Katy Rank Lev

Even though Miles will be in school until June 16, I believe summer begins Memorial Day weekend. We were sort of planning an epic journey for that weekend to see both families, but realized that it’s the final days before Corey’s exam and we’d rather not spend 12 hours in the car over the course of 3 days. So, Team Lev will begin our Summer ’13 fun list next weekend right here at Team Lev Headquarters. Here’s what I want to accomplish before (or even on) Labor Day:

• go on a date for my anniversary
• park at Millvale and bike the boys to the water steps for the day
• Idlewild OR Kennywood
• Ducky tour, potentially while Uncle Jordie is visiting
• go camping(!!!)
• visit the farm with Corey’s family
• whilst there, hit up the Crayola Factory
• visit my family
• whilst there, take the boys to Hershey Park
• whilst there, visit Troegs brewery
• finally make it to PGH Arts Fest with the kids
• go to PGH Arts Fest with just my husband to see Cello Fury live
• cheer for Becky in the Amish half-marathon and accompanying hot-air balloon launch
• take my children swimming in a pool
• take my children to a beach (Lake Erie counts)
• bike to the farmer’s market with the boys in the trailer
• whilst there, acquire local berries (or peaches, if this takes awhile to achieve)
• fix the Family Swim Center and hang out in the backyard with neighbor children

Whew! Sounds so super fun! Can’t wait to get started.

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I came home the other night to find there was not a mattress available for me to sleep. I was so angry! It was 10pm and I’d just been to the new neighborhood bar to meet some mom friends. One and a half beers in, despite a plate of fries, I was tipsy and desperate to lie down. But…

You see, the upstairs of my house is strewn about with strange little sleeping spaces. One visitor recently commented that it looks like illegal immigrants have been cycling through our upstairs. She came on a linen-washing day, where all the mattresses were stripped and all the pee stains on the mattresses were shining in the morning sun.

Have you clicked away in horror yet? No?

We know it’s gross and weird and we’re still tired as all get-out. But right now, what nets us the most collective sleep is to scatter mattresses on the floors in all the rooms upstairs. We rotate through, sleeping alone or with one or the other of the children, depending on who has peed or cried or yelled. Miles recently began describing the upstairs room not by function or ownership, but by paint color.

As in, “Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s in the blue room.”

“Ah. We’ll just hang out in the brown room then until he wakes up.”

The times are changing, though. I can smell it. Mostly I can smell the ratty old mattresses in need of replacing. Not really–they aren’t stinky! Yet.

Our plan is to have the boys sharing a room by November. Corey and I are due for a new bed anyway. We got our mattress when we moved into the Duplex on Willow Street in 2004 (!!!), so it’s time for a new one.

Felix will probably do best if we put the crib mattress on the floor and work toward our boys bunking up. I have fantasies of something like this!

Image source

One day soon, I know that our bedrooms will contain actual beds and we’ll sleep in them. For more than an hour at a stretch. For maybe even 4 or 6 consecutive hours. I can see it on the horizon. Bound to happen.

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++A few years ago, I bought a bunch of hyssop seeds and tried to grow hyssop in pots. Nothing took, so I just hurled the dirt into my yard and stomped off in a huff. I now have hyssop growing all along my deck! We were able to snip hyssop and sage blossoms for Miles’ teachers for teacher appreciation week!

++While I was getting my teeth cleaned, Miles (under the care of the ever-fabulous receptionist at my dental practice) came dashing back to the examination room to tell me, “Mom! I have wrinkly balls!” And then he pulled his pants down to show us.

++It was 34 degrees yesterday morning, but I was determined to wear my polka-dotted spring dress, and so I did , damn it! With no stockings, either. I showed you!

++One of my clients gave me a Facebook gift. I assumed it was an icon or sticker, like you used to be able to plop a cake image on someone’s news feed. Turns out, it was a REAL gift! For real coffee! I took my smart phone into Starbucks, showed the gift to the barista, and she gave me a caramel macchiato with whipped cream. Imagine?

