"It's 3 AM I must be lonely..."
- Matchbox 20
It's actually 2 AM here. I am hungry, thirsty and feeling so flabby. Everything's yin and yang, this and that, push and pull, surprises and blessings. They say to whom much is given, much is expected. I am in a funk, and I know I can get out of it, but only if I choose to. Right now all I'm feeling is -- tired, hungry, thirsty and flabby.
Yes, I need those endorphins, and I need them quick. Unfortunately...yes, I feel lazy, hungry, thirsty and flabby. I should change. Late nights are not healthy, especially if I have to wake up regularly before 7AM so that the kid can get ready for school on time. 3 AM bed times do not work with 7 AM wake-up times, not if this has to go on for 5-days a week.
My guilty confession is -- I can't sleep when something's troubling me. Or when I can't properly identify what's troubling me. I used to watch brainless TV shows at home -- the mindless noise probably calms my brain. But I can't even do that now. No TV. The maid sleeps in our sala, and that's where the TV is. Ha, I'm a prisoner of my own device. Well, actually she has a room, but she complains it's too hot there, and most of our electric fans are really busted.
Anyway, sometimes I do miss the freedom I had in my childhood home. Wow, weird gripe huh? I should have more freedom now right? I'm the Queen Bee, the queen of the domain, the queen of the castle. Yes. And the castle is expensive. And high maintenance.
I mention about mixed surprises. Last Saturday, was a milestone. Zoe decided to sleep the night in her own room. "Love ko sya sobra," she said about her room. You see, the kid co-sleeps with us, and suddenly, she has now fully accepted that the room opposite ours was her own room. Which is great right? This is what we were aiming for. This is why she had a hand in choosing her room color (light blue, yes she's so not kikay), why we bought the furniture (bed and cabinets), and why we painted her room like Twitter (light blue with white clouds). We wanted it to be her place, her "crib" -- a place to dream, a place to be herself. She was already playing in her room, and taking afternoon naps there. We were surprised though that she wanted to sleep the night there. So soon.
We were not ready.
Really. We weren't. This was the end-goal we wanted, but we were simply not ready yet. Or maybe it's just me. Look at us now. 5 days later, the big daddy is sleeping with Zoe in one single-size bed. They have the electric fan (yes, we have an electric fan shortage), and I'm sleeping in our bedroom, alone with no electric fan. It's nice that it's breezy sometimes here, but it gets hot and sweaty when there's no breeze. Do the parents look ready? Is this a sustainable scenario?
Sigh.
Alone, in a big bed. I guess, this is a reward of sorts for all of those nights Zoe keeps kicking me in the face while we're sleeping, and "getting" my bed space whenever I have late night meetings. Haha. Those nights, I was imagining buying another bed all for myself. Mixed surprises right? Now I have the whole bed to myself. Wee.
So Zoe sleeps in her own room now, in her own bed, but she expects either one of us to be right there beside her and hug her while she's sleeping. Hmmm.
This is B's fault (he knows this). Zoe as a baby was sleeping so happily and peacefully on her own in her own crib, before all this happened. She's an amazing baby -- after the first few months, she slept the whole night uninterrupted. She didn't complain about full diapers, so no need to change diapers in the middle of the night. Amazing. Until one day...B felt guilty with the long hours he spent at the office. He came home late, and always encountered Zoe already asleep. He missed being with his baby, so he took a sleeping Zoe from the crib, and put her in our bed. This happened frequently, such that, Zoe didn't want to sleep in the crib anymore. She wanted to sleep with us. We were now, officially, co-sleeping.
Co-sleeping isn't all that bad though. It sure made travelling around easier. She could sleep anywhere, as long as it was between the two of us. No more need to lug around a portable crib, book an extra bed, or bring a comfort toy or something. We could just pack our clothes and go.
The fact that she didn't want to sleep in her crib also helped us in removing Zoe's thumbsucking habit. We told her only babies suck their thumbs, and babies slept in cribs, so if she wanted to suck her thumb, she can, but since she's a baby that way, she can sleep in her crib and not on our bed. It worked. Thumb sucking removed in a few days! Gone was my irrational fear that I'd see a 10-year old Zoe still sucking her thumb while riding the jeepney. I guess she saw our bed as the "transition" from baby-hood to bata-hood.
And now, her own bed makes her a bigger bata.
As a parent, I am thankful. And hopeful that all this reasonable-ness persists. As a person with my own life, I'm thinking, I need to get a life! I need to exercise, get endorphins, which I haven't done in such a long long time.
"Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy.
Happy people just don't shoot their husbands, they just don't."
-Elle Woods in Legally Blonde
I wouldn't want to shoot anybody right? Least of all myself. Now only if I could discipline myself to make time for it...
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