Tag: Sleep

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Another Monday morning

As the alarm rang today morning I got out of bed without hitting the snooze button even once. Some feat, that! For a change I was ready to meet the new week, on this rather warm Monday morning, with a smile on my face. I felt well-rested and happy.

Forty-five minutes later the tiffins were done – snack and lunch, bottles filled with fresh water, milk glasses at the table and eggs beaten and ready to go on the pan.
Then I went to wake the children.
As usual they were reluctant to get out of bed, snuggling in deeper, begging for the last five minutes. I gave them ten. Finally they got up complaining of aches and pains like a bunch of old fuddy duddies —
‘My stomach hurts,’ said N.
 ‘Go sit in the loo and you can skip the milk today,’ I told her.
‘I sprained my foot yesterday,’ complained H as he made his way to the washroom with an exaggerated limp. ‘And I couldn’t sleep all night because I was coughing.’
‘Can you please write a note for my teacher?’
‘To excuse you from football?’ I asked, a trifle surprised since that’s his favourite sport.
‘No, of course not,’ said he, ‘I can manage football. Ask her to let me put my head down and sleep during social studies if I feel tired.’
No, I didn’t ask how he could play football with a sprained ankle. I refused to write the note, though because I figured if he could play football with a ‘sprained’ ankle he might as well sit through social studies too.
Instead, I sprayed pain reliever and wrapped up his foot in crepe bandage, smiling when he said he felt ‘better already’. I gave him his inhaler since the cough and wheeze were genuine. Meanwhile N’s stomach ache had subsided magically at the suggestion of the milk-holiday.
Finally after all the pains, real and imagined, had been taken care of, I could wave the kids off to school.
All it takes, to make a happy beginning, is a good night’s sleep.
How has your week started?

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A rant

Do you have days when nothing seems to be coming together? When you wake up each morning with a fresh resolve for a cheerful day and watch the resolve done and dead within a few hours? When the kids just won’t stop whining? When every interaction with them is a struggle? When, just as you fix one situation, another one is upon you? 

It’s been a bit like that over the last week or two. The twins have been down with a bunch of real and imagined ailments. That I am not able to figure out which is which is driving me crazy.

First H complained of throat pain. Over the evening it escalated, and by night time he was wringing his hands and crying out each time he swallowed. After a panicked phone call to my doctor SIL I rushed out to buy medicine. As I got back I heard him singing, yes singing out loud, loud enough to be heard outside the house. And it has returned each night – the hand wringing and the moaning hasn’t stopped despite my threats and pleadings. 

Then it was N’s turn. She complained of a headache. Do kids have headaches? Anyway, since she rarely falls ill, I assumed she just wanted a day at home (since H had called in sick a few days back) and I went along with it. She stayed home, read, drew, coloured, crafted and cycled through the day and seemed all fine till evening. And then the ‘ache’ was back moving to her stomach accompanied with ‘nausea’ (‘every time I eat I feel like puking’) and loss of appetite. Back I was to the SIL wondering if the vague symptoms indicated jaundice till I ruled it out.

That’s how it’s been between the two of them.

Do I sound over-anxious? Yeah, I do, even to myself. But at that point their illnesses seem very real and very worrisome. I wonder if kids have any clue how their vague and casual complaints leave mums stressed.

And then there are mosquitoes….

Many nights in a row H has been waking me up because he hears a ‘buzz’. He’s mortally scared of mosquitoes – scared, not annoyed like the rest of us. I’ve tried everything – from repellent gadgets to creams. He has always been a mosquito magnet but I’m beginning to think the buzz is more in his head than anywhere else. Each night he walks into my room at ungodly hours, shutting doors and windows till I suffocate, screaming if he hears a buzz and then falling asleep leaving me waiting for the alarm so I can get on with my day. 

Mornings find me irritable with a body ache that refuses to go. I am unable to go to the gym which means hanging out at home feeling horribly fat and cranky (Ugh!). I resent every phone call, every knock at the door, even the maid – anything that comes between me and my shut eye, which just doesn’t happen. It’s a bit like I was back to their baby years with the sleep starvation.

I’ve been wondering if it’s that’s what making me over-anxious. After all the kids couldn’t have changed overnight. I should be used to their myriad illnesses.  I AM used to them. I could always figure out the real from the fake. Now I just cannot seem to.

This is unusual too – this rant. I do not usually rant unless I have a physical person sitting in front of me – when I bug the h*** out of them – someone from my list of ‘privileged’ few :-). Unfortunately  that hasn’t been possible and you have had to bear the brunt of it. 

On a positive note the discovery of the day has been that a good bath seems to wash away a lot of my crabbiness. Highly recommended for bad days when everything seems to be going wrong. That and a change in schedule seems to make me feel better.

As a new week comes up I have my fingers crossed.

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The family that sleeps together…

…… doesn’t get much sleep at all
Pic Courtesy Google

In a few months the kids’ll turn 6. That’s a huge landmark considering they’ll ‘graduate’ to primary school. And so I thought it was high time they slept in their own beds. Unfortunately three and three fourths of our family thinks it’s a bad idea.

First, half the family – the kids (TK) are convinced they can happily snuggle up with papa and mama till they’re hundred.

Then, there’s The Husband (TH) who misses the kids sorely at night and doesn’t think much of my plans. Each night he tells me “bring them over to our room”.

Then there’s 3/4 me – the mushy mum (MM). Oh how she loves having the kids sleep near her, their little hands on hers, their gentle breath on her cheek, cuddling warmly, sharing a blanket… sigh she misses them so.

And finally 1/4 me – the sane mum (SM). She’s the only one on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of making it happen.