++I’ve been copyediting a cooking manuscript for quite some time, procrastinating because it is FILLED with random capitalized words and random quotation marks. I find correcting for these errors takes longer than even working on English-as-a-Second Language manuscripts, so I’ve been dawdling. Today, I noticed that one of the recipes inside calls for 27 tablespoons of sugar. 27 tablespoons! Who does that?? Who stands with the spoon and dips it into the sugar 27 times? Just convert that to cups, for the love of humanity. This client (a publisher, not the author in any way) isn’t paying me for such comments, though, so I just took out the capital S from the word sugar.

++I started my nephew’s birthday present in March. His birthday is at the end of May. People scoffed at me, but only yesterday did I package the present and address the envelop. Here’s hoping I make it to the post office in time for his actual birthday!

++In a similar vein, I decided to learn entrelac and am knitting my sister a birthday present. I started it in March as well. I am just over halfway through the pattern, but because I had to move the project to another shelf, I keep forgetting to work on it and am now worried I won’t finish by her birthday.

++At my birthday party (Corey threw me a beer and s’mores party with a fire ring in the back yard) one of my guests invented the most amazing invention. She drilled holes in her marshmallows and slid bits of chocolate inside so they would soften as the ‘mallow roasted. By gum, she is the smartest and most amazing individual I have ever encountered!

++I took Felix to Barnes and Noble to spend some of his birthday money and I was spending some leftover Christmas gift cards on myself. When I later shared with Miles that Felix took me book shopping, Miles asked, “Did Felix get to drive the car?” Miles is ever concerned that he will never become 16 and earn his drivers license.

++The bar in my neighborhood finally opened! I am going there tonight with some lady friends after my children are asleep! I’m tempted to get drunk just because I can walk home. I feel in some ways that I am in college again, what with the walkable proximity of my friends and a cheap bar. All I need is a tolerable pizza joint and Mystic Pizza on VHS…and some cocaine dealers living next door…and it’s just like senior year!

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One of my friends, a scientist, conducted an experiment in which she allowed her child (same age as Miles) to eat anything she asked for, whenever she asked for it, for one day. I am fascinated by this experiment and am putting probably much too much thought into possibly repeating it at my house.

My friend found that her daughter made overall good choices throughout the course of the day. I suspect my son would not do so.

I love the idea here: teaching Miles to make his own choices, empowering him to make his own decisions about what he puts into his own body, testing whether I’ve set healthy examples for him or made smart food purchases.

I had initially planned to just let go and let Miles go to town on Monday, but we were out and about the whole day. As I packed our breakfast and lunch, I began to consider some factors that will affect this food philosophy experiment.

My concerns are thus:

1. Miles begins every day by asking for M&M’s. When he’s told no, he progresses through cracker snacks, lollipops, pastries, and any other junk we keep in the house for treats/desserts. I’m not going to stop keeping treats at home, but we also don’t go around binging on treats at 7am. I’m not so sure Miles has a switch that will tell him to stop eating M&Ms just because he’s already had 8 ounces.

2. I buy a lot of things in bulk with the expectation they will last two weeks or so. Such things belong to the entire family. If I were to let Miles eat the entire stash of, say, Quaker Oat Squares, this would mean Felix and I don’t get any for several weeks or else I’m spending tons more money on Quaker Oat Squares. If I empower Miles to select his own portion sizes, do I still get to police when he’s taken more than his share (in the scope of this experiment, I mean…of course I get to do anything I want in my own house)? Do I really want to enter a system where I’m portioning out sections of cereal just so Miles can binge on Friday and…what? Not eat breakfast the rest of the week?

3. I have taken to buying fruit pouces and juice boxes for school lunch. If I allow Miles to drink all the juice boxes and suck down all the applesauce, this creates more work for me either supervising or, more likely, preparing his school lunch during busy morning time. Am I still letting him make free choice if I’m designating certain foods for certain purposes?

