Just another Manic Monday
GAK! I HATE it when that happens. Sleeping is not something I am good at lately. You’d think I would be very good at it, but you’d be wrong. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I TRY to sleep. Heck, I even fall asleep quickly. NO problems there.
Now, STAYING asleep. THERE’s the problem. And, Lunesta doesn’t work. Neither does Ambien. Neither does a good cabernet.
I have a theory. Let’s call it Fractalmom’s Sleep Theory for Women.
As a teenager, you are too busy to sleep well. Then you either go to college or get engaged, or if you are really a Type A personality, you do both. You are too worried about the impending marriage or college courses to sleep well.
You get married. Finally THAT is over. NOW you are too busy, well, you know, to sleep much.
NOW you are preggers. You are too worried about the baby being okay to sleep. Plus, you are too uncomfortable. You toss and turn all night long, fraught with bad dreams and a huge stomach that gets in the way of sleeping. Especially if you are (were) a stomach sleeper. I actually once considered cutting a hole in my mattress to fit my pregnant stomach in.
Once the baby is born, you are exhausted, but up every two hours to feed the little darling. And if you aren’t feeding the baby, changing the baby or cleaning up the baby, you are too worried about the baby dying from SIDS or a host of other things.
Now the baby is no longer a baby and you can sleep safely and trouble free all night, except the baby has a BROTHER now, so …
Finally, you are through having babies. But you still cannot sleep unhindered because the FIRST baby you had is …..(ominous music) a TEEN.
And, you are worried about driving, school grades, college, dating, sex too early, drugs, drinking.
Now, the oldest one is through school, and THEY are getting married. You cannot sleep because YOU are the mother of the Bride. Then SHE has a baby and you are totally worried that all the things that escaped YOUR children will happen to HER children.
By the time you are past all that - YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO SLEEP!
Well, there you have it. Frac’s sleep theory.
At 1 a.m., I had to pee. Heard voices, was curious. Looked over. No hubby in bed. Turned the baby monitor up so I could hear if they were talking about me. They weren’t. Opened the laptop to check mail. Had a cig.
At 3 a.m. the baby, whose head just barely comes up to the top mattress on my bed was standing there saying “Meemaw, I want a chocky milk”. Now that is weird. Imagine, if you will, being sound asleep. Suddenly, you hear a voice. You know the voice is talking to you, and you look. Remember that you totally cannot see without your glasses on, and they aren’t. ON that is. Look around, sleepy eyed for the source of the voice.
Then, realize that the baby is the voice. And, you have to look DOWN. There she is, cute little blonde curls hanging off her adorable little NOT ASLEEP head. Standing so close to the bed that her nose is touching the mattress. No wonder you can’t see her!
Walk her back to bed, get a new sippy cup of chocolate milk. I know she shouldn’t have chocolate milk in bed. Get Real. I give it to her anyway.
At 5 a.m. I have to pee again. So, apparently do both dogs. Walk them to the laundry room door, actually, I walk WITH them. Well, if I really tell the truth, they RUN and I stumble. Let them out. Stand there for five minutes, sleeping against the door jamb. Wait until they come and scratch on the door. Let them back in. Notice that the cats have no food in their bowls. Realize that if I do NOT feed them, they will be the NEXT wake up call, butting their little black heads against mine, meowing piteously.
Find the other bag of cat food, which is NOT (of course) where it belongs. Have to go find it in the kitchen. Notice that the stupid Elves did NOT come again last night, and the same pots and pans that I left on the stove needing washed and put away are STILL there. Cuss the Elves. Leave the pots and pans. My theory (faulty at best) is that if I PAY for the food, PREPARE the food, SERVE the food, then I should NOT have to CLEAN UP after the food. Bad theory. Doesn’t EVER work. Feed the cats. Back to bed. It is now 5:30 a.m. The alarm is set to go off in 30 minutes.
Do I stay up? NOPE. I do NOT. I will TAKE the 30 minutes.
Next thing I know, I hear the announcer say it is 7 am.
ARRRGGGHHHHH.
I jump up. The 7 yr old is sitting on the couch, fully dressed and ready for school. See, there really IS a GOD! Try to explain to the 7 yr old that she needs to WAKE MEEMAW UP in the morning if I do not get up. She doesn’t care. She is watching Jimmy Neutron.
