on sleep, and choosing satisfaction

The Little Bruiser

LB likes to sleep. a lot. Just not at the same time that Mom and Dad like to sleep. This is nothing new for us. We are not, as we were with Mr. Baseball, daily amazed at the lack of sleep, at the number of times we get up in the middle of the night, at the baby's uncanny ability to sleep soundly right up until the moment we decide to lie down ourselves (or the moment we sit down to post something to the blog...he just woke up and now I'm typing with one hand...I'll see if I can set him down...worked for now...we'll see)

The entire month of February has been a blur. I've been able to get to school (thanks, initially to the help of Nana Fitzgerald who came for a week) and I've even gotten some work done there, but we're definitely in "survival" mode.

Maybe survival mode is too severe a term--it makes it sound like we're barely hanging on, which is not true. More like we've got a firm grip, but trying to do anything else beside hold on makes things difficult.

Take the other day, for example. I woke up early, showered, made breakfast and helped Mr. Baseball get off to school and then came home with plans to walk the dog and then catch the bus up to campus. But when I got home, the QB--who does most of the late night work with LB and is often exhausted when she wakes up--needed to go back to sleep. So I took both kiddos and she went to sleep for an hour. I did a little work on the computer and picked up the house a bit and played some Legos with the Monkey. After the QB woke up about an hour later I left to catch the 10:15 bus to school.

Except there isn't a 10:15 bus. The bus comes every half hour up until 9:45, and then switches to every hour.

luckily it was sunny outside and relatively windless (Lubbock is always a little windy), so i just pulled out my book (Reality Hunger) and sat down on the sidewalk beside the bus stop sign to wait.

Now, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't frustrated that I'd messed up on the bus schedule, and frustrated that my delusions about getting out of the house early were just that--delusions. It was one of those moments where something doesn't go right and I want really badly to find someone or something else to blame, but in the end only chance and my own lack of planning emerge as possible targets. But after a moment I calmed down and decided that the best thing to do would be to go with the flow, to be satisfied, content with whatever gets done, rather than frustrated by what doesn't.

I remembered something the QB had said the night before. She'd been commenting on how tired she was, on how she didn't feel like she was getting much done around the house and that for a little bit she'd been feeling guilty about it. Then she told me that she decided she wasn't going to worry about it because this time with LB being so little really won't last that long and that we ought to just enjoy it.

great advice.

Especially when I consider that its coming from the woman who has to get up and feed the little guy three, four, sometimes five times a night. I change diapers and get burp rags and drinks of water and anything else she needs, but I'm always stumbling through blind sleepiness, bent on getting whatever she asks for as quickly as possible so that I can get back under the covers.

She, on the other hand (and I know this is a slightly idealistic view of her) seems always pleasant, no matter what hour of the early morning--talking sweetly to the little boy who has woken her up for the sixth time, who just wet through his entire outfit, never a hint of frustration.

She really is enjoying it.

And I am too. He is very cute. And the QB swears that she's seen him smile, though, I have yet to really see one (then again, I'm not the one feeding him, so why would he smile at me). These three weeks have felt strange, like life as we know it has come in to land for a refuel and to pick up new passengers. We're all suffering from jet lag and airport food and sometimes the crowd gets to be too much, but for the most part we are excited about the prospect of where the plane is going, and now that we've got this new fragile cargo along with us, the trip some how seems a little more urgent, a little more exciting.

LB is this giant third variable that changes every other part of the equation that is our family, and I've felt a little bit like a groggy co-pilot and I'm doing my best to follow orders and to stay awake for my portion of the flight.

(fragile Cargo)

The QB is a hero. Plain and simple.