It really hasn’t been easy for SM with TKs staring at her with tear-filled eyes and TH watching her with a look more suited to Dashrath when Kakeyi banished Ram to the forest while MM has simply been wringing her hands in worry. But SM stands firm in her resolve.

A family conversation on the issue would go somewhat like this…

SM: H, N come, see I’ve put a special bed for you. You’ll be sleeping in your own room from now on.
TK (not quite ready for it, wrapping their tiny arms around my waist): But we’ll be scared mama.
MM: Okay fine we’ll try later.
SM (Quashing MM’s outburst sternly): I’m just across the hall. Call me if you get scared and I’ll be right there with you.
TK (in tears): But we like to cuddle with you when we sleep.
MM (in tears): Baby I like to cuddle you too.
SM : You can cuddle your favourite teddy.
TH (With studied casualness): Think of the extra cost – two ACs and two fans running through the night.
SM: Never mind.
MM (Pretending to be the voice of practicality): Think of the extra work – two covers to be removed each night, two beds to be cleared up and two beds to be made each morning.
SM: I’ll do it.
TK (wailing): We’re still babies, we’re not even six.
TH: They really are too small.
MM (Hating SM and desperately, hoping for a change of heart): Oh yes you’re too small.. my babies.
SM : You’re almost six.. that’s really grown up.

SM prevailed. The kids were bribed with the promise of a bunk bed on their birthday while the voice of The Husband and The Mushy Mum were ruthlessly crushed.

Since Sunday, the kids have been sleeping in their room. While N sleeps like the proverbial baby, H has come to wake up Mama each night with a “Can you please sleep with me”. Each night she has gone to put him back to sleep and have then come back to her bed. That, of course, has wrecked havoc on her schedule heavy with daily chores and the rather tough gym routine.

Four days later… SM is wavering, specially at night when MM takes over. The memory of those tear-filled eyes refuses to leave her alone. She lies awake as she wonders – will they fall out of bed? Will they get scared? Will I hear them if they call? She goes to check on the kids countless times during the night for at heart the SM is an MM. Or maybe SM doesn’t exist at all….. maybe she’s simply ….. a mum.

NO … she’s there, she has to be there, she’s only too real, she’s the voice of reason. She’s the one who will help the kids through tough times, when the MM becomes incapable of clear thought driving herself crazy with worry.

Oh the kids need them both. Love tempered with reason.

And so God bless SM with perseverance. She needs support, desperately. Raise your hands if you’re with her, people.

That’s how the kids spread themselves over three mattresses. Now consider squeezing two adults in there.
Still wondering whether you should raise your hand in SM’s support?
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Boys!

A few days back I spent over an hour washing and scrubbing my sneakers. That was a momentous event considering it had been months since their last wash. As I was showing off their sparkling whiteness along came Hrit and very very purposefully stamped on them with his muck-laden school shoes and then grinned at me readying to scoot should I try to whack him. I settled for the loudest yell I could muster.
A few hours later, he had completely forgotten his misdeed while I was still bristling at the defiling of my shoes. He came to me and said, “Mama do you know what I want this time when I complete my ten stars?”
I’ve been giving the kids stars and crosses for good and bad behaviour for a long time now. It’s a pretty effective way to get them to behave. They really look forward to the ten-star mark when they get a gift of their choice. Hrit counted his stars today and realised he’d got just two more to go before the promised gift.

“What?”, asked I.
“I want that you never die,” said he. Considering that his original demand was for a remote controlled car which he’d been hankering after for a long long time, it was quite a huge sacrifice.

Devil or angel? What do you say?
***********

I’ve been struggling to get the kids to sleep on their own with little success. As a first step to sleeping in separate rooms instead of lying down with them I have recently started sitting and putting them to sleep with a story or a song.
Yesterday by the time the kids were ready for bed I was still wrapping up dinner. I put them to bed and told them to try to sleep on their own while I finished up.

“I can’t sleep alone,” complained Naisha. Obviously Hrit’s presence in the room doesn’t count.

“I want a song,” said Hrit
“Sing yourself to sleep. I’ll be there in a minute,” said I hurrying around the kitchen.

When I got to the bedroom Naisha was dutifully humming their regular bedtime song while Hrit was singing quietly to himself Main to Annie Annie Annie Annie ruk gaya… if you didn’t get that, it’s the Ainvayi Ainvayi song from Band Baja Barat.
No wonder he takes ages to fall asleep.

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Zzzzzz….

ABC Wednesday: The Letter Z

Hrit naps during a recent road trip. The pic is clicked by my sister who tells me I had dozed off too

 And while we’re at it here are some sleep facts…

Our sleep-wake cycle causes a drop in alertness between about 2 and 5 pm in the afternoon and more dramatically in the early morning between 2 and 5 am.  This suggests we need two sleep periods a day, as in siesta cultures… which is why old time shops in Pune (and Calcutta) down shutters between 1 and 4 pm. During my summer training days at Indian Oil Corporation there was a special room for women where they could take a siesta each afternoon. What luxury! Wonder if it’s still there.
Daytime naps improve memory, help you remember important facts and cut risk of heart disease.
On an average we spend 1/3 of our life sleeping… Wow!
A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year. (No wonder….)
Kids who regularly sleep more than 8 to 9 hours tend to have stronger immune systems and get fewer colds… which is why I pack off the kids by 9pm.
Some studies suggest women need up to an hour’s extra sleep a night compared to men… I knew it! 

Whales don’t sleep. Dolphins don’t either. They turn off half their brain, resting it, while the other half is awake. If they fell asleep, they’d not come up to breathe and so drown. .. This last one comes from Hrit himself.. from his ‘I-love-Sharks phase.
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