early morning insights on the way to school

i have decided that my daughter's favorite words are "guess what."


maybe this is typical for a five year old girl.  or a five year old boy, for that matter.  but as much as getting ready and getting out the door in the morning stresses me out, i find it an honor to be able to take my daughter to school every morning, without fail, on my way to work.


today is the last day before spring break.  it is also the last school day before easter, and since piper goes to a lutheran school, this is kind of a big deal.  


the minute i walked in the door last night, piper had to tell me all about the happenings for today.


in typical quick-talking kindergartener style...."himommy GUESS WHAT?!?"


she proceeded to tell me that the easter bunny MIGHT hide some things in their classroom after lunch.  and that today was the day for the kindergarten store, and could we PLEASE get in her piggy bank to get money for the store PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE?!?


all within 26 seconds of me getting out of the car.

piper is not a morning person.  well, scratch that.  she's not a morning person on school mornings.  on weekends, that kid is up at like 7am, but she is five, and very respectful of the fact that the rest of us want to sleep later.  she doesn't get into things she's not supposed to, just goes down into the play room and watches tv.  she even turns it down so as not to wake up the rest of us. 

but on school mornings, it's like pulling teeth to get her ready on time.  for whatever reason, she was all bouncy this morning.  she was ready in record time.  and as she sat at the counter, eating her donuts, talking with her mouth full, i seriously don't think she took time to even take a breath.  she talked the entire.way.to.school this morning.

and as we went to school, i sat up front, driving and laughing.

"mommy, guess what!  did you know that drake doesn't believe that only grown ups can see the easter bunny?"

"mommy, guess what!  miss james said that after lunch the easter bunny MIGHT hide eggs in our classroom!"

"mommy, guess what!  i bet there is a mrs. easter bunny that helps mr. easter bunny take all the eggs and candy to the kids.  because, you know, that's a lot of work.  he has to go all over the world.  even to florida!"

"mommy, did you know that we're learning about skunks?  we came back from lunch yesterday and the room smelled all stinky like a skunk!  and guess what!  we read a book about a skunk that was helping the easter bunny, and he was getting so excited that he kept spraying!  and the easter bunny had to wear a paper clip on his nose so he could make the eggs!  mommy, guess what!  did you know skunks are black and white?  not like raccoons, but kind of!"

guess what!  as funny as she is, i love that my daughter finds excitement out of life.

little brown bear

when we were little, my mom used to call us her little brown bears. my sister, moreso, because she has this really great olive skin complexion, and she can walk outside for about ten minutes and be tan. but we had a small above-ground pool growing up, and Sis and i would spend hours in that thing. i'll probably have skin cancer some day, but i wouldn't trade those memories for anything.

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brown bear mothers are extraordinarily fierce in defending their cubs. their aggression borders on that of male brown bears. and they tend to become socially isolated from other bears once they give birth to cubs. their entire focus is on the well-being of their cubs.

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my mom was a lot like this in many ways. while she never really stepped in and told us who to be friends with, etc., she was always the first to come to our rescue if something happened that was unjust.

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she was like a mama brown bear.

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piper recently has been having issues at school. she has been behaving rudely, and has been acting out in many ways. why she is doing this, i'm not sure. she doesn't have those behaviors demonstrated to her at our house, but as i've said before, she has a biologic mother that is not me. and she tells me that she sees those types of behaviors at her other mother's house. she says that she learns it from her brothers.

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so...

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it's really really really hard for me to hear criticism about my kid. is that normal? i don't know. i almost take it personally, like people will think i'm this horrible mother. it's difficult because i feel like all that i am is reflected in how my child behaves.

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maybe because i strive on a daily basis for my mother to be reflected in my actions. my mom was the coolest mother, like, ever. i mean, i know everyone says that about their mom, but i really mean it. she was such a good mother. and i want every day for her to be proud of the mother/wife/daughter that i've grown to be.

