You know, I knew this was on it's way. The week has been a mass of one episode after another. Isabelle has not slept properly for the past two weeks. I've been up and down to see to her like an idiot, 6 or even 7 times a night. She has had a bad cough and cold and just hasn't slept very well. I was almost at the point of making her a bed up in our room just so I could get some sleep. But I knew that if I did that, she'd never move out again.
It does make me wonder why the Western society insists on nighttime separation between kids and parents. I know we value our own space to sleep in, but take a look at the elsewhere in the world and they wouldn't dream of forcing their kids to sleep alone.
Isabelle brought this home to me one night. She was crying during the night (again) and kept saying, but I'm all alone and I don't like it. Now our house isn't big by any means and I am probably only about 10 or 12 footsteps away from our bedroom to hers and can hear her at all times, so it's not like she's alone and a million miles away from anyone. But she just kept telling me she was all alone and didn't like it. It isn't fair, she said. You can sleep with my daddy so you're not on your own, but I have to sleep on my own. (wise words for a 3 year old) but she was so right. How could I justify her sleeping alone when I sleep next to Mark? She has a point. Needless to say, she tugged a heart string that night and ended up in bed with us. And how come a little three year old can take up so much bedspace???? But the following night, I put her in her own bed, all by herself as usual. I told Mark what she'd said about being alone and he thought about it and said that really it wouldn't hurt to put her bed in our room, but we're not going to. I played devil's advocate and asked him to justify why she couldn't sleep in our room, and he told me to shut up and go to sleep LOL. I wasn't going to push the issue and insist that she should sleep in our room, but it does make me wonder that if she's close by in the night, would she sleep better? Ultimately resulting in me actually getting some sleep! She's my third child and she is the worst sleeper of the lot. I haven't had one full nights sleep since she was born. She'll be 4 in July!!
So of course, this has made me tired. Add this to the Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and it pulls me right down to quite a low and emotional level. Things aggrivate me and winde me up to a point I don't like being at. I'm not an angry person by nature, I get emotional and then feel so overwhelmed I don't know which way to turn or where to start to put things and myself right.
The balance tipped this morning to finalise the emotional spiral I've been on this week. I walked into the living room and there was stuff everywhere! Isabelle's toys and dressing up clothes seem to have crept out and stayed out, despite me tidying them away. She is such an untidy kid, but she's 3 so I deal with it. Mark on the other hand is 39 and he is sooooo untidy, he leaves his things everywhere. It doesn't help that we live in an open plan house and he just puts things down where they land, on the promise that he'll clear them away later. He never does. I counted up and there are two motorbike jackets, two thick fleece over shirt/jacket type things, bike boots, two pairs of trainers and his slippers all lying around in the living room. Bits of bike that he has been sanding down and painting are all over the place 'hanging' to dry. Oh the list is endless! Then I walked into the kitchen and the kitten must have eaten something that didn't agree with him and he missed the litter tray. Now the bits that missed weren't pickup-able! Gross! So me in my emotional state, didn't know where to start this morning.
Several cups of coffee and a few tears later, I tackled the kitchen.. bleugh! And now the living room is in a reasonable state and I feel a little bit better... but, (pessamist that I am) it's almost the weekend and Mark will be home doing what he does and not putting things away again. I need to get a grip today ready to deal with it or I'm just going to end up an emotional nagging wreck all weekend.
