Strategy Number 532,742

We're getting down to the finals days for a couple of these. If you've been thinking about entering, go do it now - a week of summer day camp for ages 5-12 here, a fun Shrek-tacular prize pack here, or a $25 Wal-Mart gift card here.

***

I treasure my sleep. I like to sleep a lot. I am not a morning person (and really not so much of a night owl either, somehow). I never got over the teenage tendancy of trying to sleep as late as humanly possible before facing the day.

On weekdays, this means I wake up moments before the wee ones and dress at the same time they do before we head downstairs to eat and pack up backpacks. It's possible that there are days I don't brush my hair or anything else until after they've been dispatched to school.

The wee ones, however, are morning people. They wake up chipper and wanting to play - knowing that the days tend to be fairly full, leaving them with less than the amount of time they'd like to do nothing. While they don't get up super early, I have had to institute the rule that they are not allowed to go into each other's rooms to play until at least 7am.

In fact, I don't really need an alarm clock any more, because at 7am ever morning on the dot, I can hear them starting their games, generally in Little Miss's room.

Weekends though... weekends, we don't have to be out the door at 8am. Weekends are when we have a chance to relax a bit more and hang out. And sleep.

Except for the 7am thing.

I've tried getting them to sleep later, but they really just love playing with each other. Even when they agree the night before to sleep in and not play so early or so loud, that promise is forgotten by the time the sun peeks over the horizon.

I came up with a new strategy last night.



At 7am, I heard Mister Man tiptoe into Little Miss's room. He ran back and forth between the door and her bed reading her the sign. Then he explained loudly exactly what it meant

And then he closed her door and went back into her room.  Silence reigned until 7:45 on the dot.

Unfortunately, I was already awake by the time he left her room the first time, so this strategy failed in its mission. I'm back to the drawing board. Maybe I'll go sleep in the basement on weekends? Or send them down there. Hmmm....

Is It 9pm Yet?

Go check out my giveaway here. Another week to go, and you've got a great shot!

***

Not unlike so many of you, I'm exhausted. Completely. I wake up with circles under my eyes wishing for just a few more minutes (ok, hours) of sleep. I drag through my days, yawning away. And I hate that.

Since the time changed, I've made a conscious effort to get more sleep. By 9pm, I am finishing up whatever I'm doing and heading upstairs. I may read for a bit or watch a little Food Network, but I'm getting to sleep much, much earlier now.

And it's helping. A little. But I'm still tired even when I'm "sleeping" nine or more hours a night. Why? Eh, take a look below.

Top Ten Reasons I Can't Sleep At Night

10) Mooooooom, I can't find Snowy! When entering Little Miss's room, Snowy is on her bed, approximately nine inches from her body, which is approximately eight inches further than where she searched.

9) It's 4:40am. If I get to sleep now, I'll be able to have another hour and a half of sleep. Unless my husband's alarm wakes me up. Then I'd only get forty minutes of sleep. That's not nearly enough. Maybe if I start counting backwards. Ugh, what if I get to zero and am still awake? That would be really depressing. Then I definitely wouldn't be able to sleep again. Should I turn on the tv for a few minutes? Maybe not. At this hour, it's only infomercials, and I don't want to listen to those.... Yep, that would be my internal monologue.

8) Mom. Pssst. Mom. Mom. Mom. Do you want to hear about the dream I just had? It's really funny. Not at 2am, thank you very much.

7) Why am I so cold? Yikes! Oh. I don't have a comforter anymore. grrrr.

6) That would be a light shining directly into my eye. Why oh why did I place the bed in such a position that whenever my husband opens the closet door and turns on the light to choose clothing for the day (because it's impossible to choose clothing the night before), the bulb is exactly in my eye. I'm still debating rearranging the room to avoid this, but the window and door configuration make it a tad difficult.

5) Ummm, did you read this post?

4) Or this one?

3) YES! Go. GO GO! Awww, I can't believe he got tackled. HOW did he not manage to score there? I can hear that. Through closed doors. And from a floor away. This is not a fun way to be jerked awake.