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and i want piper to be more than she could have been with her biologic mother. that sounds horribly selfish. i know. but my heart is, i think, in the right place. the way i've justified this in my head is that maybe all this happened for a reason...perhaps she was put in my life because my purpose is to elevate her to a higher level (whatever that means) than she could have achieved under anyone else's care. maybe i'm meant to be a good role model for her.  maybe she needed a mama bear?  maybe that mama bear is supposed to be me?

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which is part of why i take it so personal when i know she's not behaving the way i wish she would.

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i know i'm probably looking at this all wrong. maybe it's all meant to teach me something. maybe it's meant to teach me to take criticism and run with it, rather than getting my hackles up. and i accept that. but the mama bear in me wants to defend and be aggressive and shelter her.

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and this doesn't mean that i'm not taking steps to make things right, and have her behave properly.

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and this doesn't mean that she's not allowed to be a kid. to be an average, play-in-the-mud, wear-pretty-dresses, run-around-in-her-underwear-after-bath kid. she does all of that.  and she makes me laugh and brings such joy to my life when she does.

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and that's part of what i absolutely love about my little brown bear. she is considerate and lovable, and she is intelligent and kind-hearted.

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i just want her to be the best little brown bear she can be. i want her to play and growl and run and jump and snuggle.

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to the rescue!

i jokingly put on my facebook the other day that i felt like wonder woman, very pleased with all the tasks that i accomplished. but i ended asking if wonder woman ever felt as exhausted as i felt.

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mkay. things have been difficult for all of us since jay has been under the weather. first it was his neck, and now he is plagued by daily migraines that begin as soon as he wakes up. and there is no reprieve. and no matter the interventions that have been tried, both by myself and by his family doctor, nothing has resulted in any resolution. there have been brief moments of improvement, but nothing to relieve it completely.

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he sees a neurologist in two days, so we'll see how it goes.

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it's been difficult for me to pick up the extra work. i can't lie about that. it's been difficult to be a full-time working physician, and come home and be a full-time mother. but moreso, it's been difficult for jay to feel like he hasn't been contributing as much as he would like. so, let's just say that things have been stressful around the palmer household. however, we've remained strong and communicated well, and we've been able to tackle this together....with him working on feeling better, and me trying to give my all to make all things easier for him.

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i was previously feeling a little bitter about things. however, at least over the last week, i've looked at it more as a challenge. how many things can i do in one day? oh yeah? well, i bet i can do more tomorrow! and it's become that much more gratifying. in the last 72 hours, i've worked a full work day, delivered a baby, rounded at the hospital twice, been on call for all 26 physicians, worked at our after-hours clinic seeing 21 patients in three hours, cleaned the house, shampooed the carpets, done laundry, and completed 40 hours-worth of continuing medical education. and i went to the grocery (that place that i loathe so) and made dinner. plus i've been fortunate enough to catch two naps, sleep well through the night, snuggle with my dade-monster, and watch the IU/kentucky game.

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i feel like wonder woman. but instead of feeling exhausted like i did the other day, i feel renewed. rejuvenated. accomplished. and ready to face another challenge. and i feel extremely fortunate that i have such blessings in my husband, family, and friends, and that i've been given the opportunity to have these many irons in the fire. i know that God would not present me with all these challenges (which, i realize, are just every day tasks) if He didn't believe i could pull through. it's a chance to show my worth...to my husband, my children, my family, and God.

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i wonder what extra i can do tomorrow....maybe leap tall buildings in a single bound?

grams's kitchen

my grandmother, or grams as i have always called her, owned her own restaurant in monroeville, indiana, long before i was born. grams was, and is to this day, the best cook i know. mom and aunt linda used to tell us stories of grams getting up at 4am to make pies for the day...and she'd bake up to ten pies before going over and opening the restaurant.

grams had like a million brothers and sisters. and she left home at age 16. she married grandpa, who was 16 years her senior, and was a milk man. he delivered for parts of ohio and northern indiana. later, he bought/owned/ran a car dealership in monroeville. they had two girls, linda (my aunt), and nila (my mom). and grams had the restaurant...or "rest'rint"...as she pronounces it.