4. What do I do when he asks for a pear, takes one bite, insists on an apple, takes one bite, and moves on to goldfish? Because that was snack time yesterday afternoon. How does food waste fit into this experiment? Into my teachings about food habits with my kids?

Out of curiosity, I’ve been doing a partial experiment all week. Yesterday I let him have marshmallows (he only took 2 out of the bag. I was shocked!) and then a birthday cupcake and then some M&Ms, all before 11am. I’d hoped I could offer fruits and vegetables and persuade him to eat them, but nope. It was all carbs all the time for the rest of the day. He did agree to one pickle while he helped me make dinner.

I’ve tried involving him in the process of preparing food, hoping he’ll take ownership and eat some better foods. He picks herbs for our meals and helps me chop softer vegetables with his special Montessori knife. But he has absolutely zero interest in consuming fruits or vegetables, even if I’ve microscopically pureed them into a sauce or smoothie or hidden them in grilled cheese.

It might seem like the lesson is for me to be the gatekeeper, to stop buying all but the freshest fruits and vegetables and grains and legumes. Just stop purchasing the crackers and M&Ms! But I’m not interested in this sort of diet. Corey and I manage to eat balanced meals and still enjoy dessert. I know the kids can, too.

So I have no idea how to get there, like always. I’m thinking this weekend I might try again with the experiment. I don’t want to do it on a school day and subject his teachers to a Miles who has refused all protein in favor of maple syrup.

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++Last weekend was Felix’s birthday. We had, at Miles’ request, a pie party for him. I baked 4 quiche, a chocolate pie, and Miles made an instant-vanilla-pudding pie we dyed green. This was because Miles wanted to make a grasshopper pie, but I didn’t feel like dealing with custard and locating creme de menthe. Yes. I fooled him.

++Felix was happily gnawing on a red solo cup during the party, but we wanted to hang him chocolate pie with a lit candle, so when we took the cup, he burst into tears. Hilarious! He felt better after eating some chocolate pie, which was really just tofu, melted chocolate, and some maple syrup. I find it delicious, and so did he.

++This weekend is MY birthday, in addition to mother’s day. I asked Corey for a birthday party, so after the kids go to bed, a few friends and neighbors are coming to sit in the back yard and drink beer and make s’mores…somehow. Somehow we’ll have s’mores. Miles is aware we are having a birthday party and when I asked him if he wanted juice box in his lunch yesterday, he said, “No, Mommy, I want to make sure there are enough for your party.”

This was one endearing moment amongst a day of rather trying moments with him…

++I joined the board of directors at the Toy Lending Library. I’m excited to have a project like this all my own. I’ve been feeling really pulled lately to work more or do something I can claim, something restorative that gives me a break from the children. If I’m being honest, I primarily need a break from the intensity of Miles. But it’s nice to get away from Felix for a bit, too. This is a positive change for me. They’ve been asking me to join for a few years and the timing seemed to work out nicely for me to join. I was voted in today and will start effective August 1.

++Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul, and Mary, is coming to Pittsburgh tomorrow for a benefit concert at a church, not one mile from my house. Now, Miles has listened to the Peter Yarrow Sleepytime Songs album before every sleep session of his entire life (mostly), thanks to a cd gifted from my friend Sikora. He sings “Puff the Magic Dragon” subconsciously at all times. I also loved this song as a child and have fond memories of my dad helping me call into a local radio program to request it some evenings. So for my birthday, I’ve asked Miles to take me on a date to this concert.

It begins at 7pm, which is bedtime, but we’re going to work hard to make sure Miles gets a nap tomorrow and will the universe to help this go well. Puff, live! Possibly also “Where Have All the Flowers Gone!” Peter has to be getting up there…all the YouTube videos we show Miles from the 80s feature a rather old-looking Peter, so I imagine he’s about 97 years old. This might be a one-time opportunity. I’m going to bring some things along for him to sign.