2) Moooom, I have to go potty. Mooooom. Mooooom, I have to go potty. While Little Miss a) is perfectly capable of going potty by herself during the day, b) has absolutely zero interest in learning to stay dry overnight and c) is the most independent little cuss on the planet except when it suits her, if she decides she has to go potty, she insists on getting permission in the middle of the night. During naptime, she has no compunctions about getting up and going two or three times of course.

And the number one reason?

Mooooooooooom, I don't feel so good. Mom! Urp.

And if you'll excuse me, it's 8:58. I need to start shutting down my comptuer and heading upstairs.

Ahhh, The Sleep Of The Innocent

Last night, I peeked into Little Miss's room to see if she had either of the cats sleeping with her. And I had to capture evidence of her sleeping. Fortunately, the flash only made her stir and didn't actually wake her up.



How in the world can that be comfortable?

Do you notice that she's sleeping with her knees off the ground? I don't think I could do that if I tried.

And Bugs? Right on her face. Then again, that is my Bugs that I got when I was two years old from Kiddie Kingdom, so who wouldn't want to snuggle with a carnival cheap thirty year old stuffed animal?

Poor Snowy is smooshed underneath her. This is obviously not a case of the Princess and the Pea.

I do know that she's my daughter though, since she's got her hand up by her head just like I do each night.

And as I look more closely, I can see that she's been playing with her lamp again. I'm going to have to have a talk with her about that. At least the monkey isn't hanging from it this time....

A Word Of Advice

We all know that Mommy needs her sleep. I've discovered that my wee ones need their sleep, too. Not everyone believes me (MOM), but they need far more sleep than you would expect. Can they function on less sleep? Absolutely! Can I walk into a room and immediately tell by their behavior if they're well-rested or not?

I was at a friend's house for a meeting the other night. At 9pm, her five year old daughter walked into the room -- not in her pjs -- to get a kiss from her mom. My friend laughed and played it off "oh we just can't get them into bed!" Really? At least for me, I've found putting them into bed, shutting the door and then walking away seems to work.

Maybe it's because I've been a big believer in sleep since the wee ones were little, it's easier for me. I have friends who bemoan (how seriously, I can't tell since they do nothing about it) that their kids can't fall asleep unless they're in the parents' bed and it's 10:30 or later. I always have to school my face to keep it neutral. Mister Man may occasionally be "awake" at 10:30, but that's only when he gets up to go potty in the middle of the night, and most of the time I don't think he's actually fully awake.

I did once have trouble with Little Miss, though. I'll readily admit that. I could tell she was tired -- she has these lovely little creases that appear under her eyes the second she's ready for bed -- but she was getting up before 5am and had given up her afternoon nap. At 18 months.

Needless to say, this mommy doesn't function on that little sleep, and it was showing. Someone -- and I forget who this blessed person was -- gave me the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I read it and was an immediate convert.

Little Miss luckily returned to her two naps a day and long nights of sleep shortly thereafter. To this day -- and she turns four on August 1 -- she'll sleep twelve to thirteen hours a night and take up to a three hour nap. Granted, she never stops moving when she's awake, but she's a great sleeper.

Even Mister Man will take naps periodically, and he's also a thirteen hour a night sleeper -- or more sometimes. But my mom... oh my mom refuses to believe it. She told Little Miss that she doesn't need to nap anymore. And so Little Miss doesn't nap whenever Grandma is around.

My mom also doesn't believe that they should be to bed by 6:30. Instead -- after no nap -- they're up until after 8. And she's surprised when they wake up before 6am. She insists that means they must not be tired and refuses to believe a word I say. (And yes, this does factor into my desire to stop working. The lack of respect my parents have for my parenting and the amount of time my working means they spend with the wee ones is an issue.)

I picked up the Little Miss on Tuesday at 10am after we'd gotten back from Vegas. My parents had so generously volunteered to watch the wee ones for the four days we were gone. Little Miss almost fell asleep in the car. At 10am. Ditto with Mister Man when I picked him up from summer school at noon. Yikes.

