Differences

The differences between my 3 girls always completely amaze me.  Here are three children  of the same gender, from the same gene pool, raised in the same environment - and in so many ways they are completely and utterly unlike each other.

Take getting up in the morning for example... 

Abby wakes instantly and is immediately ready to get out of bed and go hunting in search of sustenance. Food is always on this child's mind and breakfast is no exception. My little huntress arms herself with her beloved blankie (which can't just be left alone in her bed) and is ready to face her day - after a large bowl of cereal, of course.  By mid-morning she is begging for snacks and asking when lunch will be, every 5 minutes. Now that she's learning to tell time, she'll ask how many hours until lunch. Or dinner. Or snack time.

Hannah awakens slowly and only under protest. She curls up underneath her blanket, thumb in her mouth, hand tucked securely against her belly button, and ignores all attempts to prod her awake. She'll open an eye and peek out until she gets your attention, and then quickly shut it again.  When she finally does decide to emerge, she slithers slowly over the side of her bed until the tips of her feet touch the floor. Then she'll quietly collapse back into a boneless puddle of Hannah mush that requires the creative use of bribery, threats, and if all else fails - just picking her up and carrying her out of the room seems to do the trick (for now, but I have this vision of carrying a 16-year-old out to the living room to get dressed...). She'll often forget to eat breakfast - conveniently remembering that she's hungry about 30 seconds before we need to leave the house.

My little Becca seems to be closer to the 'Abby' version of waking up. Many mornings she'll hear us up and around before we come to get her and will begin fussing and calling out 'Mommy' or 'Daddy' incessantly until one of us goes to get her. Even now that she's in a toddler bed, she will sit there and cry and call us until we open the door. Then, she's all smiles as she begins her busy day. This little girl is always on a mission and rarely stops moving. She'll collect her stuffed animal friends and head out of her room - to eat  breakfast, watch tv, see her Daddy, or whatever else catches her fancy. And she's a determined little thing - any attempts to detour her from her chosen path are quickly, vocally and completely ignored or protested. At least she tries.   :)

I will be curious to see how each of them changes or remains the same as they grow older. As I think about it, the way they each wakes up in the morning is so very indicative of their personalities in general. Abby, the matter-of-fact, everything in black-or-white, no middle ground child. Hannah, the drama queen, always looking for attention and how to be in the spotlight. And Becca - well if she holds true to form, then I worry about our ability to handle this little one. She is our most stubborn, determined child and rarely lets anything get in her way or distract her. But she enjoys everything with a childlike abandon that I hope she never outgrows. She is a girl of extremes and will be the one to give us gray hair and heart attacks, I think.

Three little girls. Three individuals. And each of them special in her very own  (and very unique!) way.

So how do your kids wake up in the mornings? If you have more than one, do they wake up generally the same way or are yours as different as mine are?

Yes, we are the most boring couple on Earth.

Ron woke me up this morning. First off, that is very strange because I'm usually the one pummeling him to get him to wake up when my alarm goes off.

Alarm? Hmm, don't remember hearing that either.

Wait a minute, where the heck am I?

Oh yes... I did lay down on the couch last night right after we put the girls in bed. Maybe he's waking me up to tell me I should probably head to bed now. I'm sooo tired - it can't be morning yet.

It is? Morning? Time to get up and get everyone ready? Nooooooo....

I've fallen asleep on the couch before - fairly often even. However, this was the first time that I've ever slept the entire night on the couch as usually I wake up somewhere between 11pm and 3am and then lie in bed wide awake for another hour or two until I can finally get myself to fall back asleep.

But not last night. I do vaguely remember waking up to the sound of Ron's (very loud, obnoxious) snoring at one point - he was asleep in the recliner (lovely couple, aren't we!)... I seem to recollect staggering over to him and waking him up to get him to stop snoring and then making it back as far as the couch before I was asleep again. I have no idea what time that was...

Ron says that he got up around 3:30am from the recliner and went to bed and given my history of not being able to go back to sleep after moving from couch to bed, he just let me be.

So I slept, on the couch, from about 9pm last night until 6:30am this morning.

Why am I still so tired then?

And I woke up after the strangest, very odd, vivid dreams - probably due the fact that the tv was on all night. Maybe that's why I'm so tired...

So nothing got done around the house last night. And I feel weird - like dizzy and can't quite seem to get focused or concentrate so far today. Ugh.

Remind me not to let myself fall asleep on the couch anymore!

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Sinus issues and allergies...

I feel yucky. That’s about the only way to really describe it. I’m not sick necessarily, but I just feel completely run-down and exhausted. I’ve been tossing and turning until 1 or 2am for the past couple of weeks, unable to sleep - but then I can hardly keep my eyes open all day. I can’t concentrate very well and just feel like my head is wrapped in wool. Getting these words down right now is actually very difficult as my brain and fingers don’t seem to want to work correctly.

So please bear with me if I don’t make a lot of sense here, ok?

I’m hoping that this is ‘just’ a sinus infection. Well actually I’m pretty sure that it is a sinus infection since I have them often enough that I tend to recognize them right away. But the not being able to sleep or relax part is new. I know I’m under a lot of stress with financial stuff and dealing with Ron’s work schedule, grumpy kids and getting everything ready for school – but honestly it’s really not much more than I’m usually juggling. And less than I will be having to deal with once school actually starts and we add back in the usual school, church and other activities. And this fall will be harder on me since I won’t have Ron around for much of it.

