This has not been a great week, sleep-wise. The 4-year-old has decided that he absolutely needs to have someone in the room with him while he falls asleep. We read a story about a lion cub named Benny who learns to go to sleep without his parents through a process, and I’ve been noting that he could be as brave as Benny, but he points out that Benny did not sleep without his parents at the start of the story and “we’re at the beginning now.” Hmm. Even worse, he has been waking up in the middle of the night and coming to find me to sit with him again while he falls asleep. Needless to say, this is a habit I hope gets outgrown quickly.
And it will! My older kids don’t do that. Though there have been some issues with older kids staying up late to work, and then having trouble getting up in the morning for school…
We have a lot of floral tourism planned for the weekend. Ideally, there will be visits to Chanticleer and Holland Ridge Farms. My own Kwanzan cherry trees are just on the cusp of blooming. I was hoping they would bloom this week as I was hoping to show them to a few people today but I guess you can’t force flowers. My guess is they’ll be out by Sunday.
Everything is looking very green. Last week the hardwood trees were mostly still bare. But this week everything has a green mist on it. I really do love living in a place that experiences all four seasons.
In the meantime, this week’s Vanderhacks newsletter suggested that you “Don’t do too much the night before” (too much night before prep doesn’t make the morning better — it just steals your leisure time!) and the paywalled post offered “Little ways to waste less.” Turns out many disposable items aren’t quite as disposable as claimed…
If you like to listen to podcasts, this week’s Before Breakfast episodes suggested that you “Check in on the easy ones” — just because a direct report (or kid) is quietly doing what they’re supposed to do doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a little attention. I also offered ways to “Don’t turn a 30-minute task into an hour-long one.”
In the Wall Street Journal, I reviewed Laura Mae Martin’s book Uptime. (That’s behind a paywall but in case there are any subscribers here!)
I’m still listening to Bach every day, and I spent some time this week constructing the calendar of BWV listening for May. Yesterday I listened to BWV 104, which is a cantata composed for the second Sunday after Easter…which is this weekend. Even more cool — Bach debuted this piece in 1724. The exact date doesn’t line up (Easter was later that year) but it was fun listening to it knowing people first heard it almost exactly 300 years ago. I enjoy these little connections through time.
And speaking of singing in German…my choir will be performing the Brahms Requiem in two weeks. I learned this piece in college, and learned it well enough that it all comes back to me, but wow. There is a lot of stamina required!
Will you be doing any floral tourism this weekend?
I immediately Googled “Benny lion go to bed book” because we are very much there with you, appreciate knowing we’re not alone (and the perspective that it will in fact end).
@Anne- it’s not exactly great literature. But supposed to be written by a child psychology expert I believe. Anyway, I’m hoping we get to the middle/end of the Benny plot soon in our personal experience…
My sympathies on the sleep struggles. One of the biggest surprises of parenting for me was just how long the sleep disturbances last–for example, my 10-year-old woke me at 5:00 this morning. I think we (and it sounds like you) ended up with children that just don’t require all that much sleep, but it is exhausting. Hope you have some good coffee to get you through!
@Ashley – exhausting for sure – especially since the older ones need to get up early in the morning even if I was up with the little one…Here’s hoping you get more sleep too!
I am a big fan of sleeping through the night so I kept a pillow and blanket pallet in my room for any middle of the night wake ups. My kids were usually happy to just come sleep on my floor if they woke up in the middle of the night and I usually could keep sleeping. Some of my kids would sometimes end up in my room even up to middle school age, which was really surprising to me. But when I started telling people, I found out that it is pretty common for older kids to still like company in the middle of the night.
I hope this stage passes quickly for you!
Gosh I hope it passes – I feel like it has gotten worse. My 5 year old started needing some to lie next to him, graduated to coming to find me in the night and now I practically have to sleep with him, in his tiny bed!! If I move or try to escape he’ll be at my bedside in 10-15 mins. Contemporary sleep advice says to try get them to fall asleep on their own, but he won’t stay in his room on his own, even in the daytime. I’ll be sipping my coffee waiting for updates on this!
Sounds like he’s got you trained well, ha! Sometimes I feel like I don’t know who’s raising who around here…
So true ha ha ha
@Stephanie – I believe my toddler has sleep-trained me…just to his liking…
Nice book review in the WSJ. The comments on the article are funny too. My favorite is: “I’ve found in 40 years of management to just let stuff that you just can’t get to fall off the table… and then not worry about it.” That is the kind of mediocrity and “who cares” attitude that helps one survive in corporate America, let’s be real.
@Sarah – that actually sounds like good advice!