Sleep Training

Wow!


Having a baby and moving to a new city sure does suck up a lot of your time! I was reading some other lady's blog about sleep training after reading The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems book to try to get my baby to sleep through the night. She is 10 1/2 months old and still wakes up several times a night wanting to breastfeed. She also tends to stay up until 11 or 12 at night. (At the Aunties' house she stayed up until 1:30! Noooooo!) I have had less full nights of sleep than I can count on one hand while using one of those fingers to flip the bird to everyone who is well-rested. (just kidding!) But seriously. The lack of sleep was getting old and making it difficult to get through every day. And also making me quite grumpy.


I have been doing a lot of internet research on the subject and considered the Cry-It-Out method (Ferber) but couldn't do it. I felt mean. So I got this book after reading a bit about it on the internets.

Here are some quick things about the book:

1. The lady who wrote the book is some British super-nanny (think the TV show) who has dealt with hundreds of babies.

2. She knows a lot of things about babies.

3. She is kinda mean to you. She made me feel super guilty a bunch of times and like an IDIOT. And I kept reading because she uses words like "luv" when she is insulting you. Maybe it's a British thing? "Wow, luv, you sure messed up your baby!"


So anyways. I read a bunch of it textbook style (skimming pages/skipping to relevant chapters/rereading important passages) and decided to give it a try. I was all ready to try it on a Friday (the recommended day because it's the weekend and you don't have to worry so much about loss of sleep) but baby got a super fever and so she ended up sleeping with me in bed most of the weekend. (Which is very, very bad according to super nanny.) So after finding a doctor in our new city small town, and getting her some antibiotics, we were ready to try it last night (Wednesday). By the way, super nanny says it could take about 3 days to re-train them but UP TO THREE WEEKS. I sure hope 3 weeks is not my future. Daddy is sleeping in another room during work days for now.

Here are the basics of this sleep training method (if you are interested in trying this, I would suggest getting the book from the library because it gives a much better explanation than I do here):

1. Make sure your kid is on a good routine during the day. This includes eating BEFORE activity time and not right before going to sleep. Basically repeat E.A.S.Y. throughout the day. Eat, Activity, Sleep, and You time. I spent about two weeks readjusting her daytime routine little by little (mostly just moving Eat to right after she woke up instead of right before she went to sleep).

2. Follow a sleeptime ritual every night. We have been doing this, I just had to subtract the eating part from the ritual. Baby Emerald is a "spirited" baby and loves being awake and playing so we have to do about 30 minutes of calm play (reading, singing, cuddling, talking) before bed. Then we do diaper change, pajamas, song and lay her in the crib.

"I'm awaaaaaaaaake!!!!!"

3. When baby cries at night, do the Pick Up/Put Down method (P.U./P.D.).Ages 4mos and Up. For littler babies that aren't pulling themselves up you pick up the baby and hold him until he is calm and put him down the second he stops crying. You can also shushhhhhhh them while you are doing this (Happiest Baby on the Block also likes this method). And pat them on the back while you are doing this. This helps calm them.
All of this is irrelevant to me because now she is at the age where those things are distracting and not helpful. So for older babies that can pull themselves up to standing in the crib, you basically just lay them back down. Over and over and over. You don't have to pick them all the way up to a holding position. Do this about 100 times until the baby stops standing up. Wait until she is all the way standing to do it every time.

4. Stay with your baby the whole time  You are letting the baby know that you are here to help her through this difficult time. Unlike the Cry-It-Out method you are maintaining trust with your baby because she doesn't feel abandoned. Sit/Stand by the crib until she is asleep. This was the hard part for me about the Ferber method. I couldn't bring myself to just listen to her "suffer". This way, I have an active role in helping my baby learn to sleep properly.

"Don't leave me, mommy!"

5. Talk to your baby in a calm, confident, reassuring voice. The idea is that eventually you will be able to calm the baby with just the voice and no physical intervention.
If I'm frustrated, I don't say anything until I'm calm. Then I will tell her it is "sleepy time" and she needs to go to sleep. And a bunch of other random mumbo jumbo that I think of at 4 a.m. 