so here's the thing....grams makes all these wonderful dishes and desserts and things....and everytime we see her, she cooks. her purpose in life is to feed people. and she feeds people with her kind heart and soft spirit, too. but do you think i have any of her recipes? no...because she never writes anything down! grams turned 80 this last december, and she can still make her zuccini bread from scratch, by heart, just by sight. she just knows. she's like that with lots of things. she just knows.

grams's kitchen was a place where we could always find snacks....there were always grapes and cottage cheese in the fridge and pringles in the cabinet. we stayed overnight at her house more times than i can remember, and the kitchen was where we'd hear her, clanging around, at 730 in the morning. i secretly believe she was clanging around so we'd wake up and she'd have company, but she'd always pretend to be drinking coffee and reading the paper when we'd arise from bed. her kitchen is where we played umpteen million games of uno, thirty-one, and skip-bo. it was where we'd sit and watch wheel of fortune after dinners, and it was the perfect piece to a summer afternoon for slurping popsicles after walking the log on the edge of her lawn. grams kitchen served for the meeting grounds for so many family get-togethers, and it was the resting place of an old formica-topped desk from the old car dealership that still hinted of grease and new-car scent. many times did i sit at that desk and do homework, while grams put together a lunch for us of her lumpy mashed potatoes and country fried steak. and it was where, on a summer morning, sitting in worn jammies, we ate mickey-mouse pancakes and listened to the bustle at the next-door post office.

grams's kitchen holds so many of my childhood memories. i hope that my children will have similar memories someday of something as warm as mine.

hedgehog-ish

when i was forming this post in my mind, it was originally for the intention of griping. i know, you're shocked, right? however, the more i think about it, and the more the words started putting themselves together in my mind, it's actually not so much a gripe as it is a window to my inner self.

brace yourself.

okay. i fancy myself a hedgehog. they're little, they're cute, they have a built in defense mechanism. however, i decided to do some digging about hedgehogs to see if i really wanted to see myself as such.

turns out, they're not aggressive, they're fairly low maintenance, and they have all these great traits in order to make themselves adapt. how great is that? all of the things that i wish i had more of myself.

this whole post, like i said, started as a gripe. i gripe against someone i know. a gripe against someone that is saying incredibly slanderous things about me, about my ethics, about my husband, without actually knowing what the truth is behind everything. and this person is hiding behind this farce in order to make themselves look better in light of some very poor decisions this person made. and this person is trying to tell me how to live my life.

when people try to tell me how i am going to do things, as though the decision has already been made, i get a little prickly. a little hedgehog-ish. i try to run at first, and just get to cover so i have time to think, but eventually my spines come out.

i have never responded well to people trying to tell me what to do. especially since i've been an adult. my husband likes to take credit for that, and maybe he should, because there was a time when i was fairly docile. but the only way that i've gotten where i am was by laughing in the face of "you can't, you won't." and by the grace of God, of course. but i fully believe that God presents us with situations that we then have to choose. like a choose-your-own-adventure book....the paths are there, and it's up to us which way we go. and someone telling me "you can't, you won't" is like an open invitation for me to actually "can, will."

this is all fine and good, until someone decides to tell awful horrid things about me to people i care about. and the difficulty lies in the web of entanglement that encompasses emotion and welfare and whatnot. so the issue is then turned into, "i can, i would, but should i?" should i put my spines out and defend myself, or should i run for cover?

i am

i am blessed.

there are so many things in the life that i am blessed to have. there are so many things that i've gone through, just like anyone else has. and there are so many blessings that i reap the benefit of...my children, my husband, my family, my friends, my career.

i am liberated.

i have had the opportunities in my life to do what i wanted to do. and make it happen. and not to settle for less because of anything, whether it's my gender, my background, my socioeconomic status, etc.

i am independent.

