Finding the Loose Ends*

Yes, I'm finding them. Doesn't necessarily mean that I've begun
winding them up yet, but I have at least been able to clear a space
off the coffee table and see some of the loose ends.
For about two weeks now, Limelet has been relatively healthy and
sleeping well. It's had a profound effect on our everyday lives. I
think that for a month or so last autumn this happened, but as I was
still recovering from the whole broken-leg incident I was not able to
take advantage of it or appreciate it as well. It's been three and a
half years that we've been living with some level of sleep
deprivation...from agonizing torture to merely exhausting
day-disrupting.
Lately, until about two weeks ago, the night usually went like this:
Limelet finally asleep around 10:30 or so after bedtime routine begun
at 8:15. (Mentally shakes fist at daycare naptime that lasts until
3pm). I want to read before bed the entire time I'm putting him to
sleep, but once he's asleep I'm usually too tired. So I fall asleep
shortly thereafter. Maybe three or four minutes thereafter. Limelet
starts tossing and turning at about 12:45, may calm down quickly with
a little soothing from me. Again at about 3:00, and then 4:30, and
then 5:30. At each instance he becomes more awake and has a harder
time getting back to sleep, sometimes five minutes, sometimes two
hours. We may both end up just being awake in bed from 5:30 onwards,
or from 4:30 to 7:00. Which is exactly when I have to get him up for
daycare.
That routine is still loads better than it was only a year ago, but
still exhausting.
So it is with great relief that I have welcomed this recent upgrade of
his sleeping habits to pretty much staying asleep until 7:00. Now I do
have to still soothe him a bit through the night from time to time,
but only for a minute or two. In fact, Friday night he slept
completely solid all the way to 4:30. Unprecedented!
I can't believe what a change this has effected.
The coffee table is nearly cleared off, my clean laundry and Limelet's
have both been hung up for a week now instead of piled on the floor
near our closets as it has been since we moved here, we got more done
(both work and fun) yesterday than we normally would in an entire
weekend, the dishes are clean, garden's weeded, food is made ahead,
the finances and other paperwork are in order, social obligations are
starting to be met, etc.
It's like what one would picture a "normal" family might be like! You
know, people doing stuff. Not slouching around dispiritedly and
exhaustedly, while we alternate child care for a miserably sick and
tired kid, so that the other might get some urgent basic household
task done. Which is what our lives have been like every day for years.
Solid. Years. This past couple of weeks has felt like escaping some
kind of prison. I literally do not know what to do with myself during
the days! Hopefully I can finally send out those résumés I planned
to...in November.
You know what this means, right? It means I am certain to discover
that I'm pregnant any second now. I just bet.

*With apologies to my husband, as he will be sure doom is headed our way since I dared to speak aloud that anything is going well. We've both become very superstitious about this over the past couple of years. Every time we've dared to say anything like "I'm feeling good" or "things are going well" something terrible has happened nearly immediately. Really!