++Felix has started saying, “HIIIIiiiiii!” and waving. When I took him to the grocery store, he said, “hi” to almost everyone, who said, “Your little girl is so cute!” I smiled, thanked them, and left it at that. I mean, I guess he does have a longish mullet? And he sometimes wears my nursing necklace. The main point is that he is still brimming with joy, contagious joy. I love that! He’s so social.

++On this very same grocery store trip, I happened upon a cheesecake taste test. Yes, please! I had two slices and shared with Felix, who dunked his bare toes into some of the samples. Oh well. Had to eat those, too, or throw them away.

++I haven’t run since the half marathon, but we’ve done several trips out on our family bike setup. I just love going for bike rides with my whole family! I love how the kids wave and ring their dingy bells and Miles yabbers incessantly about boogers and various vehicles he spies. Maybe this is the week I’ll ask Corey to help me set up the trailer so I can tow the kids to school or some of the stores along bike lanes near our house.

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Hey, so I ran a half marathon on Sunday. Remember how I said I shifted my goal away from running the whole thing? How my training since March has been run/walk? Well, I actually managed to run most of the half! I was shocked. I only ended up walking through fuel stations and up 3 of the (very numerous, big) hills.

Here I am with Becky at the finish:

Becky’s prophetic dream has come true…minus the part where Hines Ward ran with us.

It was hard and it was miserable and I said a great many curse words as I tried to make it over miles 11 and 12, which were both totally uphill. Who the hell plans a half marathon course where miles 11 and 12 are uphill? Jerks, that’s who. But I did it!

I had so much support. Becky, who managed to train herself to be a pretty speedy runner, stuck back with me the whole time. We also joined up with another mama, Heather, who was running the full marathon. She ran right with us until the course split around mile 11.

Just before mile 11, I was running along and noticed a Penn State Rugby hat. So, I hugged this stranger from behind and said, “What year did you graduate?? I played rugby for Penn State!!” As we puffed down East Carson Street, we bonded over our love for our alma mater and our pride in the team, who’d won a national championship the day before. What a boost that random sighting was!

And of course, my family was everywhere. My parents had come to town for Felix’s first birthday and stood around mile 3 to cheer for me. Corey biked Miles all around the course and they popped up to cheer for me and hand me fuel. I’m a fuel snob and don’t do the Gu they were handing out, so it was important for Corey to hand me the tubes of strawberry chewy blocks.

And friends! Friends popped up all along the route in expected and unexpected places. Running among the throngs of people is exhilarating ..for a few miles. In fact, at the start line, Becky referred to me as a “woo girl,” because I couldn’t contain myself and “woo’s” kept slipping out of my mouth. There were 30,000 people! Including my dentist, who saw me! So exciting! And bands! But then it gets really tough and uphill and having someone yell my name really and truly gave me a burst of energy to keep going.

So I ran 13.1 miles all in a row. But that’s not what makes me feel the best. What has me smiling is the fact that afterward, I walked 16 blocks to the car so that I wouldn’t be stiff. Today, the day after, we went for a family bike ride after dinner and are all talking about what our next workout will be. In other words, I’m getting back toward being a fit person.

Regular workouts were such a large part of my identity for so long. I just love feeling more at home in my body–it feels more like mine. I love how my kids were out there seeing me and so many other adults moving their bodies and having so much fun doing it. Miles is already talking about when he will run a marathon like Mommy.

For the record, I have a handful of blisters on my feet, no chafing, and no sore muscles. I’m very tired, though, because my children only allowed me to sleep three hours overnight after so much exertion. So there’s still that. Imagine how fast I could run if I were getting some decent rest?

Last night, I registered for a 10k in September to keep myself going and maintain my workouts. I recognize that I need to have a scheduled event planned to motivate me to keep going. I’m not in a place in my life where I can join a team again, and that’s ok, but I’m getting back in a place where I’m carving out time for myself to move my body and reach a physical goal. It feels great!

