Luck, Fate, Genes?

Yesterday I spoke on the phone with a woman I worked with years ago. She and I became easy friends back then. At the time we had much in common. Same relative age group, love of the outdoors, same career interests. In the intervening years, time and circumstance have drawn us in different directions. She went to work at a different location for our company, and abruptly ended her employment with the company after a short while. She followed a boyfriend who moved an hour+ away. She preferred the company of friends who had different shared interests. Time happened. A stir of the tea leaves - and again our fates overlap. Our priorities changed, and a stand-out interest matched. We both had kids. Mine came nearly two years before hers, but the result is the same. After a tentative period of email contact, and one phone message from her that I chose to return by email (coward), we finally connected again. In that brief conversation, it all came flooding back to me. A complete understanding of how we were able to become friends in the old circumstance, and how we really can't in the new. Oh we can pretend, and we will. Am I just being negative? I don't think so. I can always use friends, old and new. It's a strong intuition. I can't seem to complete this thought today.

Oh yeah

After a three-hour nap (DD got 4 1/2) I remembered what my egg/chicken analogy was in reference to. I was wondering if we are losing sleep due to being sick, or sick from losing sleep. Not that we're officially sick, but I'm thinking we're headed in that direction...just in time for a looong drive...

The Chicken/Egg Continuum

My DD has no regular sleep pattern. At the age of 22 months, she sometimes sleeps for 10 hours at night. She sometimes sleeps a few hours, gets up for a few hours, sleeps a few hours, get up for a few hours, etc. Sometimes she's up early (today it was 4:30am, two days ago it was 3:30am) and sometimes she sleeps late (yesterday it was after 10am). I've gone through every theory. She's teething. She's getting sick, she's hungry, she's thirsty, she's hot, she's cold. She's a light sleeper, and wakes when I move. She's having bad dreams. Perhaps all of this is true at one time or another. Now I've forgotten the tie-in to the title of this blog. My brain, which works better with a consistent sleep pattern, is fuzzy, light-headed, drained, unable to hold a thought. We can't plan anything with certainty. When I suggest that late-morning is best as DD sleeps in, she'll be up very early, and we're sleeping by late morning. When I say that early will probably be fine, the opposite occurs. Is she waking cuz she's hungry, and therefore nursing a lot? Or is she nursing a lot because she's waking? Or is she going to have a lifetime of short, intense sleep sessions divided by short, wakeful times? She had no nap yesterday, and still woke many times to nurse and was awake for good after 8 hours. There went my theory (from Night Time Parenting by Dr. W. Sears) that she is simply getting too much sleep in a 24-hour period. Or perhaps that is the case but we need to be more consistent with an earlier, shorter daytime nap? But how do I get into that pattern when my brain is so tired and shot I can't imagine going a few more hours without sleep? On that note, DD is falling asleep, time to crash with her if I am to survive this day!

Perspective

The situation: The windows in the dining room periodically leak/pour water through the frame.

Perspectives:

Mine: The house was thrown together so fast that much was overlooked. Poor workmanship and/or very short time-lines. Workers have now been here three times for the same problem, and have so far found two different causes! They are now working on a third. Slight annoyance that they seem to be avoiding a real search for the core problem. This is my home, not a work site they can visit here and there when they want. (or rather are told to) I honestly wondered this time if we should move! My father-in-law is friends with the builder. This adds a complicated dimension in several directions.

The workers: Resentment that when we have a house problem, they are told to drop everything and run over here to fix it. (Not stated, but evident in their faces and general demeanor) They always ask me to leave the door open for them (unlocked). They obviously prefer to come and go as they please, without the formality of ringing the door bell and explaining their purposes to me. It's a job site to them, not a home.

Erin: Great fun when water pours into the dining room. Pots to play with, cloths, plastic containers. Splash!

So that's what they're for

Lately I love thinking about the benefits of breastfeeding. I could write about the drawbacks too, but the first list is very much longer. The most recent benefit for us....flying. DD is 22 months, and almost too big to fit sideways on my lap on an airplane. But not yet! We just flew to Fla and back, and DD nursed to sleep both times. Nursing provided her with comfort in an odd place, relief from potential ear discomfort, nourishment, warmth, contentment. It provided me with warmth, love, comfort (mostly), and contentment. You don't have to rumage awkwardly through a carry-on bag to find snacks or bottles, all the equipment you need is right there. Simple! It's barely (haha) possible to keep from flashing the entire plane at this point, but if DD is sleepy enough, I can cover us both. When awake, she so enjoys fiddling, with me, my shirt, whatever I'm trying to do to pass the time...(read, write, etc.) But when she looks at me, I melt.

Other benefits? DD had an ear infection not too long ago. It was her first, and it was awful. She stopped eating solid foods for several days. She wanted to be held, and felt sad and uncomfortable. She had a high fever. BUT, she did nurse! The benefits to her: nourishment, comfort, warmth, security. The benefits to me: A constant awareness of her temperature, her mood, her sleep, her color.

To be continued...

Fate, nature, nurture

What causes a piece of driftwood to travel from point A to point B? On the surface, literally, the influences are obvious. The water is this high, and the tide travels this way, and the shape of the water way is thus... The underlying influences are just as important, but far less obvious. Currents. Temperature of the water. Other items and life forces in the water and beneath - and above. The moon. Etc.

And so it is with our lives. Our decisions. Our way of carrying ourselves, our way of molding our children. Our reactions to seeing a parent scold a child (or a child wearing a strange outfit, or a parent handing a child something we would ordinarily disapprove of...) before becoming a parent, and after. On the surface we can see what influences a person to behave in certain ways. We cannot see the influences under the surface. We can guess, but mostly we choose not to. We see the driftwood spin in an unexpected way, and we stop, briefly, to wonder what caused it. With people the pause is also brief, though the thought, the guess at the sudden change in direction tends to hold more conviction. More emotion. More judgement. If the driftwood does something out of character, it is an interesting phenomenon. If a person does something out of character, it causes us to question everything we do, think, depend on, to keep balance in our lives. Suddenly we cannot depend on the tides, the currents, the pull of the moon, to take us where it always has. We have to adjust, reset our coordinates, find comfort in our slightly different place.

These influences come at us all, little and big, from all directions, all the time. We bob along, doing our best to adjust to the changes and adjustments as best we can. Sometimes we go with the flow, sometimes we fight (although it's ultimately fruitless, the change comes along regardless, with little influence from us.) We reach out, mentally, to others who seem to be at a similar circumstance. We question the purposes of our twists and turns. We feel comfort in those who have gone before us, who have survived the rapids intact. We feel for those who are farther down the river, as well as those who have recently fallen in the water.

~~~***~~~