That Mom

10.28.11

We have been living without heat or air conditioning since we moved into our home in July. You know how it goes, the shoemaker’s kids don’t have shoes. When we remodeled we removed the floor heaters and the window a/c and never put in central heat and air. Kyle says that I stopped him from doing it but I don’t have any recollection of that ;) It hasn’t bothered me in the least, in fact I love having all the windows open and a cool fresh-air-breeze off the bay. It’s hot in the late afternoon and Ariah has a portable heater in her room at night and it has served us just fine. Sure the candles melt in the afternoons and in the morning the water bottles are frozen, but I still think we're fine. Apparently the dogs don’t feel the same way because the last 5 nights they are in our bed shivering trying to get under the covers.

I lost the battle and this week the guys actually started installing the furnace in the attic above Ariah’s room which means that her nap time is shot. She has determined her own sleep schedule and she is very set in her ways. Every day she wakes up around 7am, rubs her eyes and goes down for a nap at 8:30am. She does the same thing at 11:30am and again at 4:30pm. She is out like a light for the night at or before 7pm. She is so set in this routine that I don’t even try to leave the house until 1pm and I race to get home by 4:30 or plan to be driving or parked for around an hour so she gets her nap.

In light of her very specific sleep schedule and the guys banging away in the attic, yesterday I walked San Leandro for 3 hours trying to get her to fall asleep since she couldn’t nap in her crib and she never even closed her eyes. Today I decided we would go for a 4-mile run by the bay so that she could take a nap. (It was a huge sacrifice but it’s for her well being.) She had a lot of fun but she didn't sleep a wink or even cry for that matter, she is sleep resistant. When we returned home the guys were at lunch so I put her to sleep in her room and she passed out. The guys came back from lunch and I kindly asked them not to make “loud” noise for the next hour. When I relayed my crazy mom request to Cinthya, our office manager, she felt it necessary to remind me of a conversation she overheard between Kyle and I several months ago. We were doing a project for a new mother and when she hired us she was very specific that we could not work from 11am-12:30pm or from 2-4pm. I thought she was crazy, my exact words were, “if you can’t have people working at your house then don’t have the work done. That is absolutely ridiculous to hire someone and give them restrictions like that.” My how things change, I have become “that” mom.

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