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Erin (a blogger with her own Miles whose work I started reading when we were both using Hypnobabies) just did a Day in the Life post that inspired me to chronicle my own day!

12:38am: Felix wakes up to nurse. I’m stunned to see it’s 12:30 and not 10:30, since this is his first waking since going to bed. I went to bed at 8:30pm, so I’ve already had more sleep than I usually get in a day! Feef nurses for 20 minutes or so and then falls asleep. I decide to carry him back down the hall to his room, since I know I’ll get better sleep on my own.

2:45: Felix is up again. I get him, he nurses, I put him back. I see the lights are still on downstairs, so I holler for Corey to come up to bed from where he’s fallen asleep studying on the couch. He still has 2 more  sections of the CPA exam to go, so he still studies…and studies and studies.

5:45: Felix is up for the day. Crying a little, but not as miserable as I might expect. I’m sad to discover I still feel really, really tired despite going to bed at 8:30. I rush to take him downstairs before he wakes up Miles. Being up with one kid in the wee hours is so much easier than being up with both of them.

I make eggs and toast for me and the boys. Miles wakes up before the eggs are done and clambers downstairs. Thursday is trash day, so both kids hear the garbage truck coming and race to the window to see. Felix climbs on top of the gathering drum so he can see out the window. I love looking at their blond heads from the back, faces pressed to the glass as they stare at the damn garbage truck.

7:00: Miles is having his first meltdown of the day. We are out of both soy and almond milk. He is lying on the floor screaming, stiff-limbed. Felix is ignoring him, entertaining himself as he’s always forced to do when Miles’ tantrums become a two-adult situation. For the millionth time, I feel guilt about how much parenting energy we must devote to Miles while leaving Felix to fend for himself. He starts eating bits of things from the floor.

8:00: Miles has not yet agreed to eat anything for breakfast other than cereal, and I’ve given up fighting him over this. I’m instead fighting with him to get dressed and brush his teeth. We need to leave for occupational therapy at 9:20, so 80 minutes seems like the amount of time it will take to get him mobilized. Felix is a disaster–really, really whiny and obviously tired. I have to decide whether to begin the process of coercing him to become asleep or wait for him to fall asleep in the car on the way to OT.

If he’ll nap, that’s awesome because I can pay attention to Miles and we can both get ready for the day calmly. If Felix won’t nap, it will be a disaster because I’ll be angry at wasting 20+ minutes trying and even more rushed to get Miles through his morning and out the door. I decide to attempt the Felix nap.

8:15: Success!! Felix is asleep. I claim bathroom space to shave my legs. What a luxury! It’s been weeks. I notice that Miles has 4 out of 5 needed magnets to earn some screen time, so I reward him for playing independently while I nap Felix (marched him around the room in circles) and ask Miles if he’d like to cash in for some screen time. He and I sit on the couch and veg out for a half hour.

he helps me “stir” the toilet bowl

With less patience than I’d like, I get Miles to help me finish tidying up the house. We’re supposed to have a housekeeper come today! What a treat! We were going to treat ourselves to get ready for Felix’s party and give me one less thing to worry about the days leading up to the half marathon.

9:15: The housekeeper texts that she won’t be showing up…again. 15 out of the last 17 times I tried to pay this woman to clean my house, she has bailed at the last minute, after I’ve worked myself into a lather getting Corey and the kids to help me shovel up the toys and excavate the dishes in the kitchen sink. I’m enraged. Felix is up, which is great because we have to leave in five minutes. Miles decides he has to take a shit.

9:22: Miles is crying because I won’t let him take his cereal bowl into the bathroom with him while he poops. We’re 2 minutes past our departure time to get to OT. He’s not wearing pants or shoes. I’m tense and angry and yelling like a crazy lady.