6. Be Consistent and Patient. Don't just do this for a day or even for just a week. Do it as long as it takes. (that's what she said). Also, babies regress throughout their childhood for a variety of reasons. Be prepared to pull the above methods out as needed. She might wake up due to teething. Or a growth spurt. Or bad nightmares. Don't assume it didn't work just because she is waking up again. This method will work and she will go to sleep MUCH faster than if you decided to try a different method. I'm a pretty patient person, but I need to work on consistency. It's easy to give up if something isn't working right away...


Here's how it went:


Wednesday Night, November 7. (Yay, Obama is president still!)

THIS is what I like to see.

8:50 p.m. Baby is showing signs of sleepiness (yawning, rubbing eyes..). I get her fed for the last time, changed, and into her pajamas by 9:00. I hold her on my lap but she is maaaaad and does not want to go to sleep without the boob. I listened to this crying for 40 minutes. Except it got much worse as time went on. When a baby cries it's annoying. But when it's your baby it's simultaneously annoying and heart wrenching. I got so frustrated that she wouldn't sleep and wouldn't stop crying that I set her aside for a second and punched the bed.  WHY WONT YOU JUST SLEEEEEEEEEP!! (this book was going thru my head...) Eventually she fell asleep at about 9:50.

11:30 p.m. Baby wakes up in a fit of rage. It takes an HOUR to get her to calm down and fall back asleep. I am picking her up and putting her back down constantly. She is soooooooo mad. ("Why can't we just do it like we always did it, mom?") She would stand in the crib, I would pick her up and lay her down and rinse and repeat about a million times.

12:50 a.m. When she finally does fall asleep, I am soooo revved up I can't sleep. I go to my computer and vent to my best friend on chat. And I have a glass of red wine. The wine ended up not being very good so I chased it with some sharp cheddar.When I was having my wine, she started crying again but I gave myself a 5 minute break and during that time she stopped crying. I then take a nice hot bath (which I haven't done since I moved). Then I spend some time reading some more of the book to mentally re-prepare for the night.

It's about 2 a.m. when I finally lay down to sleep.

4:00 a.m. Baby is crying again. I go over to her crib and only have to to P.U./P.D. a few times. But she is still whimpering. I keep my hand on her and "talk her down". In a soothing, calm voice, I am telling her all about the progress we made for gay rights and women's rights this year and then I talk about giving birth and all the work we both did for that, and how if we could make it through that we can make it through the night. I complimented her on being strong. I think it really did help. Maybe she sensed my frustration earlier and that's why she took so long to calm down? Or maybe after 3 times, she was getting to know that I was serious about this. It only took about 25 minutes this time to calm her down.

6:45 a.m. She is awake again. Crying, but not bloody murder. It's been 9 hours without feeding and I felt like she went long enough...plus my breasts were really full. I fed her and of course she went right back to sleep.

Awwww, they are so cute when they're asleep!

9:00 a.m. She is awake. Since she did not get much sleep last night, I spend 40 minutes trying to get her to go back to sleep. Which she does. In retrospect  I probably should have just gotten up with her and then took a nap in an hour or so but I was sooooooooooo tired and not thinking quite straight. She slept till noon. I woke up at about 11.

The rest of the day was great. We were both in great moods and she was the best behaved she has been all week (I think the ear infection is almost gone!).

2:45 p.m.- She started showing sleepy signs again. I took her to the room, sang her a little song and laid her down in her bed. She didn't get up or scream or anything. She fell asleep and slept for almost 4 hours!!! Usually she only sleeps for 1.5-2 hours during her one nap of the day. I'm sure she was just tired from the long night and probably still recovering slightly from her ear infection...  Anyways, her nap gave me LOTS of free time.





