Home

The Princess has picked up an “interesting” habit lately.  She scrunches up her nose and breathes in and out a la “Revenge of the Nerds”.  It’s very cute at 8 months old but it will be quite unattractive at 12 or 13.  Let’s hope it’s a passing phase…

On the sleep front, she is going to bed super-early which is great for me because I have a little time to myself before I have to get some zzzz’s but she is also waking up earlier than I’d like.  Looks like we’re going to have to tweak something there.  What a puzzle these little ones are…

Yes, I did resort to putting the Tot in the car this afternoon to get her to nap.  I’m not proud of this fact but, it needed to be done.  I rocked her to sleep and she zonked out for a whole 20 minutes before waking up to the tune of ”where the heck am I and I’m NOT gonna stay here!”  So, I decided that it was time for a ride down to the beach. 

 Unfortunately, it didn’t work.  But I did get to do a surf check.  I wasn’t missing much.  Afternoon slop.  Onshore breeze.  1-3 feet.  And it got us a few minutes closer to The Daddy coming home…

Yes, I actually surfed today.  Imagine that!  With the time change, Tater Tot was up insanely early and I was able to nurse her and get out of the house in time for dawn patrol.  It was 1-3, clean, light offshore, small crowd.  When I first pulled up, I didn’t think it was surfable.  But it was dark so what did I know?  As it got a little lighter it looked like there were some teeny tiny sets rolling through and only one other guy out so I decided “What the hell?  I’m here already anyway, I might as well get wet.”  So I unloaded my longboard, suited up and paddled out.  I gotta do that more often.  As much fun as I had, I missed the Tot alot and was happy to get home to her.  I know that it’s important for mommies to have a break but it’s hard to leave her behind…

Orange is my new favorite color.  It goes with sweet potatoes, winter squash and carrots.  Bananas and pears blend in okay with it, too!  Pink is great and I usually dress the Tot in it but, at this point in her life (and mine!), orange is the way to go!  Until we start eating more green foods…

The Mommy’s “What I Missed” Surf Report for 10/28/06: small, 1-2 foot clean waves, warm water and a small crowd especially for a Saturday.  I can’t wait until I stop nursing so I can do dawn patrol again!  The Daddy can wait…he likes dawn patrol too.

Since The Mommy has a tot, I can’t get out in the water during the week like I used to but here’s what my husband tells me I missed: Today it was light offshore winds, 1-2 foot waves, warm water and a little bit of a crowd (where isn’t there a little bit of a crowd!). Definitely a longboard day.  Doh! There’s always tomorrow…

What we DID do today is go to a Halloween party.  The Tot had a good time and so did the Mommy.  Getting the costume on and keeping it on….well, that’s another story.

Okay, here goes…I have to confess my guilty pleasure: The Gilmore Girls.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  The target audience is half my age. But I just can’t help it!  I’ve watched it since season 1 and every Wednesday I look forward to watching little snatches of the previous night’s Tivo’d episode whenever The Tater Tot is napping or nursing. 

This Wednesday morning I turned on the TV while she was nursing thinking I’d watch a few minutes but “DOH!” it wasn’t listed on my Tivo playlist.  WHAT?!  How can this be?!  I went to my Season Pass manager and guess what had recorded instead of Gilmore Girls…THE FREAKIN’ COLBERT REPORT!  GAK!  I wonder if/when they’re gonna rerun this episode…

Oh, Hallelujah!  She Who Must Not Be Woken is in the second hour of her second nap of the day!  AND she went down “drowsy but awake” like they tell you to and conked out on her own! Oh what have I done to deserve such a blessing?!  If someone would tell me, I’d make sure to do it again and again and again and twice more after that!