9:32: Finally on the road. Signal lights are on our side and we actually pull into the parking lot exactly on time. I realize Felix and I can go to the grocery store while Miles is in OT, freeing up some time afterward to dive into the house cleaning I suddenly need to do before 32 people come to my house on Saturday.

10:20: I run into a friend in the parking lot of Aldi as Felix and I are leaving to go get Miles. Seeing her makes my day! Also? I had $50 in cash with me since I thought I was going to have to pay the housekeeper–Aldo only takes cash or debit card and I’d forgotten my debit card. My order totaled $49.74!

look at all the food you can get at Aldi for $49.74!

12:30: The kids and I have been cleaning and munching. I’m making a very conscious effort to try to make cleaning a “game” so Miles will help me, or at least not cry. He’s swiffing and using rags to wipe surfaces while Felix plays in the rice bin on the porch. We’re all grazing on our new Aldi strawberries ($1.49 a pound!!) and having a fine time until Miles starts dumping rice on Felix’s head. Ugh!

I lose my temper and yell at Miles until he cleans it all up. I herd the kids upstairs to begin quiet/nap time.

1:30: Felix has nursed to sleep and I’m reading Miles 2 books. We snuggle in his bed and pretend he is going to take a nap while I go back downstairs to write this blog post. As soon as I sit down, he begins asking if he can come down. He knows quiet time is 1 hour and can read his digital clock, so I ignore him. You’d think he’d tire of asking, “Can I leave yet?” incessantly, but he can keep it up for 60 solid minutes.

some pre-nap wrestling

3:00: We’re back to work cleaning the upstairs now. Miles helps with the bathroom while Felix crawls around and chews on socks.

4:00: We head out back to scrub the picnic tables and water table for Saturday’s birthday party. We wait for Steve, our behavioral specialist, who comes on Thursdays to give strategies to Corey and me. Mostly me, since I am home with Miles most of the time. By this time, I’ve called Corey about 30 times to freak out about finishing everything. Corey assures me he will vacuum the whole house, mow the lawn, and tidy up the back deck before Saturday morning.

I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to decide what Miles will agree to eat for lunch at school the next day while the kids play in the water table. Thanks to all higher powers for warm weather and water tables!

6:00: Corey is home from work and I’m heading out for my last run before the half marathon! All the neighbors are out on porches and I love running past everyone, waving, getting cheered on as I run past. When I get home, the kids are out playing with Corey, walking around visiting other babies on their porches. We eat dinner on the porch (leftovers! Easy!) while friends and neighbors pop over to visit. I love our neighborhood!

I fill with hope that maybe bedtime will go well, that the day will end on this lovely note.

7:00: We begin bedtime. Both the children are crying. Felix stops when I start nursing him. Miles cries until the melatonin kicks in and he’s out by 7:15. For over two hours, Corey and I take ten-twenty-minute turns trying to get Felix to be asleep. We nurse him, march him, pat him, give him private time to freak out, plead with him, beg him, swear and curse at him. Not until 9:16 does he finally close his eyes.

By this time, I am angry and resentful that I can’t have any adult evening time with my husband. That there aren’t 8 hours in a day where both the children are asleep. That I can’t get adequate rest prior to running a half marathon and that my baby is spending the eve of his birthday sobbing inconsolably for 2 hours and 16 minutes. I hate ending the day this way. I go to bed angry and frustrated by 10pm.

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Today, I’m a little bit bitter about people who can develop and maintain a cute nursery for their babies. We sort of tried with Miles–painted some cute furniture and set it all up neatly. We arranged the toys just so, the diapering area just so…

Some people manage to accessorize the crap out of their nurseries and set them up like a Pottery Barn catalogue and then keep the damn nursery that way once the baby arrives. How? What sorts of babies are these that allow for pristine nurseries?

