Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 22:01 by Anonymous
I can’t believe it, and I know I say this every year, but I can’t believe that the school year is almost over. Only a month and a half until summervacation! And I’m not dreading it for many reasons this year. For one thing, the kids are okay if left up to their own devices for a little while in the morning if I want to laze around in bed for a bit. When they start whining about trivial things like being hungry and wanting to eat, I get my carcass out of bed. But still, there’s usually a good extra half hour that I can doze. So there’s that. Really, the underlying fact that makes everything easier is that the kids are simply growing up a bit. And Thomas continues to improve little by little.
It seems like – and I hate to say this “out loud” – but I think we’ve licked the whole problem with the kids staying in their beds all night. About twenty “sleeps” ago, I told the kids that if they both stayed in their beds for ten nights straight, we’d go to Chuck E. Cheese’s. They did it, so I took them and said that if they did it again for another ten nights, we’d go again. So far, so good and we’re supposed to go on Thursday. In my attempt to be more frugal, however, I think we’ll not eat there but just play games. I buy about ten dollars in tokens and the kids know that when the tokens are gone, it’s time to go. I don’t mention to them that I usually spend a few tokens playing Skee-Ball, but at their tender age, they don’t count out the tokens. So through Chuck E. Cheese’s bribery, I’ve been able to get better quality sleep lately which always helps.
Speaking of the bedtimeroutine, it looks like Thomas is back to where he was several years ago when he would go to bed awake, turn out the lights and fall asleep on his own, staying in his bed all night. Thomas was almost three when he started regressing, sort of. Up until then, he was doing great with bedtime when all of a sudden, he wanted us to leave the lights on. Then he wanted one of us in his bed with him while he fell asleep. Before the Clonidine, this could take more than an hour, too. It would take him forever to fall asleep. Anyway, this has gone on for the last three years but now he’s going to sleep with the lights off and he only occasionally asks for Jonathan or me to lay down with him. Hayley still insists on the lights being on but I suspect this is so she can maintain her “bug vigilance.” She can spot a teeny-tiny itsy-bitsy bug in the corner of her ceiling from ten feet away and will get so scared that she cries until someone comes to get rid of the insect. Oddly, she freaked out about a little fruit fly the other night, but there was a huge black spider on her wall tonight that she calmly pointed out to me. The thing left a mess on the wall, too. I think that flying bugs freak her out more than crawling ones. All of the bugs that have been hibernating in the house all winter are waking up and trying to get out.
We’ve been told by the weather people that it will be in the mid-eighties here on Friday and it seems almost too good to be true. We’re going to walk to school again, and we’ve been ditching the wagon lately because I figure this is good “training” for the kids to walk to and from school in preparation for Disney World. It’s also good for me to train myself walking with a kid riding piggy-back which I figure will happen many times in Florida. I should put forty pounds of sand in my back pack and walk on the treadmill like that. Does it seem strange that as a family, we have to physically train for a vacation? It’s a vacation…and supposed to be relaxing. I guess if we wanted relaxing, we’d go somewhere else. Jonathan is so very excited about this trip that whenever I’m not working on the weekends, we’re talking about Disney, mulling over our ideas and kicking around touring plans. He’s like a little kid. I’m trying to keep things in perspective and Jonathan’s jumping up and down, declaring that we’re ALL going to ride ALL the rides and try ALL the shows and do EVERYTHING and we’re going to have a MARVELOUS time. I’m sure we will, but I’m trying to keep an open mind. This will be the biggest trip we’ve ever taken with the kids and especially regarding Thomas, who knows what will happen? See, I’m worried about reverse psychology here. Thomas usually hates the idea of anything new. However, when he actually experiences it, it’s all good and he has a great time. You can see where I’m going with this, right? So he’s excited and eager about Disney World right now…will he hit a wall when we get there, hating everything and wanting to spend all of his time at the pool? Oh, most assuredly not, if you listen to Jonathan. He’s so optimistic about Thomas’ projected behavior at Disney World but so pessimistic about Thomas most of the rest of the time! More Mickey Magic.
Work is still okay. This job waiting tables is just what I need it to be. I go in, I do my work, I make a little money and I go home. It’s fun working with the “kids” who work there, listening to their trivial nonsense and the stupid crap that they’re worried about. That’s amusing. But my kids (and Jonathan) have adjusted well to my evenings at work. In fact, Jonathan did Hayley’s hair beautifully tonight after her bath. He’ll be a pro in no time.