i can drywall, mud, change my own oil (though, who really wants to get that dirty?), change a tire, cook, clean, fix people's ailments, listen, inspire, and amaze.

i am insecure.

i worry that my actions are not enough, sometimes. i worry that i'm not pretty enough or smart enough, or that i don't do enough to help others.

i am self-assured.

i am a valuable person.

i am ambitious.

i have never let anything stop me or get in my way. i've figured out ways to move around or over or through obstacles.

i am audacious.

i have said and done things that are probably wrong, but always with my heart in the right place. i've pissed people off, made them proud, made them cringe, made them smile, made them cry, and made them happy. i encourage and support, and i get judgmental sometimes (though, i know i shouldn't).

i am a child of God.

my dreams are His dreams, as they were put there by Him. my fears are fears of not living up to His expectations of me, and knowing that i can't earn my way into Heaven. my kindness and compassion and forthrightness and gentleness and loud laughter are in me through Him.

march? seriously?

this is a picture of my (not so cute) feet. barefoot. standing on my driveway. picture taken today. go ahead, check the date. it's march 14th. march, not may. march!

i live in northeastern indiana. usually, in march, we're all still dreaming of spring. and yet, this year, we've had just over thirty total inches of snow. typical snow by now is closer to fifty inches. and clothing choices at this time of year are usually something warmer than rolled jeans. shoes are typically traded for boots this time of year.

the windows of the entire house are open. and it. smells. like. spring.

one of my favorite memories growing up is, surprise, napping in the summer. but there was something so comforting about napping in summer. growing up, my grandparents had a haul-behind trailer at a campground on crooked lake. they took care of all the landscaping and maintenance for the park, so they basically parked their camper and stayed for free. my dad worked third shift at a factory the entire time i was growing up. but he would save all his vacation for the summer time, and instead of his typical sunday-night through thursday-night, he would take every thursday night off during the summer. this meant that on thursday afternoons, we'd load up in the blazer and head up to the lake and stay until sunday morning. the blazer didn't have air conditioning, that i remember, so Sis and i would sweat in the back seat, waiting anxiously to see the water tower in ashley, indiana, that was painted like a smiley face. that water tower meant there were only fifteen more agonizing minutes to wait until we pulled into the campground.

we would swim and fish and lay on the piers and cook hotdogs over the fire and play cards with grandma until the wee hours of the evenings. and during the day, usually after lunch, we would lay on grandma's foldout couch (you know, the kind that is like a futon that was standard issue in those campers) and nap, with the windows open and the curtains blowing. i remember so vividly hearing the birds chirping, the bullfrogs creaking, the boats on the lake. and as i sit here writing this, with the windows open, i hear the sounds of the outdoors and i go back to those days. i can almost smell the lake, the fire.

such a bittersweet thing...wishing like crazy that i could relive that, thankful that i had that, and hoping against hope that we aren't blanketed with snow any time soon.

life according to dade and piper

my children, combing my hair after i took a shower...

my children, just like all children, say and do the weirdest things sometimes. i find it necessary to document these just for posterity's sake.

according to piper:

froot loops were "fruit yoops." she had a very hard time saying her "L's." lady = yady. looking = yooking.

frequently, when asked to make a choice, she'd put her hand under her chin and tap her cheek with her finger and say, "hmm. let me think. how 'bout sumpin' else?"

she makes up words to song. there is a jay-z song that she will listen to, and the true words are "on to the next one." she decided it was much better as "down to the mix pond." i'm not sure what a mix pond is, but those were her words.

she likes her pasta sans sauce. it is called "blank noodles."

everything in life is better with music. especially if dancing is involved.

piper loves to get dirty and play outside. she's sort of a tomboy that way. but, everything should be done with a fancy dress on.

piper has always been very articulate. she has always had a big vocabulary. she started almost all of her sentences with "actually" from the age of 3 and on.

life according to dade:

dade is all about music, also. but he names songs by weird names...one of his favorite songs is called "shammich," according to him.

