Packing it Up

I am a Christmas junkie, so I like to start celebrating early and keep celebrating for a long time. I'm not sure what my record is, but it's not unusual for the tree and decorations to be kept up for months on end.

This past year was an exception, as noted in a previous entry. A combination of stress, lack of energy and lack of motivation converged to make sure I didn't decorate as much or with as much gusto as I do normally.

Last year, we had the tree down just after Christmas. It was sad but it helped to make the transition from holiday to winter. This year, things were a bit different. Doug has added a degree of difficulty to completing any task around the house. I am going to say it's his age that makes it happen. He is busy (always has been), but he's also starting to want to be around me all the time.

I also didn't feel like hauling all of the boxes back into the house. They sat for a bit when we first retrieved them in December. We live in a nice-sized house, but there is not extra room for a collection of boxes in my kitchen/family room area. It starts to wear on my harmony, building to a crescendo of full-blown crankiness.

I wanted to avoid having boxes sitting around but then not being able to replace them in the garage tout suite. I also wanted to avoid having to fight against Doug's helping hand. Today actually went better than I was expecting. We got home from church and were able to dismantle things before 2 o'clock. This meant I was going to be able to take a nap. I have been trying to cut down on naps lately, but the kids have been conspiring against me.

For reasons I don't understand, they have developed a phobia about their bedroom. My parents generously bought Bekah a bed frame and mattress and Jeremy a mattress (he had a bedframe that a friend donated). This was something they had been angling for for quite a while. Brian and I had hoped to purchase a mattress for Jeremy but a series of financial missteps meant we weren't able to fulfill the request.

They had previously been sleeping on toddler beds. A word to the wise, don't purchase a toddler bed unless it's solidly constructed. Ours were metal and plastic and couldn't withstand the beatings inflicted by my kids. As the beds' condition deteriorated, I made a decision to get rid of the beds. This also included a lamp and a dresser. Before a month ago, my kids were sleeping on crib mattresses on the floor.

(It's funny, I was feeling guilty about this until I just remembered that they destroyed their toddler beds. Now I remember giving them warnings that would happen. This assuages any guilt that it took so long to restore them to proper beds.)

Anyhoo, before the new beds arrived, they were regularly making appearances in our bed. We are pretty firm in our house that everyone sleeps in their own beds. I love my children but need at least 6-8 hours to recover and recharge my batteries. They tend to try and make entry in the wee hours, when I have recently fallen asleep and can't redirect them to their room.

I felt confident that the new beds would nip this behavior in the bud. I was wrong.

Most recently, Brian and I came up to bed last night to find Bekah and Jeremy asleep at the top of the stairs, on the floor, with their pillows and blankets. The light was blazing in their bedroom (it always is, they are newly afraid of the dark), the light was blazing in the hallway, but otherwise there seemed to be no explanation. This is after we gave them an ultimatum about bedtime around 11 o'clock.

I fell asleep not too long after that. I was awakened, suddenly and without warning, by Jeremy saying, "Mommy, let us in!" (I forgot to mention that we lock our door as a way to prevent them from entering our room extraneously). This was at 2 o'clock in the morning. I had fallen asleep maybe a half-hour before. The tone of his voice woke me up with a jolt of adrenaline. I was sure that death was imminent, he was bleeding from an orifice or that there was a zombie attack in the neighborhood.

In fact, none of these were happening. I was greeted by a generic "Mommy, we're scared of our room." The combination of adrenaline and sleep deprivation didn't work in their favor. I barked at them to get in their room. I told them that they shouldn't be afraid of their room. I pointed out that the blazing light was supposed to help them not be scared.

Meanwhile, I wanted them to go to the bathroom. We have made the leap to no pull-ups at night and yet we take them to the bathroom around 10:30 PM, when we are going to bed ourselves. In the melee of admonishments, Doug was awakened. This brought more wrath. I settled them back into bed (for added fun Bekah had had an accident and needed to be changed) and went to rock Doug back to sleep.

The only child I've ever been good at rocking back to sleep has been Jeremy. I was always good at rocking him back to sleep and successfully transferring him back into his crib. The other two have been a different story. Doug is usually the toughest to soothe back to sleep and also the toughest to transition. I have tried taking him into our bed but that usually signals party time to him, so I've stopped trying.

In the period of time I got him to sleep the other kids fell asleep. I exited Doug's room (which prompted him to wake up) and ran downstairs to use the bathroom. Our powder room downstairs has magical qualities. If you close the door and put on the exhaust fan, it's like nothing is happening outside the door. I usually escape there to calm down during tantrums (my own or the kid's).

Once I determined he was mostly calmed down I snuck back to my room and got in bed. I would have loved to fall immediately to sleep but the combination of adrenaline and anger prevented that. I did finally fall asleep but knew it was going to be a long day.

Of course, the kids were still up at 7 AM, bursting into our room fairly cheerfully. I not only didn't match their enthusiasm, I didn't greet them at all. We directed them downstairs and I tried, unsuccessfully, to grab a few more zzzzs.

All of this meant I was desperate to take a nap today. I was afraid that the dismantling of Christmas would interfere with a nap. I was pleasantly surprised that it went quickly and my lovely DH was willing to finish up with some things while I retreated upstairs.

Needless to say, it's no wonder that there are many things on my to-do list that take much longer than necessary to complete. I sometimes label myself lazy but chronic sleep deprivation makes me happy that any work is completed in my house at all.