Thursday Night, November 8

9:00 p.m.-She is showing sleepy signs. I spilled her medicine all over the floor when trying to shake it and the lid the came off. Had to give her a bath. After the bath, lotion, diaper, pajamas, 2 books and a song, we were in the dark room ready to sleep. She cried a little while I put the pajamas on but as soon as I laid her in the crib she did not pull up or fuss or anything and just laid there quietly for about 7 minutes until her eyes finally closed. Not a single cry. It is now 10:00. I should have started the go-to-bed-process earlier. My new goal is to get her in her crib by 9:00.

don't read at night or you may never sleep!

1:00 a.m. I am finally going to bed. (dumb, right?) All the books tell you to sleep when your baby sleeps especially during crazy stuff like this, but I just couldn't sleep. Also, the book I'm reading was getting quite good. I read it for about half an hour more with my nightlight under the covers. Secret reaaaaading.

badass nightlight!

 (By the way, I loooove my Mobi Glowmate nightlight. It is just enough light to see by/read in secret by/get dressed early in the morning before work by without waking up the baby. Also, it never gets hot so you could let your kid sleep with it. And there is a rainbow of colors to choose from on the settings. AND!!! There is a 15 minute-turn-off option where it will turn off automatically after that amount of time. Get it!)

"Winning" -Charlie Sheen

4:00 a.m. I hear baby crying. She made it more than 5 hours without waking up!!! Holy cow! According to my research, I'm one lucky mama... Now here's the awesome part. I roll out of bed and stumble like a zombie over to the crib bracing myself for 30+ minutes of trying to coax her to sleep. I do the P.U./P.D. thing 2 or 3 times and she is done standing up. I think my little one is learning quickly! I know she is still awake so I'm talking to her in my calm voice. After about 5 minutes she hasn't made a sound or moved so I go back to bed.



6:50 a.m. She wakes up again. Not full-on the world is ending crying just letting-you-know-i'm-awake crying. I feed her. This works out perfectly because she has gone about 9 hours without eating so I know she is actually hungry and on the days I work this is when I would naturally feed her anyways. Daddy is in the room so he gets to say hello. (Cute story...after he left the room, she heard him in the hallway and stopped eating to say "Dah!" He came over and gave her one more kiss.) She stops eating after about 15 minutes or so (she used to eat for only 5 minutes during the night and then fall asleep....that's how I knew she wasn't really hungry) and is NOT asleep but is laying in my arms nice and relaxed. I can't believe she didn't nurse to all the way to sleep!!!! So I lay her in her crib and she quietly lays there and gently drifts off to sleep as I say "good night" to her. <3

10:00 a.m. She wakes up chipper and ready to start the day!


6:00 p.m. Naptime. She didn't want to go to sleep (because she was overtired). So it took about 5-10 minutes to put her down. When I left the room and thought she was almost asleep she started crying. I was in the bathroom at the time and by the time I was done the crying stopped so I didn't go back in.

Today was a bit crazy because I had a bunch of errands to run in "town". Where Safeway and Walmart and Banks are. So baby did a few naps in the car and then we got home later than when her naptime would start so her nap was like 2 hours late. I actually went in and woke her up from her nap so it wouldn't start to run into bedtime. Then after feeding her and playing with her and washing her off it was already super late! So she went to bed 2 hours late. Bad, bad, bad! I can hear Super Nanny berating me in my head.

Friday Night, November 9

10:45 p.m. Start wind-down routine. She is pretty excited from visiting her aunties today and also seeing some friends come over. She is bouncing up and down on the bed talking to her kitty and yawning every few minutes but acting like she is not tired whatsoever. I'm not fooled! I hold her on my lap and sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". She is struggling a little but quickly losing the battle. At this point the yawns are like 1 second apart. So I sing it again.  Then I put her in the crib. She stands up. I do P.U./P.D. for about 5 minutes. Sometimes she stays down for a minute then gets back up. Instead of crying, this time, she was talking and talking. She didn't want to sleep, she explained to me. She cried only for a second after I put her back down each time. It took about 10 minutes total from when I laid her in the crib to when she stayed still and eyes started closing and I left the room. Considering how off-schedule we were today and all the excitement we had, she fell asleep pretty easily.

3:30 a.m. She woke up. It took only about 5 minutes to get her back to sleep with a few P.U./P.D.s and soothing talking.

