Trying to let go of my definition of "me time"

The boys threw me a bone this morning:  they let ME wake up FIRST!  I couldn’t believe it.  I opened my eyes and the boys were quietly still sleeping.  It was about 6:55am.  Their alarm goes off at 7am.  (Actually, it’s a stoplight clock and the red light stays on all night until 7am, then the green light turns on…..there isn’t an actual sounding alarm.)  I just stayed there in bed, quickly calculating how many hours of sleep I got.  7 WHOLE HOURS!  In a row!  And I didn’t wake up at all during the middle of the night, like I usually do.  And I didn’t take a sleeping pill.  (Although I did wear earplugs to drown out Bobby’s snoring.)  And then another thing dawns on me…..I don’t have my usual morning headache!  I am just amazed.  I felt good!  A few minutes later, at just after 7am, Harrison comes into our room to tell us the light is green.  A few minutes later, I hear Alex running out of the room to go play in the living room.  A few more minutes and Will wakes up.  So I get up, too, and start our usual morning routine and I start to think how good I feel and why can’t I get sleep like this more often?  I know it’s rare for them to wait until the green light turn on.  On average, they wake up closer to 6am.  So all I need to do is go to bed an hour earlier, right?  That seems easy enough.  I’m so tired of averaging 5 to 6 hours a night and waking up once, usually around 3am.  So why don’t I just go to bed at 11pm?  Because I’m too busy having “me time.”  After putting the boys to bed around 7:15pm (yes, I worked hard to get them to all to go to bed at the same time and that early!) I clean up the kitchen, fold clothes, send out emails, go grocery shopping, etc.  So by 9:30pm, I’m ready for some time to myself!  I go on Facebook, shop online, play Scrabble on my iPhone (I’m so addicted.)  Then I turn on the tv and watch some shows on our DVR.  Or I’ll put in a movie to watch, usually Twilight or Eclipse.  Then after that, I’ll pick up a book and read for a bit. So by the time I actually turn off my light to go to sleep, it’s after midnight.  My time to myself every evening is so precious to me!  I NEED it!  But having all that sleep last night and feeling so good this morning, not having to rely on a Pepsi for caffeine or 4 Advils to get rid of my headache (and it only temporarily gets rid of it for the morning,) made me rethink about my “me time.”  The thing that sucks about going to sleep early is that I don’t actually SEE my “me time.”  I don’t see any results, such as finishing a book or catching up on my tv shows.  But getting to bed early, I get to FEEL my “me time” when I wake up in the morning.  I feel go great and without a headache!  So I’m trying to change my definition of “me time” from doing things I want to do, to doing things that make me feel good.  So my chores are done and it’s just after 10pm.  I’m going to get off the computer and watch one tv show, then read for a bit.  I plan to turn the light off at 11pm.  And plan B is to turn the light off at midnight.  :)

Trying to be Pollyanna

The good thing about not being able to sleep tonight?  I was able to hear Alex fall out of his toddler bed.  Luckily, he wasn’t hurt and he didn’t cry.  I helped him get back in bed and realized that his pajamas were soaked.  Bobby didn’t put on his diaper very well so it leaked.  So I managed to change his diaper and pajamas while he was in bed (he did wake up briefly) with only the night light to help me see (I didn’t want to turn on all the lights and wake up Harrison and Will.)  And lucky even more, his sheets weren’t really wet.  (A tad damp but I would have to really wake the boys up to change the sheet.)  So I laid a blanket under him and put another on top of him.  He went back to sleep and Harrison and Will stayed asleep.  So I managed to find something good about my insomnia.

