Sleep schedules…not just for babies?

Our downstairs neighbour must think he is living in a house with vampires. Not the sleep-in-coffins kind, but the don’t-ever-sleep kind.

There are very few hours of the day when someone isn’t awake in this house. Annie, of course, covers the morning shift nicely. She is supposed to stay in her room until 6:00 a.m., even if she is awake. Although she is getting better at doing this, let’s just say that doesn’t always happen.

Markus has recently had two employees quit on him with no notice, and so the last few months has had many days in the cafe with long hours (like 14 to 16 hours in a day). When he does shut down early he often crashes asleep as soon as he gets home (7 or 8 in the evening), and then of course is up in the middle of the night for a few hours.

Last week I was insanely tired (found out I was battling an infection, again) and had a string of nights where I read Annie her books but then fell asleep myself while snuggling with her. So, being an adult and not actually needing 12 hours of sleep, by 3 a.m. or so I was awake for the day.

I was hoping that this week would be better. Maruks actually had two days off and we had a big, fantastic ski day on Saturday. I went for a walk on Sunday while Markus and Annie hit the adventure pool for several hours, so the exercise thing was covered. And I found a movie in English on t.v. last night so went to bed at an adult-approved hour. Yet here it is , 5 a.m., and I’m sipping my Gano and writing in my blog. I hear Annie in her room crashing about, obviously awake too. Markus will be up any minute as he, understandably, didn’t feel like doing his bookkeeping on a Sunday night and needs to finish it before going to the cafe.

I wonder if Dr. Ferber has any advice for 41-year olds.

Three Randoms

Annie wanted to make me breakfast this morning. I went back to bed and waited for her to come and get me. Blueberry yogurt, a spoon and a glass of water were laid out on the placemat.

Annie: I couldn’t reach the glasses because my arms are too little so I took one from the counter and washed it out.

Me: Resourceful!

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I have to figure out how to take a video of Annie skiing. (I’m usually skiing with her and don’t want to take our video camera on the slopes.) You won’t believe it. I don’t believe it. She is going smoothly around hairpin turns and flying over bumps with her hands in the air, laughing the whole time. And the school’s ski week isn’t until March. I thought I would have a couple of years until Annie was a better skier than me. Think again Mama.

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Another particularly funny Hillary-learning-German story to add to the list. I wanted to say to Markus’ parents that Annie is full-speed ahead from the moment her feet touch the floor. But for some reason I chose to say “when her toes are on the floor.” So what I actually said was “wenn ihre Zähne auf dem Boden sind,” which means “when her teeth are on the floor”. Kunk. Zähne, Zehen, same same.