant message than I really intend by allowing my pride to cover up my frailties.

So here is the honest truth. This last week was exhausting and painful and rough and I have been treading water badly for most of it. I've just about got my head above water now. If I can just have a day or two of no headaches, I might just get in my groove again. Might. But I would not trade the headaches for spending time with my family for my birthday weekend (or for any other time spent with family). I have a friend from high school who lost her mom last fall. She turned forty a few days after I did, but she did so without her mom. Others have difficult and painful families. I am not so naive as to believe that I am anything other than amazingly blessed. I don't want to let little things like leftovers, dirty houses and laundry and a few lingering headaches keep me from precious time with my loved ones.

Um, where to begin?

Shameless backdating will begin again shortly.