Archives: sleep

I still have the sort of feeling I have in my head when you are 1st woken by the alarm clock – dull fuzzy ache.
I would much rather be getting more sleep. The night before last was a poor night & last night was even worse. I have a cough, -so was tight chested & wheezy, & having to get out of bed regularly for Jack, as the night before. It’s odd – he’s been sleeping so well for the past couple of months, but these last few days he’s been making a fuss in the night, because, when it comes down to it he says he does not want to sleep alone. This is not a habit we wish him to get into, so we are discouraging it, but it’s hard work. Oh & Jude is jolly loud when he wakes up as well.
Heh – back to my selfish immediacy – I am tired. There’s bound to be more I’d like to report about ‘the hols’ but it really feels like I should stop as I’m feeling left behind.
uh oh – typing stop; I’m too much of a dullard this morning. If I could converse rather than type I’m sure the nudge of a conversation would keep momentum, but I type, & my hands fell heavier than they should and

Have proper bags under my eyes again this morning. Up to late doing a spot of decorating with Louise.
Well – Jude does not have a cough in his chest – although he sounds wheezy, it’s all ‘in the head’. Eve does not have a heart murmur, but there is no diagnosis as yet as to why she seems to go a little blue-lipped occasionally. The Dr commented that she had dark rings on her eyes – which is something we hadn’t really noticed. She wants to give her a blood test, but being new to the practice (apparently) she wants to check with the health visitor & a pediatrician 1st (I think that’s what Louise said). She took Louise seriously, which was good – Louise did not feel that she was facing skepticism over what we were saying, perhaps because the Health Visitor had assured the Dr that we were not wastrels? We’ve also been given direction if Eve seems to do the same again. All in all a positive step forward.
Everyone was in the park when I got home – which was a bit weird. I didn’t know where anyone was, but I suspected, & went looking. When we got back Jack pestered & pestered to have the stabalisers taken off his bike. I wonder what put it in his head? I was not willing to start with as the brake is in an awful position for him to be able to effectively use it. Andy – our good neighbour adjusted it for us (so now I know how to). Now all I need is a spanner that fits that bolt. Jack woke before I left for work again this morning. The 1st thing he asked was whether I would take the stabalisers off today…

Jaunty mood this morning. Checked my email when I got up & my brothers sent me some photos of his wedding in Antigua – look lovely & very sweet.
Eve has certainly discovered a little control over bladder & bowels. She gave numerous demonstrations after her bath yesterday – squeezing out a little wee & rushing to the loo to empty it; back & forth again & again with a tiny bit of wee. There was even a tiny bit of pooh at one point (such must have been the intensity of her endeavor). She was gleeful, but it all ended in tears as she had to get ready for bed & she also managed to spill a load of water onto the floor as she took it on her self to rinse out the potty at one point. Ah well, we should have been watching out for that accident.
Jack did something interesting this morning. As Louise was going to get her shower, he called to her. Loiuse went to see him & she asked him if he wanted to go downstairs, as I was there changing Jude’s nappy. He actually declined & said he would go back to sleep – & did, in fact, go back to sleep! Louise surmises that it was because she didn’t hassle him & say he was up too early – reverse psychology.

Train home. The kids actually went off to sleep OK yesterday…well… ok perhaps that’s an exaggeration. Jack wanted to play downstairs with his Lego rather than consider coming upstairs to bed & screamed & shouted & accused me of trying to make him unhappy when I carried him up. I had made him cry & scream earlier in the evening as well. He wanted some crisps just before tea, & was refused. We endured a good ten minutes of howling & harrying on the subject. We did settle on the compromise of letting them (as Jack wants, Eve wants) have a bowl of rice crisp things in a bowl with tea.
Louise is still worried about Eve, so I think she is going to ask the health visitor’s advice, as she doesn’t feel confident with much else. Essentially Eve seems OK, she seems a little pale, & she does have a cough at the moment to compound things. She does not seem quite her usual self though. She is more often than not having a sleep through the day & seems listless. She does not sleep so well in general. It’s difficult to put your finger on precisely, but after being ill the other week, she seems to still be drained. The Health Visitor is due to see Jude, I think, but Louise is alerting her to the fact that she’d like to have a word about Eve.
Occurs to me I’m tired now… might sleep.

Work is too too busy. I don’t wanna play. Lots of grumpy people seeking voice to go on & on about the mail server not working proper the other day.
Still I travel to Manchester.

Eve was very difficult to get off to sleep last night & also seems to have had a poor night of it as well. She’s probably teething as she was chewing on a soft toy duck & my t-shirt shoulder as she was being read to for sleep. I think it was past 9:30 before I got both her & Jack off. I’m sure Eve being so fidgety helped Jack fight sleep. Most kids, if they get read to get a couple of Arnold Lobels’ Frog & Toad stories. They got 2 books worth & were still fighting on with drowsy heads. Once I’d separated them into their own beds they were asleep within 10 minutes.