What I've learned is that kids need more sleep than you expect them to. If they wake up early, so often it's because they're overtired (not always -- but in my case, it absolutely is). When they're well-rested and they stir, they are able to fall back asleep. However, when they're overtired, the slightest stir means they're up for good because they're too tired to sleep. Don't tell me you haven't been in the same situation!

My friends look at me askance when I say I have to leave somewhere early or that we can't make a party because it's past the wee ones' bedtime. They can't believe it, but it works for us. Ironically, a woman from Mister Man's elementary school called a few weeks ago, and I mentioned that I had time because the wee ones were in bed. She laughed and asked if they were Weissbluth babies. I was surprised that she said that, as Dr. Marc Weissbluth is the author of the aforementioned book. Apparently his devotees are easy to spot.

If only my mom could listen. Then again, my parents are also the ones who refuse to believe that Little Miss has a dairy allergy. It's only under duress that they keep dairy away from her.

Ironically, the first baby shower I ever went to asked all of us to come with a notecard filled with our best parenting advice. I remember that I wrote "No" is no a four letter word as my advice. It definitely isn't a bad one, and I stick to that one, as well. If only I'd known then what I know now....

So what is your favorite bit of unsolicited parenting advice?



PS the answers to the pop quiz are up now!

Who Needs It?

I've realized that I lack enough time in the day to get done what I really want and need to do. I keep saying that I'll do X whenthe wee ones are in school and I have more time. And there are lots of Xs.

I finally have a solution. There is something I need to give up, as it's really wasting a lot of my time. I'm sure many of you have seen posts lately from people giving up their blogs because they've realized that the blogs are taking too much time away from family and activities. No worries, that's not what this post is about.

I've got it all figured out. If I can give up sleep, I've just earned myself an extra six or seven hours a night to do all the things I've wanted to.

Granted, it will be hard to volunteer at the hippotherapy barn, so that one still has to wait until the wee ones are in school, but there are lots of other opportunities. So long as I can talk my husband into putting a studio in the basement, I can finally get back to ceramics. And by back to, I mean relearn how to do it since I haven't anything with pottery since I was in the sixth grade or so.

I also need a studio to do some glass blowing. I don't know why, but I've always been fascinated by the art of glass blowing. Making your art from something so amorphous and delicate appeals to me. There likely isn't a completely right or wrong way to do it, which means my pieces don't have to be perfect -- and it just looks so peaceful.

My other dream when I have more time "someday" is to learn to decorate cakes. I see what some people can do, and I'm just in awe. I love Ace of Cakes, and even seeing the creativity that other bloggers display with their cakes for their children. The cakes I see that some people buy for children's birthday parties are awfully cool, and I constantly think "hey, I could do that... if I only knew how." And I'd actually enjoy doing all the baking and carving and coloring and decorating. I'm still signing up for a class at the local community college once the wee ones are in school. But I'll at least practice now with my newfound no need for sleep time.

With an extra third of the day, I would also finally find time to do yoga even on my busy days. It's possible that this idea is inspired by the fact that my arms are still mildly sore today after my first yoga class in probably two months. And the yoga class I go to now is intense! This also might ensure that I don't miss any of my running days. Oooo, I'm liking this!

I might also be able to subscribe to the newspaper again. I gave it up last September when the e of unread newspapers surpassed ten inches. The Depression Era Baby in me can't pay for something like that and then not read them. It took me awhile to get through them, but I finally did. Of course, now my magazine pile has grown significantly. And no, I haven't renewed any magazines in two years. That means I have only four magazines I receive -- three are auto-subscriptions due to work and my gym; the other is a Christmas present from my SIL. Without sleeping, I might be able to actually read some books for fun. I love that idea.

And best of all? With my newly found time that I won't be spending sleeping... I'm going to be just enjoying the quiet. No phones ringing. No children needing my help. No husband making noise. Even the kitties will be silent. And the birds. And the neighbors -- no kids outside screaming and playing, no adults mowing lawns or doing home construction. Ahhhh...

Ok, so maybe it isn't realistic. Do you think I can manage to dream about it tonight at least?

So what would you give up to gain time?