he counts pictures when we read to him. but he'll count part of the pictures, say apples, on a page and constantly ask, "is that enough?" you tell him no, and he counts one more and says, "is that enough?"

his thank you is more like "nthank yoooooou."

milk = meelk...may i please have some milk is "please may want to have some meelk?"

he has a matchbox car of lightning mcqueen...not only does he have to carry this everywhere, but the car's name is "lightling aqueen!"

there are many more, and this list will be added to in the future, i'm sure. but there are just some things you shouldn't let become forgotten.

no drama!

fair warning. my latest mission...i seem to have a lot of those, don't i?...is to make my life a drama free zone.

the last three weeks have been completely and utterly exhausting. i wish i knew a better word to describe it. exhausting isn't big enough. i am bone-tired. i am feelings-tired. i'm worn and weathered and beaten.

and yet, i feel amazingly strong. like an oak tree that survives a tornado...though my leaves have been stripped away, new growth will occur because my roots are strong and embedded deep into the earth, deep into my faith.

the last three weeks have tested me, although my faith has remained strong. it's been one of the only things that have gotten me through everything. my faith in my Lord, my faith in my family, my faith in my family. there has been a lot of drama surrounding my life lately, and i'm starting to believe that it's me that is the problem. however, i know truthfully this is not the case.

jay has had multiple health issues, really over the last two years, involving lots of different things. without getting too gory or too personal, let me just say that it's been difficult. tough for him to bear. difficult for me to watch. and excruciating for the both of us to deal with in terms of life and responsibilities. it's very hard for him to lean on anyone, even me, when it comes to daily responsibilities. it questions his worth, i think. i don't, but he does. so that has been an ongoing battle that has really come to a head over the last three weeks. he's improving, and he's not dying, but we both now fully understand why marriage vows include the words in sickness and in health. he looked at me the other night, as i got home from a particularly long day at the office and working at our urgent care clinic, and as i curled up on the couch next to him to eat a snack, he told me he thanks God every day that we're together. when i asked him why, he said because i'm one of the only steady and stable things in his life. that no matter what, i'm always there, through good and bad and in between. again, with the marriage vows, for better or worse.

does this mean he is getting closer to God? i don't know, and i'm a little scared to hope about that, but secretly, i do hope so.

there are a couple of members of our respective families that like to stir the pot and cause a lot of drama. and this was especially the case last week. i couldn't move without my phone close by...which reminds me, i think i need a new one, as this one is sort of on the fritz. anyway, it seems that jay and i get sucked in to everyone else's drama.

it's not that i don't want to help people out. i thoroughly enjoy helping. i even like when people rely on me. however, i don't feel it's very fair when people need help because they're acting like a child when, in fact, they are older than i am. i am not a game player, although i have had a tendency to be a little passive-aggressive in the past. however, i don't do well in the he-said, she-said position, to the point that i usually end up telling the he and the she exactly what i think and remove myself from the situation. luckily, jay and i are on the same page with that, and we have an honesty policy that the other person should know all aspects of a given topic at all times. especially when it involves family and/or drama.

i think that for wedding vows to be brought up to date, it should state that you would love that person with drama and without.

thankfully, this last weekend was a time for just dade and i. jay was out of town and piper was with her biological mother, so dade and i had a wonderfully relaxing weekend. it was just what i needed. we went the entire day yesterday without turning the television on, until after dinner last night. it was nice. it was quiet. it was not chaotic. and that was exactly what i needed. there has to be a place where the quietness waits, where chaos takes a back seat to solitude. and i'm very fortunate that i have that in my home.

cheers to a drama-free zone.