Fuggy brain no wanna wake up 3 snooze rings before rising shower (at least didn’t drop soap & wake everyone).
Not really in the mood for typing. Not because I don’t want to, but i can’t think. Details of yesterday seem unattainable, like dreams after waking. There’s something there – what was it?

Louise is feeling better. Eve is coughing – but seems to be keeping food & drink in her stomach, at least. Jack was not so wild yesterday, so perhaps it was the boiled sweet he had, rather than he feeling ill. Loud shout from his room of “Mummy or Daddy!!!” this morning. A demand that one of us sleep with him. Louise had gone earlier, so as he managed to rouse me from slumber I dithered off down the hall.

Oooh – consumer world! Bought a new Dyson vacuum on the way home yesterday (as you do). The other one we have is out of action (but I think I can fix it in the long run). Oh, the extravagance! heh. So – it’s one of the new flashy models… Jack & I did some hoovering & it fair clings to the carpet. You can feel the blighter sucking the carpet. The customary astonishing amount of greck pulled out that the older model could not get (just as the older model pulled out stacks of yuck that the conventional one could not do all those years back…).

Did some surgery with the eMate. Noticed that it was starting to slow up… poss memory probs – poss some form of conflict – after all I have been abusing it trying out many an application! So – backed relevant bits & did a (shock) ‘hard reset’ – wiping it clean to it’s original install (woo). I’m rather hoping that I haven’t screwed things up too much… I just looked at my address book on here & it oddly only has my brother’s name & address… which is a bit.. um… scary. I don’t want to have to spend all that time adding people’s details again… Ah whatever – it’s back to a very zippy form now – fair whizzes along! A few more applications to add here & there, (see if I can get Ethernet working again) but on the whole I think I should try to keep to the base for stuff I have now.

They came in the night! The railway trees manglers. I heard nothing (which is so typical) but it woke the kids (which woke me). We live near the railway (3 houses down from the top of the cul de sac where the line runs by) & there are a few trees at the top of the road on the railway side of the fence. Now, “they” do not like to have too many trees next to the railway as ‘leaves on the line’ can make it slippery (wet day – leaves get run over on the rails & turn into a slippery goo). They have ‘trimmed these trees before, but they are not large & really, I cannot see them being a nuisance. However – someone within what was Railtrack had signed their death warrant. Probably something long the lines of “all trees such & such distance from the outer track must be removed”. Noisy buggers woke the kids doing it. I mean – tree surgery is not a quite job, & to do it in the middle of the night is sensible for workers (no trains) it’s hardly pleasant for residents… Bastards. Although I sleep through most things, the rest of the family do not. (Publican’s son, me – I went to sleep to the sound of a pub with a juke-box…. ELO & Mr Blue Sky is still a song that reminds me of pleasantly drifting to sleep) Jack was very good with what must have been a quite frightening racket. He called for Louise & she says that he was not weepy or anything, just said that he did not like the noise. She explained what was going on & he seemed calmed. At some point earlier Eve had migrated to our bed (with her birthday dolly) & the noise also woke her. She cried for Louise, & that (eventually) woke me. No – when she wants Louise, a hug from daddy just won’t do. Louise asked Jack if it was OK if she sent me instead of her & Jack was fine with that! This although not sounding much, is quite something. Jack has a preference for Louise over me when in need of someone to comfort him… so there was a good chance that he would not have been happy that Eve wanted her. I staggered over to Jack in their room & he told me what was going on with the railway. I listened & drifted off to sleep… & so did he without fuss.
I checked the trees in the dark this morning & they are… gone. Sad. Just stumps.

Sitting waiting for the train to go home. I have my shopping booty – presents for Eve’s birthday tomorrow. I have the day off & mum & dad are doing one of their infamous flying visits!
…must… write… more…
sorry – have that old ‘brain is sludge’ problem… Lack of sleep catching up on me again. Bother…

We did a good bit of tidy Sunday work yesterday – moving our clothes rail from the kids room & throwing out 2 & half rather large bin-bags of clothes. 2 of them went to the recycle in – which was fun – dragging them into town, & 2 the last was too poor for recycling (!). Naturally they were dusty – so I got my lungs in all of a tizz & had a pleasant night waking up every so often for a good cough. We got another of those jobs you never seem to get round to actually done though – so that was a very good thing.
The kids fell asleep early yesterday as well… They were up early though… Jack woke up at goodness knows what time – probably barely past 6:00am & shouted for Louise. He was in our bed with me & Louise had just gone off to their room to settle off Eve again. He wanted Louise, as he wanted her to turn on the telly!! (We have one in our room.) Grumpily – to shut him up – I stuck the telly on & fell back to sleep while he watched BBC News 24 for probably a good long while… I have no idea – I fell asleep while they were doing a ‘special travel news report’. Jack must have found it all riveting. He did kick off a bit later after failing to rouse me, concerned that he was missing a particular programme… Macdonald’s Farm, or some such – but his protests were for nothing as it was not on – so there! There are times I feel like throwing the telly down the stairs… but I would only have to clear up the mess.