<I think she woke up sometime in between 3:30-7:30 for a couple minutes and I went to her crib, but I cant really remember in the haze of sleepiness...>

We burned this chair and some political things.

7:30 a.m. She slept in a little bit longer for the weekend! Fed her and she went back to sleep.

10:30 a.m. She woke up and is ready to start the day!

Another strange day today. We went to visit Grandma for her birthday and were still there during the start of her naptime. We didn't bring a portable crib because we were thinking we would leave before her naptime but we didn't realize we had to burn a bunch of stuff and eat some gay cupcakes to celebrate Ref. 74 gay marriage act.
She slept in the car on the way there (1-1:40) and on the way back (5-5:50).

Mmmmm! Gay Cupcakes!

6:30 p.m. We got home and unloaded the car and I put her to bed for a late nap. I woke her up at a 7:40 because I didn't want her too be up too late.



Saturday Night, November 10

10:00 p.m. I put her to bed later than I wanted. Tomorrow night will be better I promise! It ended up taking a few P.U./P.D.'s and crying. She wanted to hang out with everyone and did NOT want to sleep. After about 15 minutes or so (plus 15 minutes of wind-down time...reading books and singing songs in her room away from everyone) she was finally sleepy.

Tonight was Daddy's first time trying the P.U./P.D. method. It was also the first night I had a baby monitor hooked up (finally bought one Friday!) She did cry once for less than a minute and then went back to sleep at about midnight.

3:00 a.m. Daddy helps baby fall asleep. Not sure if it was because it was not me or what, but she was screaming bloody murder. She was very very mad! After 10 minutes of anger crying, I got her a bottle (I had drank some wine and wasn't ready to nurse yet). She chowed down and emptied most of it, so I think she was just hungry. I think she didn't eat too much that day because she was too busy visiting everyone and looking at all the cool things. Like burning chairs.

7:00 a.m. Since we gave her a nighttime feeding, we didn't give her a feeding right now. Daddy did P.U./P.D. again and it went MUCH better this time. She went to sleep very quickly and no crying! This gives me hope because this was only his second time doing it so maybe it will work for nighttime babysitters especially if she is on a good schedule! :)

9:00 a.m. She wakes up. I'm pretty sure she is hungry so I nurse her. She eats a bunch and falls right back to sleep. I move her to the crib and she continues sleeping.

11:00 a.m. She is awake!!!!!! She has a lot of fun playing with Mommy AND Daddy in the morning. (We love weekends!)

If I could go back in time, I would totally have gotten my baby on a routine much earlier. This is my first baby and before her, I didn't know "'nothin' 'bout....no babies" (paraphrasing..). So I just went with the flow. I bet I COULD have been sleeping through the night much sooner if I had known these things. But, I was in survival mode. I hope that this helps someone avoid the troubles I experienced.





Update: I got super busy with life stuff and forgot to finish this! It did take a few more days of that "fun" sleep training. Maybe a week or two, I can't remember. But eventually it worked and by a year old she was FINALLY sleeping through the night. Consistently. Here schedule right now is:

7:40 Get ready for Bed (Routine)
8:00 Go to bed. 99% of the time it is fuss free and she lays down happily. I usually don't hear a peep from her unless she:

• Has a bad dream
• Gets stuck in her crib (this happens very rarely nowadays, but she used to get her knee stuck in between the slats)
• Is sick/teething

She usually sleeps through the night on normal nights until 7 or 8 am.

Every child is different, and hopefully the next one will sleep more easily. . . (knock on wood!)

Having a Baby is Like Playing Minecraft.

Super Graphics!!!!!! 

Those of you that know me know that I'm a huge nerd. And husband and I love playing games. One of our favorite games is Minecraft. Ever heard of it? If you have $20 and want something fun (and not complicated) to do on your computer, you should download Minecraft.

Essentially, it's a "sandbox" game...meaning it's like you're playing in a sandbox. You can build whatever you want out of the materials around you.  

A nice house built from scratch.