Pouring a cup of coffee, let the dogs out, run to the, ya know, the morning routine, slightly speeded up.
I don’t make it out the door till 7:45. That is actually when I am supposed to be dropping her off at school. Sigh.
So starts another week in the fractal life of Meemaw, the custodial grandmother.
© Copyright 2006 fractalmom (UN: fractalmom at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
fractalmom has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
© Copyright 2006 fractalmom (UN: fractalmom at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
fractalmom has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
Frustration
I like nice quiet times. I don’t get them often. I think perhaps, in a former life, if there IS such a thing as a former life, which I don’t actually believe in, but if there WAS a former life, I must have been a quiet, contemplative, learned scholar who was single, rich and well thought of.
Wouldn’t THAT be nice, eh?
The reality is quite different. I am a slightly over fifty, Caucasian female, with a plethora of wrinkles, grey hair, sags, stretch marks, a deeper than normal voice which means that I get mistaken for a man on the phone more than I am realized a woman on the phone, as well as a general air of tiredness and sometimes emotional bankruptcy.
Well, my attitude is that I earned every stretch mark, sag and grey hair and I will wear them proudly.
Scorning make up. Not ugly enough to stop traffic. Not fat enough to draw stares in public. Not evil enough to scare small children (darn it! – I have a few that need scared too!).
I dress up well. I laugh because on the rare day when there is a wedding or funeral, everyone I meet says – “Oh! You look SO NICE when you are fixed up, you should do this more often!”
Piss off. Okay?
I am happy if I am able to get up in the mornings. Functionality is a blessing for me.
My day started OUT quiet. The going to be FOURYEARSOLD-INSEVENDAYS (all one word in HER vocabulary) came in and crawled into bed with me and dear husband at 7 a.m.
Now THAT is a glorious thing. There is NOTHING in the world quite as cuddly at 7 a.m. as a golden haired, rosy cheeked, smiling three year old. I don’t want her to be four. I like her three.
Going back to sleep for a few, arms around the baby. Priceless.
And then….(ominous music), the DAY inserted itself in my consciousness.
ARRRGGGGHHH!
My morning bathroom was interrupted. GRRRR. Is it too much to ask that a family RESPECT a closed bathroom door? You’d think not, but you’d be WRONG.
Someone asked, why are we raising our grandchildren? Okay, there is just no genteel way to say this. One of our four children, all of whom were raised the same, became a heroin addict. Yeppers. A junkie. And, she has two children.
We took her to court and took the kids away. That’s what happens when you start to majorly screw up. Consequences. They are OUT THERE waiting to jump on you and slap you in the face.
I have now been interrupted seven times. The two neighbor boys knocked on the door to see if the kids could play.
The son came home from his job interview. The baby needed wiped.
The elves didn’t come last night. I have waited 51 years for the elves to come. Every night when I was too tired to clean the kitchen before I went to bed, I prayed for the elves.
They came the other night.
Last night, I went to bed really tired. It was 2 a.m. I didn’t empty the dishwasher. The elves were up. Talking to dear husband. The elves went to bed without cleaning my kitchen.
Even elves aren’t reliable. What is the world coming too?
I think I would like to be a pirate. Not to really hurt people. The kind of pirate that you want to be when you are 7 or 8 years old. You know, swashbuckling. Fun. Cool. Breaking all the rules. That kind of pirate. Sort of eccentric, not caring about regulations.
If I hit the lottery, there is a plethora of things I could do. A number of them I MIGHT do. But one thing I would WANT to do, I would never do, well, because it is not very practical.
Buy an island. Move there. Equip it with all the comforts of civilization.
Retire.
I don't DO mornings well at all
Starting each morning is something we all do each and every single day of our lives.
Wow. That is profound. For me. Because it is only a little bit after 8 am, and, well, frankly, my mind is almost but not entirely totally unlike awake.
This is going to be under the category of what my 17 year old daughter would call “T. M. I.” (tooooo much info); however, I start my day by the following.