RAOK

i have begun to challenge myself to do a random act of kindness every day. sometime for someone for no particular reason at all.

i had an issue with a friend needing some help, however, and i rushed to the rescue to the best of my ability. but, in the end, i wound up feeling guilty for not being able to do more.

why is that? why am i not satisfied with the fact that i helped when so many others chose not to?

i'm not doing the RAOK for anything more than the smile that is returned to me. so i wonder if deep down, there is some other selfishness that's turning in my insides that i need to achieve this for some secondary gain. i wonder if that's why i feel guilt about this particular act that i did.

i do truly love to provide for others, and gift them something, or just do something that they need done without them asking. without them expecting it from me all the time. so why the guilt? why the unwanted drama of the soul?

kindness is more than deeds. it is an attitude, an expression, a look, a touch. it is anything that lifts another person. -- neil strait

maybe my desire to please other people is just not selfless enough yet. maybe i need to continue to grow in that respect. i need to make the attitude stick and be second nature that my RAOK is purely for their benefit, and purely selfless in nature. i want to be nice just to be nice, not because i'm getting something out of it.

think i can? it's worth a shot.

restore, renew, improve

i am so completely and admittedly high maintenance. i refuse to go camping, like, outdoors, because i really need to have a shower every day. and i'd prefer to wear at least a little makeup every day.

despite my decidedly high maintenance nature, i love to remodel things. i like to demolish and refurbish and refine something into what my vision for that thing is.

i know i get this from my dad. growing up, dad remodeled pretty much the entire house we lived in. sis and i grew up in a pretty small house...a laundry room, a kitchen, a side room/toy room, a living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. however, mom and dad worked very hard to make sure that we had a very presentable house. and dad did this by doing things himself. he would rewire, resurface, remove, redrywall, repaint, and rethink everything in that house until it was not only in his vision, but it was done properly. we watched "this old house" every saturday!

this has been instilled in me. i try to do as much as i can do in my own home. i have hung drywall, mudded, sanded, painted, and even used powertools!

jay and i are preparing to embark on a new adventure with our back porch. it's a screen room, really, but it's going to be a really sweet hangout when we're all done. can't wait to get started. can't wait to get filthy and demolish and make it clean and beautiful and build it up again.

calvin

growing up, calvin and hobbes was my favorite thing to read. i would read, and read, and re-read the books over and over. my most prized possession as a child was a horribly beaten copy of the essential calvin and hobbes by bill watterson. beaten to the point that sections of the pages clung together with binding, but randomly fell out. never lost, the sections were occasionally out of order.


although hobbes was a stuffed tiger, he was real in calvin's mind, and was a sufficient reason/excuse/scapegoat for calvin to get his way into and out of whatever he wanted, although his mother and father and susie derkins tried to disrupt that process all the time.


now, my son has a veritable "hobbes" in our dog maizie. maizie might be a real live dog, but the two of them have become inseparable. where you find one, you'll find the other. where you hear one, you'll hear the other. they are BFFs, and i'm quite sure they'd have it no other way.


and truly, i think i'm destined to be the equivalent of calvin's mom, in the strip. frequently thought at my house is her quote..."i haven't seen calvin for about 15 minutes now. that probably means he's getting in trouble."

me and miss clairol

my mom was a beautician. or a cosmetologist...whichever you want to say. i remember being little, and though mom was a stay-at-home-mom, i remember her working in shops from time to time. she had a friend named phyllis, and she would go to her house, because phyllis had a shop in her home. i remember how enamored i was with the whole shop...the wood floor, the beautiful white porcelain sinks with the shower-sprayer for washes. the smell of the perms, the rolling carts of rollers. the shine of the curling irons, the sparkle of the scissors. and the chairs that pumped up and spun around were like something from a carnival. mom would work for phyllis when she'd go on vacation, taking care of her regulars for the cuts/colors/perms.

mom always cut our hair, my sister's and mine. she cut dad's hair, too. she'd sit us in the kitchen on telephone books, backwards on the chair, and drape the cape over our shoulders. i didn't pay for a haircut the entire time i was growing up, until i was 20 years old. and when i finally did, i was so sad about the "betrayal" that i felt toward mom that i ended up hacking it up myself after the stylist finished, just so i could have some ownership over the whole ordeal.

