Precious Sleep

What is the best thing about having a nine year old and a four and a half year old?  Sleep. My boys let me sleep in on the weekends. They're too young to be out late at night, keeping me awake with worry. I've earned this rest:  both boys woke up to eat until they were eleven months old. Dang acid reflux. 

Then the other night, B woke me up at 1 a.m. to let me know he couldn't sleep. This is highly unusual for him. I rolled out of bed and heated up some milk.  My little skeptic questions everything, so I explained that warming milk produces a chemical to help people sleep. 

Once he was snuggled in an armchair with a cozy blanket and a mug of warm milk, I googled to find out the specifics. This just in: warm milk as a sleeping agent is cited as a myth on so many sites.  Google it. 

I couldn't tell him that. 

So, I read him as much truth as I could.  Warm milk has triptophan, which helps people sleep. It increases sweatin in and melatonin production. It helps fill empty stomachs. The warmth of the milk helps people relax. 

My seventh grade English students explored bias in nonfiction this past nine weeks. Oh, the irony. 

Then I tucked B in, and left him working through the "grateful game". Instead of counting sheep, we think of someone or something we are grateful for for each letter of the alphabet. 

Then I headed off to bed, where I spent the next forty minutes trying to fall asleep.

B rides with me to work and then home or up pick up G every day.  He helps me on my classroom. He goes shopping with me. Still, it has been quite a while since he's asked me for advice. Most oft forty minutes of insomnia was spent feeling grateful that he still needs me sometimes. I was also extremely grateful that it's not often during the middle of the night. 

Teaching Sons to be Fabulous Husbands

My parent have been married for 37 years. My dad prides himself on being a badass, low key husband who doesn't spoil his wife with cards or flowers. We laugh about it because as much as he steers from grand gestures of his affection, he is quick to rush to her defense (text: Call your mother and voicemail: Don't forget it's Mom's birthday). He also keeps the house stocked in her favorite snacks and keeps the coffee pot full. 

Oma moved in with Mom and Dad a year and a half ago. She's 92 years of sweetness and sass. She's lived through three years of internment camp, loss of the young love of her life, parenting of five children across three countries, and nursing of her sassy husband with dementia (who was an amazing man in his own right). She jokes along with my Dad. It's cute to watch. 

Dad took her shopping the other day. Oma found this cute card and told Dad to buy it for Mom. 

 "Oma, I haven't gotten the woman a card in 37 years. If I start now, she'll expect it."

That's Dad's badass persona. Oma laughed it off. Later, Mom opened the card. 

Anyone who's read anything Oma writes will recognize the salutation as her handwriting. The signature looks much different. 

Apparently she feared that Mom would deduce that Dad did not sign the card, for this was written on the back. 

 

Sassy. 

The Domino Effect

As I was scrolling through Facebook  Monday, this lamp caught my eye.  One of my collegues was selling it for five dollars.  My classroom has several pieces decoupaged with nesting dolls fabric.  I bought the lamp, broke out the Modpodge and created this:

When I put it on my desk at work, though, it was entirely too small.  It was about half the size of the desk lamp I already had.  I ended up placing it on a desk near the back of the classroom.  It wasn’t as close as I wanted it to me, but I didn’t have an outlet available to set it on the bookshelf near my desk or my filing cabinet.  

Now I needed a new lampshade for the bigger lamp.

After a lot of online searching, I found a light gray one at Target.  I ordered it and had it sent to the store.  For thirteen dollars, I had a cute lampshade.  I thought about decoupaging it with the dolls, but decided against it.  I wasn’t sure that the texture of the lamp would look as good with Modpodge all over it.  I brought it to school and switched the lampshades out.   It was not as cute of a combo as I had hoped. 

I needed a new lamp base.  

I searched online at JC Penny’s and Kohls since I have giftcards to both.  There were not any bases I wanted that were cheaper than the amount of my giftcards.  After lunch with a friend today, I scoured stores in person, and found the perfect wooden teal lamp base at Walmart for $11.97.  

Total cost of spontaneous purchase of a $5 lamp: $29 and change.

Now to find $100 for stool I saw for behind my podium at school.

T.G.I.F.

By Friday afternoons, I am exhausted.  On the ride home from work after a weekly meeting, my body realizes how tired the week has made it.  Early mornings, duties, meetings, classes, sons' stories, sons' battles, dinners, housework, and late nights add up to one tired Mama.  Thank goodness my husband is wonderful and pulls more than his fair share with most of the list above. 

Yesterday afternoon, B and I stumbled through the door with my many bags.  G was at Grammy's for the weekend, and Josh was over there visiting.  B headed for his XBox and I headed for jammies with plans for a large glass of chocolate wine from my favorite mother-in-law. 

This is what I found on the sink in my bathroom:

I love Fridays and thoughtful Four-Year-Olds.