Want to build a castle out of glass? Want to have a tower that goes all the way up to the clouds? And underwater lair? 


The possibilities are limitless. Kinda like having a baby. 

You imagine all the things you can build into your new creation. You can make her have a great vocabulary. You can foster a sense of humor that would make Seinfeld look like the clear eyes guy. (You know, the teacher on Ferris Bueller. "Bueller...Bueller...")  


You will teach her math and her ABC's so she aces kindergarten (if it still exists in 5 years). Maybe you'll teach her how to shoot baskets so that in 20 years she is supporting you with her pro-basketball career.

Then you actually have the baby. And you take her home. This would be the first "night" in Minecraft.

In Minecraft, here is how the game goes. Yes, you can build whatever you want. Yes, the possibilities are endless...BUT.

"OH HI!!! I will explode and destroy everything around me!"

But you start out in the middle of an unexplored wilderness. Just you and your bare hands. You have to take down a tree with your bare hands to build an axe and shovel and then you use those tools to get more things to build a makeshift shelter. You have to do this quickly because before you know it, it will be night. (In the real world, this is like your first day home with baby).

Nighttime is when all the monsters come out. They try to kill you. Some of them will come right up to you and explode on you. Others will just hide in the trees and shoot you with arrows. If you didn't build your shelter quickly enough you will die. A bunch.

When we first brought Emerald home, it was just like that. Survival mode. I didn't sleep for the first two days, except when I would pass out while feeding her for a few minutes. I was constantly checking for monsters: does she have a temperature? is she too cold? is she breathing alright? is she eating enough? why doesn't she have enough wet diapers? (oh boy, i regret worrying about this one...SO MANY DIAPERS now!) why is she crying? 

"WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?? FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT!!!!!"

AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

It's very frightening, and you pray for "daylight" when the monsters go away and you can breathe again. And focus on building your masterpiece in peace. For me, the daylight came about two? weeks later. We had a lot of sleepless nights full of monsters. Some nights she would just cry for HOURS. Why? I still don't know. Some nights I would spend 45 minutes feeding her, she would sleep for 15-30 mins, then wake up to repeat the 45 minute process again.


 ALL NIGHT. 

This is a very frightening sight.

Your boobs feel like they've been shot with arrows. Your head feels like it has been exploded.


People tell you about those "sleepless nights" but it's way different living them. You are fighting a dozen monsters every night.

But eventually, the day does come, and you can enjoy your baby. You can start building the best person you can. You start finding those rare "diamonds". How she smiles when you smile. How she loves to kick her feet.  How she likes to pause in the middle of eating just to look up and smile at you. How she can consciously grab a toy and actually hold onto it. All those amazing things that make being a parent worth it.

My little Emerald

If you can just survive the night.

Saying Goodbye

Yesterday, I took my cat Midnight to the vet.
 Again.


 For the better part of the year, I have tried to figure out what's happened with her...This spring/summer she started vomiting a lot. First it was once every couple days, then it was daily. We tried lots of things: blood tests (normal), exams, changes in diet, medicine... Still vomiting.

The previous time I went to the vet, I was pretty disappointed in the whole situation because I waited 2 hours in the waiting room only to be seen by a vet for about 5 minutes. I had to point out that Midnight had lost 1/2 a pound. I'm pretty sure she didn't even look at the chart at all. She didn't actually exam my cat or anything. When I tried to show her a picture of my cat's vomit on my camera (so she could possibly use it for diagnosis) she said she wouldn't look at it because it makes her sick. 


Come on.


It's not like I'm trying to show the cashier at Safeway. I'm showing someone WHOSE JOB IT IS to diagnose and care for various pet diseases. WTF.


So, I took her home and tried a prescription diet. It didn't work. Slowly she started eating less and less and losing weight pretty rapidly. The past few days she has hardly touched her food. And about 3 days ago I woke up and found she had vomited blood all over the floor. 

I knew it was serious and I took her to the vet, again, hoping for a better examination.... which we got.