Oh I wish I could think straight. Or take a nap. I probably could and should take a day off and just rest, but I’m still trying to catch up from the days that I had to take off over July 4^th when we had no backup daycare.

I’m going to call the doctor this morning and see if I can get seen for the probable sinus infection. Why am I so sure that this is at least a good portion of the problem? I never had any sinus issues until 1995 when I had a horrible sinus infection. Knock me right out, pain shooting through my head kind of sinus infection. And that was just the start. Ever since then I’ve suffered from chronic sinus infections even to the point where I had sinus surgery 4 years ago. They also fixed a deviated septum as well. I did feel better after that – for a few months anyway, until the first sinus infection post-surgery hit. And then another, and another… At the time that I had the surgery done, the doctor also did a blood test to determine if allergies were an issue with my many infections. I was told that the blood test showed no trace of allergies, so went ahead with the surgery. Right after that we moved here, so I had to change doctors. In 2005 my new doctor sent me to a specialist since my sinuses were as bad as ever. The specialist said he was pretty sure I was showing signs of allergic tendencies so I went in to see the allergist in the office shortly afterward.

This time, they did both blood and skin tests. And apparently I do have allergies! Even quite a few of them. So I’m left wondering if the original doctor dropped the ball somehow in not doing skin tests or further following up on the blood tests. I suppose by now it really doesn’t matter though.

I am allergic to (ready for the list?): dust, dustmites, pollen (several types), grass, mold and all of the usual culprits. And – apparently I also have a fairly strong allergy to milk and dairy. Who knew?

I immediately went on a regimen of 3 different allergy medications (Singulair, Nasonex, and Astelin) and tried to rid my house of as many allergens as possible. And I discovered something. Dealing with allergies requires a lot of effort – and money. I bought an air purifier for our bedroom and began dusting almost daily. I replaced my pillow – and folks, this was a big deal for me. I’d had the same pillow my entire life – it was a feather pillow that had originally belonged to my grandfather. I’d sewed up holes in it, re-stuffed it with feathers a few times and finally kept it in a zippered cover for years. I hate to even think about how sleeping on that pillow affected me after so long. It was my ‘security’ object from when I was little – yes, I know, I know – but after over 30 years with the same pillow it was hard to give it up! Until this whole allergy thing came up. Bye, bye pillow. Ok, so it’s only packed away in the basement, but at least I’m not using it, right? LOL

There’s more I know I should be doing. The almost daily dusting and vacuuming has dropped off to whenever there’s company coming or I can’t stand it anymore. I’m overdue to replace my pillow yet again. I’ve never bought the mattress cover that the allergist recommended since it was $50 that we haven’t had. And since all 3 of my medications were brand-name only (no generics available), I couldn’t afford the co-pays to stay on all of them (not to mention that I got pregnant right after that as well and was told that the Singulair was the only one my doctor felt was ok to take). I’m still on Singulair, and have been put on Flonase as well nowadays but I’m horrible about remembering that one.

And the whole milk thing… For someone whose favorite food is pizza and is addicted to chocolate, this wasn’t a good thing to learn. I tried for months to completely cut all dairy from my diet. But added to my husband’s total picky-ness and my kids’ picky-ness, there just weren’t any meals left that everyone would and could eat. I compromised on this one – I avoid milk as much as possible, but don’t keep myself from having the foods that our family will eat. Other than chocolate, I think I do fairly well most of the time with that.

I guess it’s probably time to step things back up and start taking better care of myself. Now if I could only think straight, then maybe I could work on that...

Updated - well, my doctor can't see me until Friday, so two more days of this haze... Off to find some Motrin and hope that helps my head stop throbbing.

So I thought I'd take a little 'nap' last night...

Have you ever had one of those nights where you just feel exhausted? I had a whole bunch of things that I meant to get done last night. Thankfully I did get to the coat/broom closet for my Tuesday Tackle before dinnertime. Because after we put the kids to bed, I lay down on the couch for 'a few minutes'. I knew I would probably fall asleep because I was so tired. And this happens fairly often - I'll usually sleep for an hour or two and then get up and deal with the rest of my evening.

Not so last night.

I know I fell asleep just a few minutes after 8pm because of how much of America's Got Talent I remember seeing. I don't remember anything after that until my eyes flew open and I groggily looked at the digital clock on the dvr in our now-pitch-black living room. After blinking a couple of times I realized that the blurry time on the clock did actually say 2:30. I slept for over 6 hours!

That's as long or longer than I sleep at night usually.

Ron had apparently gone to bed without waking me up - or maybe he did try. I forgot to ask him this morning, but he has tried in the past and then given up when I seem unwilling to wake up.

So much for getting anything else done... I did go to bed but ended up watching HGTV for over an hour since I couldn't (imagine that) fall back asleep. And when I did finally fall back asleep, I had very strange dreams about moving into a new house (hmmm, did I mention I'd been watching HGTV? LOL). And I woke up this morning just feeling - odd. I don't know if it was too much sleep, or sleep that was too broken up. I just now at lunchtime am finally feeling back to myself.

So no lying on the couch tonight - I have way too many things to do!