sewloud

Yesterday was rough on everyone. I was running on about 2 hours of sleep, and was struggling mightily all day long. I fell asleep at a stop light on the way to work, which has never happened before, and was a bit spooky. 

Came home for lunch a bit later than usual in order to cover one of M's meetings. When I got home, it was 11:45, and Katie was still asleep, so we woke her up in order to give M the room for his meeting. I fed Kate some lunch and we played together for a little bit before I headed back to work. 

M had another meeting at 4, so I left a little earlier than usual to be home in time for it. Kate went down for a late nap at 5, and I collapsed on the couch right after and caught what little sleep I could. M's meeting lasted until 7, and him coming out of the office woke me up. Kate was up at the same time. 

I was still completely zonked, and almost felt worse since I'd only managed about 30 uninterrupted minutes of sleep on the couch, so I entered that weird mode where I knew that if I stopped moving, I would collapse. So, I just kept moving - I put away the clean dishes, I made dinner for Kate, I washed Kate's blankets in the bathtub, we played with her learning cards, we did some songs, I cleaned the cat boxes, and on and on and on.

M watched her for a bit while I took a much needed shower, then we put her to bed at around 10pm. We only had one naked time incident, but I quickly got her redressed. She was feeling very silly and was climbing all over the furniture and such, and I said, "you are such a silly monkey!" and she locked eyes with me and went "oo-oo-ah-ah!" Silly girl. XD

M is incredibly stressed about his new job, and it's all because of the friend that he's now working with, the one who recommended him for the job. At the end of every meeting they have, he spends about 30 minutes being incredibly negative about M's progress, which is insane because he's been at the job for 3 weeks. Whenever we talk it through, he realizes that his actual manager has never had anything negative to say, and has always been supportive of him. He's completely convinced he's on the verge of losing this new job, though, and all because his "friend" is being such a hater. Manager is on vacation at the moment, but I've been encouraging him to address the situation with him as soon as he gets back.

Up early today to accrue more flex time. Despite how tired I've been, I've really been enjoying driving in early. The air is cool, the streets are empty, no traffic and no active school zones to slow my down, I get to see everyone's Halloween decorations lit up in the dark, I have enough time to pick up some breakfast at the gas station, I see the stars when I walk to the car, and the sunrise as I get to downtown, the city is quiet, it's just really, really pleasant. Of course, I am also going to really enjoy being able to sleep in tomorrow morning!

The last four days have all sort of blended together, and I am very sleep deprived this morning, so some highlights: 

- A lady in our complex accidentally locked herself out of her car, and M attempted to help her. But because it's a new car with fancy anti-theft measures, they weren't able to get into it, and he ended up driving her over to her mother's house to get the spare set of keys. For his trouble, he got to hear all sorts of fun political conspiracy theories. XP

- M is the worst late-minute packer in existence, good lord. He complained that he had no clean clothes, so his friend that was giving him a ride let him come over early so he could do laundry. Cue a mad rush to find the clothes he wanted to take with him, his toiletries, his earbuds, etc, etc. I stopped attempting to get him to pack early long ago, so now I just sit back and let the whirlwind pass me by from my perch on the couch.

- Katie and I had a pretty good 4-day weekend to ourselves. She was in pretty good spirits the entire time, with the exception of Saturday morning, when she was very cranky. She just needed more sleep, though, because then she took a nearly 4 hour nap, and was cheery again when she woke up. 

- Speaking of sleep, the experiment to reset her sleep schedule failed spectacularly. She is now even more off schedule than before, which, of course. She is now staying up until past 10pm, and sleeping until 11am, then napping for several hours in the afternoon. It's probably all related to the Fall light changing and growth spurts and what have you. I gave up eventually and just let us both sleep in in the mornings.

- Toilet training has sort of partially begun. She has learned to wipe her bottom by herself, which is a good start. Of course, she strips completely naked to do so, because she is going to take any excuse to get naked. 

- Kate dug up the only lipstick I still kept around for the rare occasions that I put on makeup these days, and she ate it.