This vet came in having already read the chart (I have been going there for 4 years so they have all information on her). She asked lots of questions. She examined my cat.She looked at her teeth and gums, she took her pulse and heart rate, she felt her stomach.... and that's when she found it.


 A tumor the size of a golf ball.


The other vet didn't do any of that examination stuff. Maybe she would have found a lump to clue us in earlier... 


Anyways, at the time, I was so grateful that the vet actually did her job and as a result we got answers. However, when I got the answer, I couldn't hold it in. Luckily, Jeremiah was there because when she told us I was a blubbering fool. I couldn't stop crying. 
I'm sure the pregnancy hormones are amplifying things a little...I just couldnt hold it in at all. The vet gave us some privacy. I couldn't stop crying the whole time I was there. I had to leave the vet office through the back exit.


We were given a few options. We could spend hundreds of dollars (which we don't have) on an ultrasound and additional tests. Then even more money on attempting surgery/treatment (if it is even possible). Chances are it's so big, it is too late to fix and has intertwined itself with organs so separating it would likely kill her anyways.


Or, we could try to make her as comfortable as possible in the few days she has left with us, using the time to say goodbye...and then put her to sleep before she starts suffering too badly.


It's one of the hardest choices I've ever had to make.


She's only 4 years old. I've had her since she was 8 weeks (we adopted her early because she was the runt of the litter and probably would have died as a kitten). We had to feed her formula in tiny little dipping sauce bowls...she could hardly hold her head up, and would "come up for air" with milk all over her whiskers and chin and nose. 

She has been our baby these past 4 years when we couldn't have a real baby. She is a part of our family. Last night, I wrote by the light of the Christmas tree a list of all my favorite Midnight memories. 

It's just like losing an important person, because she has been our family member all these years. I can't even put into words how hard this is for me. Every single time I think about it, I start crying...and I hardly ever cry.


I will just have to pick her up as much as possible, and feed her all her favorite things (even though she only takes a few bites), and just enjoy these last few days with my baby.




And now, a bunch of pictures of my cat.

Baby Midnight on my shoulder

Midnight following Ebony. Ebony acting disinterested.

Cat in a pocket. Just in case.

Just a few weeks old! So small!

Cuddling on my lap...her favorite!

They had a wrestling match and Jeremiah lost. Now she is asserting her dominance.

She had a hunger that only hands could satisfy.

"So *THIS* is how you be a nerd!"

Two too-cute cuties.

Okay, just a few more!

Her favorite thing, whenever I'm walking anywhere, is to fall at my feet. Jeremiah's mom wanted to name her Underfoot.

Just a box of cat.

Walked in on them cuddling in the guest room. Look at Ebony's leg!

Christmas Card photo. Midnight was the only one willing to pose in the photo.

Another Underfoot pic.

She loves bags!

Montana vs. Washington

Sorry for the delay in blog postings. I'd like to say it was because I have been so busy having a jam-packed fun-filled summer, but the truth is I'm just quite lazy. And that laziness compounds during the summer. From now on, I promise to at least THINK about trying to post more often. We'll see how that goes.




We just got back from Montana this last week. My mom and brothers live there (well, one is in Iraq right now, but he usually lives there), as well as my Grandma and most of my aunts and uncles. My uncle and his girlfriend just had a baby while we were there. It's strange to me that I will have cousins about as old as our yet-to-be-born child. Is that strange to anyone else??


Anyways, it's about a 10 hour drive to Montana in the summer. Okay, make it twelve. I have to pee a lot. Jeremiah always complains about it. Like I can flip a switch and make it so I only have to pee once a week like him. Maybe next time I will buy a few gallons of Gatorade and just go to town on them, and THEN he will see what peeing a lot really looks like.

Because that's what marriage is all about.




Moving on to the subject at hand...


Montana is very beautiful. The air is clean, the water is delicious (not so great to wash hair with because it is filled with minerals), and the view is spectacular. I hate taking pictures, so I never take any. But a lot of my facebook friends take pictures that remind me of the awesome majesty of Montana. It really is a nice place to visit. Here is a picture I didnt take:

There are more awesome pictures at this blog: http://www.bloggersbase.com/travel/montana-glacier-country/
I didn't read any of the words, just looked at the pictures...so don't blame me if it is all about a secret militia compound in Montana or something.




