Thursday, April 30, 2009

Sleepy librarian today...

I'm almost done with The Preacher's Daughter, I was able to read a bunch last night before Lost came on. I also had a glass of sangria; I sort of needed it. Hank was just very needy and...high- pitched last night. Three and a half years later, and I'm still not used to the sheer volume of children. But I digress. After he was snug in his bed, I guzzled my glass of sangria (Franzia boxed variety, don't tease, you know you secretly like it too) and dug in. I am just totally in love with this new Amish fiction genre, and with this author. Tonight I'll start on Book 2, The Englisher, and I'm downright excited about it. This is really getting my creative writing juices going, which is a good thing. I write often, of the scholarly variety, given that I'm tenure-track. And that's good, but it's not *meaningful* to me. This blog is meaningful to me. But I'd like to expand on the personal writing that I do. And reading more stimulates that desire. This is all good.

So anyway, we watched Lost, and went to bed after a long evening of dealing with toddler stuff and stressing about our upcoming house re-financing. Right after I turned my bedside light out, Hank pads into our room. This happens every night; we set up a pillow and blanket for him on the floor, and he curls up there. Last summer started That Thing About Parenting That Everyone Warned You About And You Foolishly Didn't Believe Them, Part 2: Sleep Deprivation, Toddler Style. After *finally* sleeping through the night (I actually weep just thinking about his first year of life and our sleep situation) all of a sudden, monsters lurk in every corner, and shadows threaten to jump out and bite at any moment!! And...they're too scared to sleep by themselves. Again. After a nightmarish summer of disrupted sleep and me ending up on his floor many nights, with a stiff *everything* by morning, we came up with a solution whereby Hank comes into our room without waking us and sleeps on a makeshift bed we create on the floor. The floor doesn't seem to disable his muscles the way it does adults. Anyway, it's worked, and we all get sleep. Therefore, nothing else matters. All parents know precisely what I'm talking about.

So, Hank is sleeping angelically next to my side of the bed. AT 1:30 am, he bursts into tears. I startle awake. I thought maybe he was having a bad dream, until he cries out "MOMMY! I *ALL WET*!" Oh sigh. Someone (me) had forgotten to take him to the potty prior to bed (it was just one of those evenings) and he was completely soaked. Pull-Up, jammies, socks, blanket, pillowcase, even the actual *pillow* were soaked in pee-pee. An immediate and complete strip-down was in order. He was very cooperative, luckily. We got him set up in fresh clothes, with a new pillow and blanket. He complained about the first blanket I gave him ("where's my red blankie?!" Toddlers decidedly do NOT like change), but then he did fall asleep. Blessedly.

Naturally, I did not. An hour later, I finally fell back to sleep. By 6:30 am, I awoke, completely exhausted and cranky. Hank was good for us this morning though, and I made sure to spend extra time with him before I left for work. That cheered me up a bit. Once arriving at work, I immediately pumped myself full of tea to try and get a caffeine surge. I had a student appointment scheduled at 10, and as is annoyingly common, he forgot to show. I'm also awaiting a phone call from another librarian that missed the last appointment we had to speak on the phone about an online tutorial that I coordinate. Doesn't anybody keep planners anymore? I guess that's the Type A in me coming out. I'm a very organized librarian :)

At any rate, Mike has class tonight, so it'll be Hank and I watching Scooby Doo and playing choo choo train. He likes to be the "ghost train" and chase my train around the tracks while he makes scary ghost noises. He's too precious. And after he's asleep, I have a date with an Englisher...

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