my mom and my aunt linda used to get together, usually at our house but sometimes at hers, about every six or eight weeks or so, to color hair. this really meant it was "sister time." aunt linda would bring one or two of her three kids (usually just alan, the youngest), and he and my sister and i would sit around and play video games or run through the house and eat popcorn, while mom and aunt linda sat in the kitchen, heads all goopy with color, drinking pepsi and cackling laughter. sometimes uncle dave would come, and he and dad went out into the garage, i think for fear of estrogen seeping into their systems. mom always said that she and miss clairol were "like this"--with her first two fingers pressed together.

mom and aunt linda had their "coloring shirts," which were just old tee shirts that were smeared with evidence of their adventures, color mostly saturated around the necks of the shirts.

aunt linda always gave the biggest hugs. and had, and still has, the gentlest voice.

since mom has passed away, and now that my sister is living closer than 3000 miles away (she used to live in hawaii), sis and i have revived the tradition that was so haphazardly begun by mom and aunt linda. we now get together about every six or eight weeks and don our "coloring shirts," and make a huge mess and giggle the whole time. we don't drink pepsi, usually some diet soda. but my kids run around all crazy like and sis is now the one with the biggest hugs and gentlest voice. and soon she'll have a baby of her own (she's 18 weeks along with a little boy), and he will soon be coming over and wrecking havoc with our kids, running through the house, playing video games, laughing...while sis and i color hair and reminisce about life, love, celebrities, and our husbands.

sleep

No day is so bad, it can't be fixed with a nap. --Carrie Snow

i love to sleep. seriously. sleeping is one of my favorite things to do. if i could pick between sleeping and anything else, i'd almost always pick sleeping.

almost.

i crave sleep to the point that i can taste it. it tastes something like a juicy, thick cheeseburger with tomatoes, lettuce and mayo...all rich and warm and juicy. or maybe like a thick chocolate milkshake with whipped cream on top.

my days off almost always revolve around napping. it's like my guilty pleasure. some people gamble, some watch reality tv...i sleep. seriously. i am already planning for the fact that tomorrow, it will be saturday, which means that i can nap.

i napped twice yesterday...and i was at work!

it's not that i'm fatigued, although at times that is the case (usually if i've done a long shift or something)...and it's not that i'm avoiding anything in life. i think i may actually be addicted to sleep. it's like a drug. i have it down to a science for my body...20 minutes does wonders, as does an hour and a half (time for a full REM cycle), but 2.5 hours makes me feel crappy.

so, if i'm so addicted to sleep, why is it that i can't get myself in bed before 11pm, knowing that i have to get up at 530 every morning?

i have a really difficult time sitting still. if i'm sitting still for more than ten minutes, i'm either doing something like playing on pinterest or working on my cross stitch (both of which make me magically motionless). if i am not doing either of those things, i'm like a fart in a skillet...constantly moving, cleaning, doing something, running after the kids. so...when i have a few minutes when i'm not doing those things (which has really been helped by the fact that Hubs stays home during the day and does a fabulous job keeping the house in check), then i decide to work on my cross stitch projects or play on pinterest. i suppose i feel like that's my time to be selfish by having "me" time. but that time goes so quickly! and before i know it, it's eleven oclock and i'm playing the oh-my-goodness-i-have-to-be-up-in-six-hours game. which makes it so difficult to fall asleep.

sleep and i have a great relationship, but it's feeling like a torrid affair. can't i just have back all those times when, as a child, i resisted naps? and wwwhhhhhyyyyyy do my children fight going to sleep so much?!? sleep is the best thing in the whole world!

i used to have a really hard time falling asleep...i used to lay in bed and make lists, plan, worry. now, as the old saying goes, instead of counting sheep, i talk to the Shepherd. i feel slightly guilty, because i almost always fall asleep in the middle of my prayers. but it's a comfort thing. i think He gets it.

so for now, for the rest of the day, i will stay in the land of the waking. but tomorrow...i will sleep.