Aside from the neighborly people, the freedom and privacy, the beauty, and the remoteness..Montana also has the craziest weather.

You can't plan for anything.


Here's a day in Montana:
Wake up, see a bright blue sun-shiny day. Dress in summer clothes. Go outside. Get drenched by a surprise thunderstorm. Go home, get an umbrella. Go back outside. Sun is back. Put umbrella away. When going back outside, get pummeled by dogs rushing inside for safety. Listen carefully. SURPRISE THUNDER AND LIGHTNING STORM. Rinse, repeat.


I swear, the weather changed like 5 times (super sun/thunder lightning/rain storm/sun...) at my brother's wedding last year. We had to rush our outside pictures to avoid the sporadic rain.




And then, here is a WEEK in Washington:
Clouds.
Clouds.


Brighter Clouds.
Darker Clouds.
Clouds, Clouds Clouds
Sun trying really hard to shine through the clouds.
Back to Clouds.

If you wake up and are lucky enough to have a blue sky, it generally stays that way.
I can't remember the last time I've seen a thunderstorm here.




It is always an adventure in the outdoors of Montana!

Summer Cleaning

It's summertime! As a teacher I finally have the time that I didn't during the school year...


Thus, "spring" cleaning becomes "summer" cleaning. This year it is compounded by a little psychotic episode people like to cute-ify by calling it "nesting".

So anyways, here I am at 11:00 at night pulling EVERYTHING off the shelves, going through all my clothes (I've gotten rid of 5 garbage bags full of clothes so far!) and organizing the HELL out of everything. I like organizing things, and giving everything a nice place and I like the idea of putting things into that nice place. 


However, I am also very very lazy, so usually what happens is I KNOW where things go, I just don't care.


Yes, this lovely shirt belongs on a hanger in my closet, but the living room floor is just so much closer.

Yes, this book has a spot right on the bookshelf when I finish reading it, but this stack of read books on the bedside table is getting impressively tall. I think I'll just add to the Jenga book tower.

So you see, with my laziness it is a never-ending battle. But the thing that is different this year is the SUPER-organizing part. I'm going through boxes of papers that I have had since high school. Books that I got for free years ago and never read and never intend to read. I inherited hoarding from my grandma (she has about 50 packages of jello in her pantry, and had about 5 black garbage bags full of those empty cookie tins you get at Christmastime), and my mother (not quite as bad, but still her voice nags me in my head whenever I think about throwing stuff away... "YOU CAN STILL USE THIS JOSIE!!!"). Not only must I battle the laziness, I must also battle the packratiness.

I ended up throwing a lot of stuff away, and giving away more stuff. I decided to keep some of my "memories" from school, particularly high school and community college. Aside from a bunch of inappropriate drawings done during extremely boring math classes, I also had some funny (maybe just to me) notes and comics.

Next time I will share something from community college. I started writing down funny quotes people would say...so if you went to GHC with me, you might be featured in my posting! 




Now for some coffee.

Hearing Test....or Brainwashing Session?

 Yesterday I had a hearing test.


 For those of you who don't know, I've had lots and lots of troubles with my ears ever since childhood...3 ear tube surgeries, countless infections, bad hearing (I was even in Speech as a child because of it), and this last July I had a hole in my eardrum fixed. Luckily it was the summer, so I could recover in peace and not worry about work, etc. I pretty much just drank juice and lay on the couch during that time. Also it was about a million degrees and we don't have AC, so it was pretty hard to move.
The day after I took some pictures of my awesome ear bandage:

Then Jeremiah took a picture of my ear once I could take off the bandage. (Warning don't look at if you don't like to see Van-Goghish representations of ears...)

So anyways, before I had the surgery I had a hearing test and it basically showed that I had mild hearing loss in my right ear and moderate hearing loss in my left ear (surgery ear). 