Get out of bed, hit the snooze. (It is approximately 10 feet from my bed to the alarm site – located on the left of my dresser). Get back in bed. Repeat a lot of times. It took me awhile to find an alarm that was accommodating enough to have
a. a snooze button that was programmable
b. a snooze button that wouldn’t just arbitrarily quit on me
c. a snooze button that didn’t have a preset time to stop snoozing and just shut itself off, thereby allowing me to sleep unsnoozingly for the rest of the morning.
I’d share with my readers the brand etc of the alarm clock, but alas! I purchased it over 15 years ago and I cannot read any of the markings anymore. The volume works, sort of. If you turn it to the exact right spot and leave it alone forever. But – if you try to change it, it won’t work anymore at all. The alarm is a two alarm – er, as it were. You can choose from an annoying bleeeeeeeeep bleeeeeeeep, or music. From the music, you can choose radio, or CD.
I leave it on annoying bleeeeeeep and radio. Any CD I would choose I would LIKE, and therefore subliminally or subconsciously, I probably wouldn’t wake up at all.
Once I have fought the battle to actually get out of bed and STAY out of bed, instead of jumping right back into bed for 10 more minutes ad infinitum, I head immediately to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
I love coffee. BLACK. PLAIN. HOT. I have a coffee pot that grinds the beans all by itself.
The culmination of coffee drinker bliss. Thank you Melitta. THANK YOU! At night, I pour in some Starbucks beans. WHOLE beans. FRESH beans. I add water to the water part. I make sure the pot part is empty. THAT is very important. And you know that I have forgotten to do THAT part because I included it in the previous sentence. THAT is a mess you do NOT want to face when you have just jumped out of bed. Trust me.
I like BOLD African coffee. French or Espresso Roast. The kind of coffee that gives you dragon breath. Too Right.
Into the, well, ya know. Bathroom. Yeppers. But, as a lot of baby boomers, MY bathroom is more of a Haven. I think it is anyway.
It’s largish. About 15 feet by 8 feet. Larger than some bedrooms. We have a master suite, which only means that we have a bedroom which is larger than most, and an attached bathroom that is on the OTHER side of the house from the kidlet area.
This century, I am into a Papa Hemingway decorating phase. So, bathroom is done in genteel African landed gentry.
And decadent as I am, I have color t.v. with digital cable in the bath. And a table for my laptop.
As I get my first cup of coffee, I let the two dogs out into the garage/dog pooping area. We live in a ‘gated community’ which means that even though we own our home, we still have rules. I don’t LIKE that, but it is a compromise I have learned to live with. And, I like my house.
I don’t like one of the dogs, because it belongs to my son, who is a college graduate and unemployed. I want both the son and the dog to move. I love my son, but he will be turning 21 on Saturday. It’s time. Get out.
I call the dog Sir Piss a lot, cause, well, that is what he does. He has a predilection for my ridiculously expensive imported leather sofa. I may kill the dog.
Anyway, dump the dogs in the garage, wake the babies. (The babies are 4 next week and just turned 7).
I am in trouble. School starts in 9 days. WE have to get up at six am during school. It is now 8:30.
I don’t like mornings. Fortunately, the kidlet goes to a private school. They are somewhat forgiving. Not very though. She is late a lot. They cut me slack, see I am a GRANDMOTHER who is raising two grandkids. They KNOW I am over 50. Some of THEM are over 50 and I know they are saying….”Oh, that poor woman”.
Damn Skippy. Having to get up at 6 am at THIS age. Pity me!
In the bathroom, t.v. goes on either MSNBC or CNN. Depends on what mood I am in. I don’t particularly LIKE Robin & Co. on CNN, but I also don’t particularly like the way MSNBC misreports the news. So I switch back and forth. Robin of Robin & Co., can get on my LAST nerve. I want a dry, no personality male broadcaster. I want WALTER CRONKITE.
Baby boomers. Sheesh! I don’t want to be entertained. Just tell me the freakin news please.
Laptop on, news on, the reader can only imagine the rest. Coffee next to me, cigarette burning away the good air and my lungs simultaneously. ( I really need to quit that disgusting habit.)
Mornings. I don’t do mornings well. Never have. A good bathroom, t.v., excellent coffee, quiet, a laptop and the news. All those things help.
Have a wonderful day. It’s Monday. With a vengeance.
Life-its NOT like the brochure.