I Think My Doctor Jinxed Me

I saw my doctor on Tuesday for a routine physical.  She has been my primary doctor since I moved up here over 4 years ago and knows ALL I have been through.  She looked me in the eye and seriously asked me, “Susan, are you happy?”  And I replied, “You know, I really am."  Nothing is perfect.  My house could be cleaner.  I could be more organized.  But the boys are happy and healthy and things are just really great now.  That night, after the boys have gone to sleep and I’m washing the dishes, I got to thinking about something.  So I went to Bobby, who was on the computer, and I opened up the conversation with, “I’m not trying to get on your case but I need to honestly know how you feel about something.”  So I ask him and he becomes defensive and starts yelling at me.  In the end, after my tears, I did have a better understanding about Bobby’s thoughts and feelings.  I apologized to him, explaining to him again I wasn’t trying to attack him but I just wanted to know how he felt.  He did not apologize back to me, for all his yelling, and I tried to let it go and I just went back to cleaning the house.  I decide to take half a sleeping pill, since I didn’t sleep well the last night and figured I would have too much on my mind to sleep well on my own.  But I wake up groggy.  I manage to send a text to my friend to tell her that I can’t run at the lake because I don’t think I can drive.  I lay in bed a little longer, hoping my daily morning headache will go away and I’ll have the strength to get up.  I do get up and I just have no desire to talk to Bobby, but somehow I manage to put is all at the back of my head.  It’s a hot day by the afternoon and the boys are all at home and have been trying my patience.  But I survive with minimal yelling and I didn’t have to put any of them in a time out.  But by the time they’re in bed, I’m done.  I really don’t want to do anything.  But the dishes need to be washed, especially the thermoses and containers the boys use daily for their lunches.  So I wash dishes.  Last night’s argument is still in the back of my head but I don’t want to deal with it.  We still had to give our cat her daily fluids via IV and I was just tired.  Took another pill and went to bed.  Today, I was woken up at 5:30am by our carbon monoxide detector.  Luckily, it only chirped because it needed a new battery.  I get up to take care of and lay back down next to Bobby, who is still snoring.  And I don’t really fall back asleep but I rest.  Then got up for our usual morning routine, but today (every Thursday and Friday) I work at the preschool.   A kid or two had a bad moment but overall, a good day there.  Then I go to pick up Alex from school.  I check his backpack and his thermos is missing.  I tell him and Will that we need to go back to class to get it.  Alex starts crying and screaming because he doesn’t want to go back.  So (despite my bad back) I carry him to inside the school, then I put him down where he continues to cry in the hallway.  I make it to his class and he comes running over.  We look for his thermos and it’s missing.  (We suspect it was accidentally placed in the wrong backpack.)  Alex loses it and throws himself on the ground, screaming.  I try to explain to him that it’s lost right now but we’ll try to find it the next time we come to class, and he just wouldn’t listen.  So I drag him by his arm back to the car (Will is happily running along with us) and Alex is still screaming.  We get in the car and I put on Toy Story 2 on the DVD player to see Alex will stop crying.  He doesn’t.  Then Will starts yelling that he can’t hear the movie.  Alex continues to cry for another 10 minutes until we get home, asking for his thermos.  We get home and I give him one of the extra thermoses we have.  He continues to cry.  THANK GOODNESS his therapist arrived!  We gave him a few more minutes and then she was able to distract him and redirect him and he stopped screaming.  And then Harrison comes home (thank goodness my friend was able to pick him up from school this afternoon) and he sees that Alex’s therapist has made a special reward chart for using the potty, just for Alex.  Included, is a bag of toy frogs.  Alex will get a frog after 5 attempts.  Of course, Harrison wants a frog, too.  And I explained to him they’re for Alex.  And now Harrison’s pouting and saying, “That’s not fair!”  Of all the 4 men in the house, Will is the only one that hasn’t given me any grief in the last couple of days.  Although today isn’t over yet.  (Sigh.)  Well, I’m off to cook dinner for the boys.  AND cook a separate dinner for Bobby, since his doctor wants him to start eating healthier.  And then, I’ll wash the dishes.  Hmmmm….what are the odds that I’ll take another sleeping pill tonight?!?!?!  

I was just about to post what I wrote above when Harrison runs into the room to tell me that Alex took off his pull-up and smeared poop on our couch.   F*@k.

