Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Posts from the land of Zombies.

Hullo to all--

I am writing to you from a place I haven't been in many many years: sleep deprived. It's an awful place and I recommend that you don't visit. Ever. How did I come to be here, you ask? Ah. Sit back and relax while I regale you with the tale of the past three weeks....

Things you should know beforehand: Aaron's job has a crazy swinging schedule. He works 4 dasy for 13 hours a day and then has 4 off. For 2 months he works during the day--leaving the house at 5am and returning home at 7pm. Then they switch! And he works nights. Same deal, 13 hour days.
Now our tale of terror: When he's on days, Aaron gets home and we all sit down and have dinner together. Then he and Adrian play while I put Fiona to bed. When he's on nights I am outnumbered by 2 tiny people to whom the word 'patience' is merely a collection of sounds. Basically I'm being yelled at by either Adrian or Fiona. Fiona b/c she's tired or wants attention, and Adrian b/c I won't ignore Fiona and "leave her in her bed". Even if it were possible to train her to go to bed at 5pm, I wouldn't do simply because then she'd be up at 5am. Not that that would make a difference. Herein lies the problem: Adrian HATES it when Aaron works nights. It creates all kinds of anxiety that his 3 year old brain is unable to put into words. It gets translated into actions instead...he has nightmares and he wakes up every 2 hours and seeks me out. It started 3 weeks ago and is continuing to this day. He sleeps in his bed until midnight just fine, and then I see him at 12, 2, 4 and 6 when he finally starts his day. Of course somewhere in there Fiona wakes up for her nightly feeding, so I'm up for that too. I've taken to going to bed at 9:30 so I can get 3ish hours of uninterrupted sleep. I hate this. I hate being so exhausted that I have no patience. I hate feeling trapped to this horrendous cycle of no sleep. I hate that I can't fix it. He's too little to be medicated. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say to Adrian to convince him that I'm not going to disappear in the middle of the night.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe a call to his pediatrician could get some suggestions. Nana and Papa miss the babies so much we walked over next door where there are children. We only wanted to see a few not the hordes that were there! Erica said that she would love to spend her 28th celebration with you all. We´re home Monday night. Love, Nana and Papa

Anonymous said...

- Man oh man...that is a tough one. Hang in there Kara...can we put Adrian on a wheel like a hamster for 3 hours before bed time? This way he will have no energy to get up during the night.

Jim

Anonymous said...

Can you set a trundle up at the foot of your bed and then make an agreement with him that if you let him "camp" at the foot of your bed, he's allowed to wake up and check that you're there by looking, but he isn't to wake you? *laughing*

I know, he's probably too young but I believe my godson is capable of anything!!