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I can’t believe it, and I know I say this every year, but I can’t believe that the school year is almost over. Only a month and a half until summer vacation! And I’m not dreading it for many reasons this year. For one thing, the kids are okay if left up to their own devices for a little while in the morning if I want to laze around in bed for a bit. When they start whining about trivial things like being hungry and wanting to eat, I get my carcass out of bed. But still, there’s usually a good extra half hour that I can doze. So there’s that. Really, the underlying fact that makes everything easier is that the kids are simply growing up a bit. And Thomas continues to improve little by little.
It seems like – and I hate to say this “out loud” – but I think we’ve licked the whole problem with the kids staying in their beds all night. About twenty “sleeps” ago, I told the kids that if they both stayed in their beds for ten nights straight, we’d go to Chuck E. Cheese’s. They did it, so I took them and said that if they did it again for another ten nights, we’d go again. So far, so good and we’re supposed to go on Thursday. In my attempt to be more frugal, however, I think we’ll not eat there but just play games. I buy about ten dollars in tokens and the kids know that when the tokens are gone, it’s time to go. I don’t mention to them that I usually spend a few tokens playing Skee-Ball, but at their tender age, they don’t count out the tokens. So through Chuck E. Cheese’s bribery, I’ve been able to get better quality sleep lately which always helps.
Speaking of the bedtime routine, it looks like Thomas is back to where he was several years ago when he would go to bed awake, turn out the lights and fall asleep on his own, staying in his bed all night. Thomas was almost three when he started regressing, sort of. Up until then, he was doing great with bedtime when all of a sudden, he wanted us to leave the lights on. Then he wanted one of us in his bed with him while he fell asleep. Before the Clonidine, this could take more than an hour, too. It would take him forever to fall asleep. Anyway, this has gone on for the last three years but now he’s going to sleep with the lights off and he only occasionally asks for Jonathan or me to lay down with him. Hayley still insists on the lights being on but I suspect this is so she can maintain her “bug vigilance.” She can spot a teeny-tiny itsy-bitsy bug in the corner of her ceiling from ten feet away and will get so scared that she cries until someone comes to get rid of the insect. Oddly, she freaked out about a little fruit fly the other night, but there was a huge black spider on her wall tonight that she calmly pointed out to me. The thing left a mess on the wall, too. I think that flying bugs freak her out more than crawling ones. All of the bugs that have been hibernating in the house all winter are waking up and trying to get out.
We’ve been told by the weather people that it will be in the mid-eighties here on Friday and it seems almost too good to be true. We’re going to walk to school again, and we’ve been ditching the wagon lately because I figure this is good “training” for the kids to walk to and from school in preparation for Disney World. It’s also good for me to train myself walking with a kid riding piggy-back which I figure will happen many times in Florida. I should put forty pounds of sand in my back pack and walk on the treadmill like that. Does it seem strange that as a family, we have to physically train for a vacation? It’s a vacation…and supposed to be relaxing. I guess if we wanted relaxing, we’d go somewhere else. Jonathan is so very excited about this trip that whenever I’m not working on the weekends, we’re talking about Disney, mulling over our ideas and kicking around touring plans. He’s like a little kid. I’m trying to keep things in perspective and Jonathan’s jumping up and down, declaring that we’re ALL going to ride ALL the rides and try ALL the shows and do EVERYTHING and we’re going to have a MARVELOUS time. I’m sure we will, but I’m trying to keep an open mind. This will be the biggest trip we’ve ever taken with the kids and especially regarding Thomas, who knows what will happen? See, I’m worried about reverse psychology here. Thomas usually hates the idea of anything new. However, when he actually experiences it, it’s all good and he has a great time. You can see where I’m going with this, right? So he’s excited and eager about Disney World right now…will he hit a wall when we get there, hating everything and wanting to spend all of his time at the pool? Oh, most assuredly not, if you listen to Jonathan. He’s so optimistic about Thomas’ projected behavior at Disney World but so pessimistic about Thomas most of the rest of the time! More Mickey Magic.
Work is still okay. This job waiting tables is just what I need it to be. I go in, I do my work, I make a little money and I go home. It’s fun working with the “kids” who work there, listening to their trivial nonsense and the stupid crap that they’re worried about. That’s amusing. But my kids (and Jonathan) have adjusted well to my evenings at work. In fact, Jonathan did Hayley’s hair beautifully tonight after her bath. He’ll be a pro in no time.