Oh, belly flab, why do you love me so much?

I gained a lot of weight when I was pregnant with the twins.  I was fortunate enough to give birth at 39 weeks.  The boys were larger than average twins.  Alex weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces.  And Will weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces.  I’ve been trying to lose weight and I did lose quite a bit about two years ago.  But I’ve got quite a bit more to go.  But nothing has come off in the last two years.  I keep telling myself I need to cut myself some slack……I did give birth to TWINS.  But now that they’re over 4 years old, that excuse isn’t flying anymore.  I started running 2 years ago, but I hurt my back lifting Alex out of his crib.  So I went to physical therapy and got better, started running, hurt my back again, back to physical therapy, got better and now I’m back to running.  Problem is that I don’t do my back exercises consistently.  I need to do them about 3 times a week.  It takes me around 30 to 40 minutes to do them all correctly.  Of course, I’m doing them about once a week, hence why I still have occasional back pain.  I try to see my physical therapist once a week, but haven’t seen her in the last two.  And I’ve been off and on the Weight Watchers band wagon but the boys’ snacks are just too tempting (darn Pirate Booty.)  But I’m determined to find a way to get back to what I weighed before the twins were born.  (I am being realistic; I’m not trying to get to the weight I was when I got married, or even the weight I was before Harrison was born.)  I especially want to get rid of this belly!  I know it has stretched so much with Alex and Will that it had its own zip code at one point.  But I think I can shrink it back.  I think.  Then I saw my doctor today for my annual physical and I talked to her about this flab that just keeps sticking to my belly.  And she told me that most women who give birth to twins aren’t able to completely lose that flab without the help of surgery.  Great.  Just great.  Surgery doesn't appeal to me.  But I don’t want to give up.  So I'll keep running.  I may get back on the Weight Watchers wagon again.  Maybe I won’t ever look like I did before the twins were born.   But I will try to get as close to that as I possibly can.  I just hope I can do it before the boys go to college.

A little bit of seriousness about our cat, Mattie

Our cat, Mattie, is 11 years old.  She was diagnosed with renal failure (aka kidney failure) a few months ago.  We changed her food and that didn’t help.  We started giving her fluids via an IV, 3 times a week.  And according to her last blood test, that hasn’t helped either.   Her vet has instructed us to give her fluids daily now.  Bobby and I just had a talk about what our next steps should be.  There is no cure for renal failure so what we do for her now is just prolonging her life.  So far, she seems pretty happy and comfortable.  There are days when we don’t see her at all.  But just tonight, she was meowing at us and hanging out.  (BTW, she sleeps downstairs in our guest room from morning to evening, when the boys are awake and once they’re asleep, she comes upstairs to be with me and Bobby.)  We discussed our budget and, luckily, we should be able to keep this up for a while.  But if her fluids get increased again, we will probably have to put her down.  There’s a part of me that wants to put her down soon.  I don’t want her to suffer.  And I want her to “fall asleep” while she still feels like herself.  But I don’t want to put her down early either.  We’re going to see how it goes over the next 2 weeks.  We start her daily fluids tonight.  We also talked about our inevitable discussion with our boys about why she isn’t with us anymore.  She is the only pet they’ve ever known.  I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. 

Awww......my sweet husband!

Bobby read my post from last night (aka 3:15am) and he came home from work today, on his lunch break, to bring me these!  I love my man!

It's 3:15am and I'm wide awake (F*@k!)

