but she knows how to divert her father's attention and get an extra hour of playtime before bed

she breaks out the balloons?

HPF has never slept past crack of dawn in her life. Even when we switch her timezones. Where the rooster genes came from, I don't know. It has been... altering to all our lives. I don't know if I had a dead eyed look in photos, but I assure you that I was still in there, not dead. When she began to read? bliss. Light came back into the world. But the first four or five years are a blur because she put together 2-3 hours at a stretch, and I took the overnight, while DH got up with her at crack o'dawn because I was a zombie. When we visited friends, we knew where all the early-open coffee shops were within the first day for our zombie-stroller-walk. And we were not alone. Beeeaaaaaaans Beeaaaaaaaans.....

TeeFury has 2 pokemon designs today if anyone has kids into them. $11 each.

Also this shirt on woot! may be of interest to a few of you: [link]

Sara, I am so sorry. All the hugs in the world.

Good call on saying fuckit to today, sarameg. I hope your next swim is a good one.

I have nothing to contribute to the sleep conversation except that I, too, would like a solid 12 hours of sleep and the train didn't wake me up last night even though I had the windows open, so yay for that.

I'm wearing 2" heels today, which is high for me lately. These jeans are just too damn long to wear with flats.

Sara, that's some pileon shit right there. I'm so sorry.

I slept...well, I slept too well, so it was badly? As far as subjective is concerned, it was a night full of nightmares. Just again and again, horrible trauma, and I was kind of everyone in the dream, so every horrible thing that kept happening was always happening to me, even though the characters in the dream changed. And I just didn't wake up enough to talk myself out of it, only enough to think "Shit, this will never end." So I'm not very rested, and my heart rate is till erratic. I'm glad I'm at home today, because this would be enough to tip me over into extra pain, and still will be if I don't take this morning slowly enough.

It was just...I can't remember a night that awful. Would Not Stop.

After I posted about Owen sleeping like Dracula, I checked on the kids. He was sleeping on his back, hands crossed on his chest. I almost took a picture but I didn't want to wake him up.

Shit ita - you and mac should compare nightmare notes. He had some on Saturday night. Wouldn't talk to me about them because he doesn't want to say the stuff out loud. His anxiety mojo is some strong stuff. I wish I could channel that into something else, like his drawing.....OMG - another ita similarity!!! freaky deaky

When Emmett was little and he was sleeping in his own room down the hall, I would wake when I heard a change in his breathing. So horribly attuned to every time he rolled over, because he would wake up and he would be so hard to get back down. Hours of rocking.

My dad was like that, except he would wake up whenever he heard a cow in distress. Like a cow might be out in the pasture having trouble giving birth at 3:00 a.m. and my dad would wake up and help it.

Ugh, I'm sorry ita. Sleep should not betray you like that.

Eta: and I'm already bailing on the heels. Ow. Just from wearing them around the house.

Yes to saying Fuckit to today, sara. Take care of yourself!

Evidently I was a good little sleeper as a baby but I spent most of my childhood and adolesence waking up in the middle of the night, and not being able to fall back to sleep easily, and having lots of nightmares.