Pratting about redesigning the code behind ZUM! pages again, & realising that there’s sod all progress I’m making… I did at last figure why I was getting a stupid ‘nested tag’ warning’s though… silly things that are sent to try us.

So… I really do feel like I should be using this train journey to catch up on a little sleep – so I close my eyes for a little while…

One of those odd night sleep where you wake up to the alarm, convinced it must be wrong as you’ve only been asleep 5 minutes… but no… that was a night sleep.

Jill (builder/carpenter Jill) arrived yesterday to look at the roof again. It has been leaking (again) by the chimney (again). Bit worse this time, but they think they’ve cracked it this time. We have been cautioned that they think that a hole in the lead flushing may remain – so to keep an eye on it (would we do less?). Happy to have had it looked at & hopefully rectified! Got my arse into gear a little last night & varnished one of the plaster walls up there. The one that will have a radiator on it (so we can now call the plumber to get a radiator fixed up there now – heh. The varnish went on quite well – the porous nature of it sucked the moisture from the varnish quite quickly – leaving a brush-stroked finish that was quite pleasant. However, I am going to put on a second coat to see how that feels.

All this delays me getting my comics online – which naturally stalls me doing work on ZUM! – so… how far am I behind on personal projects? Who gives a damn! Actually – ZUM! does plague me a little with guilt… but I have learnt to live with that :)

Took the foolish step of deciding to put some more of my old comics online last night – so was up later with the scanner than I should have been. Not suffering too badly from it this morning.

Sunday was my weekend this week after having to work Saturday. When I got home Saturday Eve was already asleep… which is a little sad – not seeing her off to bed… Jack was still awake & pined to the window watching the fireworks. He was also very tired… not that he’d admit such a thing. He was gibbering somewhat though. They had had a good day over at grandma’s by accounts – & had a nice time in Manningham Park – near to where she lives. The council seems to be putting some money into the park & it sounds to be very nice there now (I’ve seen the renovated boating lake & they did a nice job there). They have drained a water feature stream, which leads to a waterfall into the lake, it seems, & Jack was most put out by that. It seems there’s another stream running at the moment (this gets confusing as it’s what Jack was telling me – consequently not that clear) & Jack seems to have got it into his head from somewhere that they will not be starting the old stream up again. I said I could not see why, but he was most insistent that they would not be. What evidence there is for this belief, I don’t know… but I can’t see then ridding themselves of a waterfall feature by the lake… seems a bit extreme. Nevertheless, I tried to persuade Jack in this delirious state of his that there was no reason to mourn the loss of the stream as yet – they might be doing clearing, repairing, or whatever… but no – he insisted on taking the doomful view that all was lost.
He then proceeded to tell me several time the meaning of bonfire night was fireworks, but I don’t seems to recall him coming up with a reason for fireworks, other that it being bonfire night. Louise came back with the best one there, saying that it meant it was early November. A lot shorter than my foolish attempts to explain such daft abstracts as ‘gunpowder, treason, & plot’ while avoiding anything as gruesome as effigy burning & sectarian war. sigh.

Sunday would have been a better day if Jack had not taken it into his head that he would be what we would call ‘naughty’ in the evening. Trying to annoy us – I guess to get our attention. I of course fell for it & got mad at him. I find it difficult to react other than how I … uh… react. I’m not good at masking my annoyance. Still, it all calmed down enough in the end. I do not know what to make of these situations – I feel like homer simpson.

3:00 pm

Back from work – sitting in the dentist’s waiting room wondering if everyone else is here? Jack has an appointment at 3 – or was it just before 3? Whatever, they are not in the waiting room & the receptionists has not answered the “Ring once & wait” bell – so all I can assume is that they are in there, & Jack is having his teeth looked at…
Naturally I am now hypersensitive to my own teeth – as the smell & general aura of the dentists must always make you. Not been for far too long – I really should etc, etc.
Bother… I am getting itchy that they are not even here now – I cannot hear enough behind the door to tell, but I certainly would expect to hear something from either Jack or Eve… Darn the receptionist…
Hey ho.
The day passed rather quickly today – so much so that I realised I had missed the boat in terms of actually getting anything done… (In terms of ‘personal work’)
What a bother.
At least my brother wrote with his address, so I can get his pressie off to him at last. I worry now that I have bought him a repeat present… Did I get him that book last year? Uh, oh! That makes one more “we shall see”.

Half hour later…

Ah.. That’s OK – sitting around proved the right thing to do – I was early! I thought Jack’s appointment was at 3:00, whereas it was 3:20 – so Louise arrived with the kids a little bit ago & I have been left in reception on my own again looking after the pushchair… I would rather have gone with them but I guess that I need to look after the pushchair.