For the last 2 months or so, I haven’t been sleeping well.  There are days I sleep great and can get up to 6 hours STRAIGHT!  But for the most part, I average 6, with waking up in between hours.  Maybe I’m anxious about something???  I have no idea what though.  Or maybe my mind knows that the boys are asleep and the house is quiet and I could have some serious “me time” and I shouldn’t waste it sleeping.   I could be watching Hoarders or rereading Breaking Dawn.  But I didn’t clean the kitchen last night, telling myself I’ll have time to do it in the morning.  But my alarm is scheduled to go off at 6am so I can meet my friend at the lake for a morning run (we meet 2 to 3 times a week.)  And I usually get back around 7:30am, pack lunches, help Bobby get the boys dressed, try to find something for them to eat for breakfast, take a shower, and leave the house by 8:25am to drop off Harrison at school.  But tomorrow (or today, I should say) is my first official workday at the preschool.  (I will be working on Thursday and Friday mornings, since I have 2 that attend.)  So maybe I’m awake because I have so much to do and that I really should have cleaned the kitchen last night and at least semi-pack Harrison and Alex’s lunches?  So now I’m seriously thinking of staying awake to clean up.  But once I do that I won’t be able to go back to sleep and that means I’ll have only gotten 4 hours of sleep.  Hmmm.  I should go back to sleep.  I really should, especially since I’ve been on the border of a migraine this week.  (I have this awful, constant headache along with off and on nausea.  I get migraines every now and then but this one hasn’t blown up into a full one yet.  So 4 hours of sleep could really trigger it for me.)  But I am so wide awake though and I just keep thinking of all the things I could get done right now!  Maybe even bake the boys some fresh muffins?  (The ones I baked the other day came out a tad burnt on the edges, but the boys have been great and have been eating just the tops and centers.)  Hmmm.  Okay.  This is what I’ll do.  I’ll go lie down for a while, maybe read.  And if I can’t fall asleep within an hour, I’ll get up and clean.  We’ll see what happens.  Goodnight!  (And good morning!)

Dinosaur shaped sandwich cutter: friend or foe?

We have a sandwich cutter that cuts the crusts off sandwiches and makes dinosaur shapes.  Friend because the boys will eat lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when they're shaped like dinosaurs.  Foe because they just ate an entire loaf of bread. 

Let freedom ring! (For at least a couple of hours, two mornings a week.)

For the first time since June, I had all 3 boys in school this morning!  I was tempted to come home and do nothing but enjoy the quiet in our house.  But I knew if I came home, I would start to clean the house or fold clothes or wash dishes or something not fun.  So I decided to stay out for the 2 and a half hours that I had before I had to pick up Will from his preschool.  Months ago, I imagined the things I could do in those magical hours.  Breakfast at a restaurant where I don’t have to cook or clean, and I can order whatever I want without thinking about what I would have to share with my boys.  Or a massage.  Or shop for things for MYSELF, such as non-mommy shoes, maybe even ones that have those things on the bottom that make me look taller.....oh yeah, they're called heels.  But alas, I went to Home Depot to buy a new sprinkler to water our lawn, followed by a trip to Target to get some milk, snacks Harrison and Alex can take to their schools, things on teachers' wish lists, and other odds and ends that somehow add up to more than I had planned to spend.  (Seems like every trip to Target is like that.)  So running errands wasn’t exactly the “me” time I had envisioned.  But it was still really relaxing though.  I refer to shopping without kids as “retail therapy.”  It really is peaceful to browse down ANY aisle I choose.  And when I picked up Will a couple of hours later, I had a big smile on my face.  I didn’t miss him during those 2 and a half hours I was gone, but I was really happy to see him.  And I was happy to pick up Alex from his school an hour and a half later, and happy again to pick up Harrison from his school, another hour and a half later.  I forget sometimes how important it is to take time away from my boys.  I need the break to take the “mommy hat” off for just a little while.  I wear that hat constantly and it's the hardest hat I've ever worn.  I have one more free morning tomorrow.  (I have Will with me on Wednesdays and then I work at the preschool on Thursdays and Fridays.)  So what do I have planned for tomorrow?  More errands?  A trip to Costco?  Volunteer in one of the boys' classrooms?  That would be a big NO!  I'm going to have breakfast with a friend and then we’re going to get pedis!  Now this will be some serious “me” time.  And I will probably be doing cartwheels when I pick up Will from preschool.  :)