The main purpose of the surgery was to close the hole so water and bacteria couldn't get trapped in there causing infection, but there was a chance that my hearing in that ear could improve.
 So I had to take a second hearing test to see if it did indeed get better.  


 Both hearing tests were very similar in brainwashyness and creepiness and I will lead you through the modern-day hearing tests.


Remember in Elementary school when you took the hearing tests each year? They put the giant headphones on you and played some beeps and you were supposed to raise your hand whenever you heard a beep? Yes, those were the salad days of hearing tests.

Here is what happens in the


Now, after the seemingly normal questions from the "doctor" in a normal doctor's office, you are led into a creepy government interrogation room with poor lighting and "sound proof" so that they can't hear your screams when the interrogation gets more...vigorous. The walls are the color of sad vomit. The kind where its mostly bile.

The secret government ag---DOCTOR then places these things way inside your ears reminiscent of those "ear shells" from Fahrenheit 451. You know, the ones that feed you the government propaganda and keep you placated. 


Then she shuts the outside door and the inside door (yes, double doors...which they claim is for sound proofing, but I know it is just to keep you locked in easily) and goes behind the one-way mirror. (Actually it's just a window, but since my chair is facing away from it and she can see me but I can't see her, it might as well be a one-way mirror).


The first part is fairly normal. Low-pitched beeps and high-pitched beeps and I press the button on the little controller when I hear something (a little better than elementary school, because at least my arm doesn't get tired).
Although, after a while of listening to beeps, my mind starts to go a little crazy. I start worrying if I missed a beep just now, or maybe it is just ringing in my ear? was THAT a beep? or did I imagine it? I tried to click for all the beeps, imaginary or not...but I think I went a little crazy in there.


Then the SUPER CREEPY part starts.


She says words in my "ear shells" and I'm supposed to repeat them.They start out innocently enough, but is a bit uncomfortable saying random words in succession. Then the words start to get....disturbing.


Oatmeal.
Railroad.
Cowboy.
Kill.
Baseball.
Hurt.
Railroad.
Cowboy.
Knife.
(and then the rest is gibberish which I'm sure my brain picked up subconsciously just as they intended.)


No joke.




They actually made me repeat those words.



Several times.








And then it's over, and the "doctor" comes in and says I can wait in this room or across the hall in her office while she prints up the results. I try not to run as I dash out of the creepy room into the florescent lighting and safety of the normal office.




I'm pretty sure I'm now a sleeper agent for the US Government. If I disappear, tell the world my story.




Unrelated: Here is an old photo I found of my Great Uncle Gatsby nursing a war injury after WWI. See the family resemblance?

Oh? and the good news! My left ear passed the hearing test!!! My right ear is still the same (mild hearing loss--especially low sounds) but my left is is in the "normal range" of hearing all across the board. It went from moderate hearing loss to normal! :)  (To summarize: Right ear---D+,  Left ear: B+).

Cats on a bed

I love cats.


If Jeremiah ever dies, I will definitely become a cat lady. Jeremiah has forbidden me to have more than two at the moment, so I must make due.


I love cats so much that when I was little I would sleep in the cat's box (not to be confused with the litterbox!). I would ride my bike with my favorite cat, Skutterbotch, on my back.


I even let them sleep on my side of the bed. If one of them is on there when I go to bed, I just push her aside. Sometimes I will wake up and there is a cat sleeping next to me. It is adorable. Most days they don't sleep at the same time as me, though...except last night.

I woke up at about 6am to go to the bathroom and not one, but BOTH cats decided to flank me in my sleep. Not only did they sleep next to me, they also made themselves as LONG as possible. When I awoke, I was on my side with about an inch or less clearance on either side. Meanwhile, each cat was taking up more room than I was! 


Allow me to illustrate:

Not only did they invade my sleeping space, they also managed to take up as much space as possible. Had they lain parallel there would be no problem, but instead I was squished on the bed while everyone else had the most space in the world!


I guess I should train my kitties to sleep parallel next time, or at least in those cute little curly ball shapes.






On a separate note...SPRING BREAK!!!!! woo!!!!