I myself got 5 whole hours of sleep in a row last night before I woke up and then about 2 1/2 more of snoozing in and out. I’m feeling amazingly well put together today.  Of course I’m not doing anything today but resting when she naps and taking a quick trip to the health food store.  Details, details. Anything to keep from being a lump of Mommy Mess on the floor.  Mommy Mess is not conducive to raising a confident female child and is to be avoided, I think, if possible.  Now, it’s not always possible but today it is.  So I will count my blessings and go have some ice cream.  Kinda negates the trip to the health food store, huh?  Oh well…a Mommy’s gotta do what a Mommy’s gotta do.

Okay, I think I have insomnia.  It makes no sense whatsoever that I wake up when my child does not and can’t get back to sleep for two freakin’ hours during the middle of the night.  Toss….Turn…Toss. 

The book that I borrowed about getting your infant to sleep better basically so far has told me that if I don’t get her on a healthy sleep schedule, intervening at the precise moment when she is just sleepy enough but not too sleepy, she will end up lazy, stupid, and/or attention deficit.  Great!  NO PRESSURE!  Okay, there’s a little exaggeration there but I do think that I’m going to skip the “why a healthy sleep schedule is important” section and go straight to the “what the hell to do” section.  Will update later….

Okay, since I posted that entry about getting that beautiful, wonderful, restorative 2 hour nap I have gotten a whole lot of nothing in terms of sleep.  I jinxed myself!  I should have known better than to utter the words out loud (okay, type them out loud, but you know what I mean!).  Something’s got to give.  The Tot slept through the night last night without a hitch but I woke up every 1-2 hours.  What’s up with that??!!  And naptimes have been short and/or inconvenient (while driving, while shopping, generally times when The Mommy can’t nap too!).  She also needs me to “dance” her to sleep which is no mean feat with her being a near-20-pound sack of potatoes!  My back and arms are beginning to rebel.

I’m taking steps to get the Tot on a more regular nap schedule so I can nap, too until I figure out how to sleep through the night myself! I’ve borrowed a book on getting your infant to sleep better and I’m gonna read it.  Try and stop me.  Being generally opposed to the “cry it out” method for Me and the Tot, I’m not sure exactly what I’m gonna do next but I plan to gather all kinds of ideas and see what fits for us.  Because, as Dr. Phil says “How’s that workin’ for ya’?”  Unfortunately, the dancing to sleep isn’t working for us anymore and I’d like her to be able to fall asleep without it. I think that this may mean even LESS sleep for a little while until whatever it is I try starts working (is that POSSIBLE?).  But it’s time to try something a little different.  Wish us luck…

The one thing that I miss the most since becoming a mommy is sleep.  I don’t particularly miss my sanity because I don’t think I had a ton of it to begin with.  Going out with my husband just the two of us?  Surfing?  Sure.  My old body?  Yeah, maybe.  With SLEEP I’d have enough energy to get that back.  But sleep…oh, wonderful, beautiful sleep!  The feeling of snuggling into the warm comforter, your head melting into the pillow.  Waking up refreshed without an alarm.  Not waking up 2 or 3 times a night.Â

It is amazing to me that I am still functioning after 7 1/2 months of sleep deprivation. (Functioning.  Not to be confused with functioning well). BTT (Before Tater Tot), I was an absolute wreck on 6 hours of sleep.  Now that’s the norm.  I feel lucky if I get 7!

You might ask “doesn’t your child sleep through the night yet?”  Well, yes, she does.  About half of the time.  But, you see, I have now been trained to wake up in the middle of the night.  So, even when she does sleep through the night, guess who wakes up?  Yep, that would be me.  Which would be okay if I could go right back to sleep.  But, no, that would be too easy. 

What about “nap when your child naps?”  Yeah, that sounds good but then nothing gets done and Mommy doesn’t have any clean underwear.  Not okay.  Not that I’m morally opposed to turning the previous days’ underwear inside out…  Okay, yes, I am morally opposed to that.  It’s just not right.  So most days I don’t nap and sometimes stuff still doesn’t get done.  But today my beautiful child graced me with a 2 hour nap and, contrary to my usual behavior, I napped too.  Two glorious hours of blissful sleep!  Life cannot get any better.