- My sister flaked on me, so we didn't have lunch out on Friday as planned. So instead, I made chicken tikka masala at home, which fed me and Kate for two nights, and we had enough left for M to have dinner after he got home Sunday night.

- Our cookie tin ran dry over the weekend, which is unacceptable to Katie, but I was feeling lazy and didn't want to go to the store in the rain, so I decided to just bake some at home. Accidentally measured out twice the amount of flour I needed, and didn't realize it until I had already mixed all my wets and dries together and was staring at it going "why is it so dry and crumbly?!" So, I ended up doubling the rest of the ingredients rather than starting over, which ended up making about 10,000 cookies, good lort. Anyway, they turned out really nice, cakey and soft with a bit of crunch around the edges. 10/10, do recommend. Used this recipe. 

- M's plane got in an hour late on Sunday. Thankfully, I was not the one picking him up, after all, and his friend that took him to the airport was also his ride home. That gave me enough extra time to finish cleaning the kitchen and tidying up the house before he got back.

- Friend's gear shift promptly broke as soon as he dropped M off at home. I swear, the land we live on must be cursed. 

Stayed up way too late last night talking with M about his trip. He had a great time, and seemed much more relaxed when he got home. I didn't get to sleep until after 1AM, then had to be up at 6AM so I could go to work early and earn some flex time. I guess my brain didn't trust my ears to hear the alarm, because I was awake every half hour during the night, and I feel miserable and exhausted today. It's taking all my brain power just to keep my eyes open. 

In completely unrelated news, our first apartment, the one where the ceiling collapsed in our bedroom, is for sale. The last time I saw the place it was mostly intact, but it was covered in green mold on the walls and ceilings. Whoever came in, whether it was vagrants or bad contractors or both, absolutely trashed the place. The ceiling in the bedroom is still, uh, gone. XP Such a shame, it was actually a really nice and cozy apartment before the whole ceiling thing.

57 spiders today!

Another good speech therapy session for Kate. She showed off her new phrases, and the therapist was very pleased with her progress. We discussed doing an official reassessment in January, since that will be about 6 months from when she was enrolled, and if she's caught up, then she could be taken out of the program. Huzzah!

M had a meeting during the second half of the session, and when he was finished had some annoying news - his one-day trip to Dallas for work has turned into a 2-day trip. So, we had to reschedule the sonogram for the following week, and I'm going to have to finagle a couple more hours of time so I can take the day off, which means coming in early for a couple days to accrue some flex time. ~sigh~ Annoying, but what can you do. Hopefully they don't give him any more travel assignments before I have some PTO saved up again, because after this trip, I'll be completely out.

Dinner was a frozen cheese pizza, which I shared with Kate, who was not satisfied with her own plate of food and just kept coming over to mine and stealing bites from it. So, she just ended up with her own slice. 

Bedtime was a struggle because she kept taking off her clothes and crawling under her mattress. -_- She finally went down at around 9:30, at which point I was so exhausted from getting up so early (Kate had woken up at 6AM, which means I was up, too, after having fallen asleep too late) and having many nights recently of not being able to sleep well. I was nearly in tears I was so tired, but she finally got to sleep, I had myself an ice cream sandwich, and once I was sure she was asleep, I crawled into bed myself. 

Slept like the dead, hit snooze too many times this morning, slightly behind on everything, but c'est la vie. 

M's flight is at 9pm tonight, and he has a friend taking him to the airport. I'm hoping to squeeze in a grocery run this afternoon before he goes so we're stocked up and I don't have to shop while he's away. 

Looking very forward to being able to put Kate to bed in her own room for the rest of the week so I can enjoy my own bedroom without tiptoeing through the dark! I'm going to try and get her into a more set routine, not letting her sleep in as late (M lets her sleep in until she wakes up on her own, which is usually around 9:30! The luxury!) so she doesn't stay up as late. She seems to have a pretty set 12-hour schedule - whenever she wakes up in the morning, she'll go to bed at the opposite hour in the evening - so if I can get her up by 7:30 or 8, then she should go to bed at the same evening time. Hopefully we can both stick to that. XP