By the time Miles was a few months old, we’d stripped the nursery of anything that might be stimulating to him during sleep time. We have blackout shades duct taped to the walls to make perfectly certain no cracks of light sneak in around the edges. We put electrical tape over the green light on the smoke detectors in all the bedrooms upstairs and we keep various iPods and sound machines at the ready to blast white noise.

Sleeping spaces at my house, if you’ve been reading along for more than one day, are battle zones. Definitely not places to deal with wall stencils and coordinating carpets.

But, even if my kids slept well, I still can’t imagine their bedrooms as luxurious, tidy places. The cute carpet we had for Miles got thrown away after the zillionth poop/puke soaked into it. As soon as he was mobile, he was hurling folded clothes out of the dresser and swiping the books and toys from his shelves like an excavator. Keeping his bedroom tidy would take up at least 1.5 hours every day.

And breakable artwork? Fancy tchotchkes that look super cute but are…breakable? How do people keep those in rooms where babies-toddlers go?

What I’d really like, I decided, is a nursery for *ME*. I want a clean, bright room with yellow curtains and a wind-chimey mobile made from tinkling flower petals. I want birds painted on my walls and a cozy chair to put my feet up and read smutty books. I want to put all the porcelain things from Etsy on my shelves and gaze upon them in between chapters of my smutty books.

Pretty soon, I’m going to kick Felix’s bed out of the office and put him in the room with Miles to sleep. They can snarl and hibernate in there (or not) and I’ll reclaim my office. There will be NICE THINGS in there! And nobody will be invited past the door unless he is old enough to keep his hands to himself.

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Felix is pretty much walking. I had forgotten what it was like for a baby to learn walking. I love watching him try, the concentrated effort it takes to consciously lift a leg from the hip, move it forward, maintain balance. So many things happening at once for walking to happen! How many million times a day do I take for granted the ability to move one foot in front of the other?

I love how he’ll come to standing in the middle of the room, like a Sumo wrestler, first into a squat and then slowly, wobbly, upright. He usually claps his hands a few times, like, “Yeah! I got this!” and then he’ll lumber toward something, usually my phone. His steps are fast and crazy right now and he usually drops to crawling after 3, but twice now he’s strung together 5 steps.

He’s still in the stage where his arms are fully above his head while he’s lumbering like a little zombie.

I predict that he’ll have it all figured out by the end of the week, just in time for his birthday. Imagine? In one year he’s gone from floppy headed lump to a walking person who can say, “dog.” And whistle.

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I’ve decided what is hardest for me about having sleepless children: Knowing that other people’s (well-rested) children wake up and babble to themselves delightedly in bed, that the whole family gets to listen to those magical baby coos as they greet the day.

My ill-rested children wake up from every abbreviated sleep session sobbing miserable, anguished cries. So, not only am I waking up each day at 4:47, before the sun, after 45-minute intervals of “sleep,” I’m beginning my day listening to the sound of sobbing babies.

We know that the sound of babies crying is designed to be unbearable, and it is so. I’ve gotten used to never feeling rested, to not remembering what it feels like to be well-rested. I can, I decided, handle waking so frequently I don’t dream because I’m not asleep long enough.

Most of the time, if you see me in real life, if I’m not a miserable person, it’s because I am deliberately, meditatively, conscientiously forcing myself to have a positive perspective, to have a pleasant day, to recite mantras over and over each second so I don’t tip over from weariness. I have surrendered hope that I can in any way affect my kids’ sleep habits–I’ve done too many calculations and matrixes and kept logs, fed certain combinations of food, altered the lighting and sound environment. All of it. All I can control is my attitude about exhaustion.

Things had improved slightly, but now (as we get closer to my race, of course!) we are back in an awful place and truly, the worst part of it is the waking up to the children’s sobs, which I have to rush to silence any way possible lest one of the crying children wake the other and cause him to cry in stereo. TWO crying children at 4:47AM is much more than twice as hard as one crying child at 4:47AM.

Today, I’m allowing myself to feel miserable about it. I cried right along with them this “morning.”

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