Inertia of Consciousness

[altarflame]

Did you know it's actually possible to be too tired to go to bed? I'm here to testify that it can happen. You get so rooted into this mindset of forcing yourself to keep going that it just gets really, really hard to shut down at all when you get the chance. I sludge through invisible quicksand all morning, fight off naps with sticks all afternoon in the name of lessons and recipes and outside play, and then in the evening I squint a little with a furrowed brow but mostly pull through the dinner and bedtime melee. Grant and the big kids go to bed and hooooouuurs pass with my baby, toddler or both unwilling to lay down without waking the one that IS sleeping and/or keeping G up half the night when HE has to be up by 5:30. My whole house needs cleaning. So I trudge along in slow motion, forgetting what I came to each room for as I enter it and doubling back again confused. When everyone is finally out at 4 or something, I stare right through the computer dumbly clicking random things that aren't even entertaining, just so I won't have to get up and do the dishes yet. I go to brush my teeth and drift off sitting on the toilet, thinking about things, and 20 minutes pass. I end up getting to bed hours later than I could if I really hustled, but "hustling" feels impossible. Which I guess it good because I ALWAYS lead Isaac back to bed and resettle either Jake or Elise at least once before I lay down. Which is part of why it's so hard TO lay down...it's so much easier to stay up then to drift off and get roused again. SO MUCH EASIER. So then when I do lay down...I twitch. I pick at myself. I scratch. I roll over. I turn. I rearrange my pillows. I make to-do lists in my head, and think about what I should be up to tomorrow. I start sneezing and have to get up to blow my nose, or realize after an hour that I have to pee. It's like my body can't surrendur anymore. I have to pray and consciously relax each part of my body and do yoga breathing, to get to sleep. It's like I'm a steam locomotive that spends all day struggling to get up to speed, and then I finally hit my stride...when it's time to put the brakes on.

It's dawning on me how different I am every minute from the long-term sleep deprivation, today and yesterday, and, well. It's freaking me the hell out. I just can't think anymore. I can't do anything. I have no energy, like my body is in hyper-conservation mode. Sometimes I think I must be pregnant (HIGHLY improbable) or septic again (I REALLY doubt it) just because my limbs all seem to weight 20 pounds and I can't finish my sentences. I was doing research a month ago on whether or not sepsis can impart permanent brain damage. It's really hard to trace or quantify, especially months after, was the unsatisfactory conclusion.

But everytime I try to come up with a solution, I run around in circles in my brain and come back around to, This is just a transient situation we have to get through. One day the kids will be older. Probably even one day soon. It's unmanageable, but somehow we manage, and it's temporary. I mean I imagine that when Jake is three and Elise is 18 months things will be a lot easier, and that is less than a year away. But I am so spent already. Another week seems awfully hard.

My calves still hurt from power-walking between the mall and Publix yesterday! Ridiculous. And no, we did not get to the zoo today, again. The package of books from Amazon did come, though, and I have to say that 48 hour free shipping is pretty great customer service. I already read Ananda the first chapter of the chapter book, and she already loves it. She cut the bottom of her foot today, in our yard, on a rock, and asked me to look at it. Just from me saying it had a tiny bit of pulled back skin and a drop of blood, she practically swooned...it's wild to me how sensitive she is about this stuff. It turns out she only wanted me to make sure it was ok, she wasn't looking herself because it was too nasty an idea to contemplate o_O Seriously she was gaping and gasping like a fish and swaying all over as I tried to reassure her it was really very small and I could easily cover it with a small bandaid, the blood wasn't even running it was just a single drop sitting there, etc. She goes pale and falls over at the slightest mention of her own blood. I can just imagine when she gets a period for the first time. She's already worried about it. And she spends entirely too much time in the bathroom staring at herself now, with her haircut and her earrings. She always comes out looking very smug and saying things like, "I really look like I'm at least 9, like, at least 9." Her and Aaron are going over to play with Isobel and Sydney two doors down, tomorrow. And they have a free kids' yoga class lined up next Wednesday, with the Natural Family group we're a part of. And the PATH campout is coming up again, and they're psyched about that, too.

Ok. I've breaked for my tomorrow's-to-do-listing and teeth brushing and foot scrubbing and I think I'm gonna try to take this bedtime show on the road.

Comments

[pikefish.livejournal.com]

xanax is a wonderful drug for turning your brain off :)

or yoga breathing

[gypsymommy.livejournal.com]

Amberielle never wants to get her period. I completely dread the day it starts. I know that seeing her blood, she'll be a completely hysterical wreck.

Woman's Day

[libertysgram.livejournal.com]

My 3 girls are grown now, ages 31, 28 & 23. (PS it does go fast) and they all started their periods a little late, all were 13. I had tried to prepare them early,because many of my friends daughters started around 10 or 11. They spent alot of time in the bathroom with me, so we answered many questions about periods from an early age. They all at one time or another expressed that they weren't going to do "that". I tried to never give menstruating a negative conatation. I figured they would hear enough negative stuff from everyone else. I always expressed that it was one of the ways a girl was becoming a woman, and the day they started their first period, we called "Woman's Day." It was a special day for just that daughter & me to spend together; shopping, eating lunch somewhere special. They kind of looked forward to it after a while instead of dreading the day. When the youngest one had her Woman's Day, her two older sisters went shopping with her for pads, and gave her their opinions of which ones were their favorite and why. (No one ever liked the same type. My oldest daughter used to always faint at the site of blood, and was worried about her own periods before she started, but she never had a fainting issue with her periods, although she still faints easily. I do too, tho never with blood; so maybe it's genetic.
PS out of lurkdome. I have followed your journal for a little over a year. About the time you went to Boston. You are a brave woman and I admire you a great deal. I, too, dealt with depilitating surgeries after the birth of my last child. I was not pain free and recovered for over a year after her birth. I was nursing her & her brother and had a 4 & 7 yr old daughters as well. This time will pass, and in a few more months it will be easier. I look back now and wonder how it got away so fast. Now I'm rocking grandbabies. You are a wonderful mom.

[superflippy.livejournal.com]

I remember how horrible the sleep deprivation was at times with D-Mac, and there's just one of him. I can imagine from your words just how crazy and worn-out you must feel.

Is there anyone who can watch the kids for you for a few hours so you can take a nap? My mother-in-law used to do that for me occasionally, and it absolutely saved my sanity.