As Carl, Idaho, and anyone else who has claims on my time know, in spring I tend to disappear. I get restless and exploratory and I end up dropping everything to simply be outside. Only work tethers me to my desk, well and lately when Noah’s napping or sleeping (more on this in a minute).
This year, thanks in part to that link on creativity, I have suddenly become aware (or re-aware?) of how much movement is linked to my personal creativity. I write best when I can get out and walk and soak up not only sun and air but also new sights, sounds, and smells. Snippets of conversation heard on the bus; a bit of graffitti at the local playground.
This year, I bring my toddler. And it seems like we are perfectly matched in that way right now: we go out, he gets tired, we come in, he naps, and I jot things down. I feel more whole than I did over the winter. And by next winter he’ll be okay with me dropping him at the gym daycare I think; every day, right now, he gains in independence. I am kind of happy right now, although my next post will be a bit more angstful. And that is where I am.
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All this has made our days busy. And insular. I have people I miss and want to call but now I’m in that weird state that I haven’t called them, so I can’t. Silly me.
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On sleep: As I mentioned, I got Sleepless in America out of the library and between the insight and tweaks I got from that really excellent book, the exercise, or just the end of the regression, things are going much better. I now have to recommend it over the No-Cry Sleep Solution; I think it is a really excellent resource.
Noah still gets up once a night and at that point now we just move him into our bed (usually it’s around 3 am), he has a very short little nurse, and then we all go back to sleep fine.
Even more interestingly now that I have stopped trying to move naps and bedtimes around on the “routine” theory (he got up at 7… so he’ll nap at noon; he got up at 6… so he’ll nap at 11) and just gone for straight sleep times (nap: 12:30; bedtime: 7:30), he’s started just… falling asleep at those times. Well, it’s not quite that simple. I slow things down a bit and then really dramatically have some connection time (something I got from the book) and then I tell him: time to sleep now. And then he does, in my arms, and then I lay him down. Ta dah. Now that I’ve written this on the Internet we’ll have two weeks of hell, of course. :)
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