Third Culture Kid(s)

From the Land of the Sick (M.), Tired (me), Hungry (C.) and Grumpy (also C.).

MM’s fine, if a little (understandably) needy.  But only a little, and right now she’s being entertained by - yep, you guessed it - Totoro.  I’d feel better about this if she were watching it in Japanese or something, but we’re sticking with the Dakota Fanning version for now.  It’s not as obnoxious as you might want to think.

I think we’re dealing with a touch of colic here; not a 24-hour thing (Thank! God!), but he’s definitely got a few extended pissy periods during the day (like right now, although I have him trapped in the Baby Bjorn, which is keeping him confused, if not entirely satisfied).  BUT, happily, he’s starting to figure out that he can sleep by himself at night, which is having a predictably positive effect on my outlook on life.  He’s gotten into a fairly regular pattern of sleeping from 10-ish to 2-ish, so I’m usually able to get some sleep in then.  And last night he actually went back to sleep by himself for an hour or so after I fed him at around 4, so that was also exciting for me.  My nightly sleep increased from about 2.5 hours to nearly 4 last night - very, very exciting.

So, yes, I’m terminally sleep deprived.  I keep watching movies on the DVR in the middle of the night, getting to the end, and deleting them with no conscious memory of either what happened at the end, or of the act of deleting them.  I’m always a little amazed when I wake up after having dozed off to find C. still alive in my arms, since I apparently have little conscious activity happening at these times.

And M. has had a cold for the past five days or so, which is making both of us irritable (my irritability is a little less rational, since I’m mostly just peeved that his body would crap out on him when I NEED him, dammit).  So he’s been on restricted babycare (some holding, but little else, since I really, really don’t want a sick newborn) and trying to catch some rest here and there when I’m not making him do stuff for me.  I think he’s planning to go to work today, though, so hopefully he’s on the upswing.  I’d love it if he were better in time for the three-day weekend, and not only so I can get some relief.  Although that’s part of it.

I missed doing my 15 min. yesterday, although I did talk with M. for a half-hour or so about the argument I’m working on; he said he thought it counted, although I’m not so sure.  I did just finish my 15 min. for today, though.  I’ve moved on to more difficult reading - academic, rather than ethnographic.  For some reason, I get unreasonably anxious when academic reading is on the table - it makes me feel all kinds of inadequate, usually.  But I seem to be in a place where the desire to FINISH, GODDAMMIT is outweighing the anxiety; or maybe it’s just the timing process - committing to read for 15 minutes is much less daunting than sitting down with a long book and not knowing when it will end.  And the 15 min. thing seems to be making me a more efficient reader - not so much in terms of speed (I’m generally a fast reader, although this has not always been to my benefit), but in terms of picking and choosing what’s relevant.  The reasoning seems to be that if I have limited time, I’m damned well going to read what’s most relevant to what I’m writing, and skip the rest for now.  This may be academically suspect behavior, but it’ll probably help me get done faster.

So, with that, I’ll wish everyone a good Tuesday.  C.’s given up his wails of dissatisfaction for the moment (poor baby…but, dammit, he just ate!), and MM’s happily Totoroing, so I’ll try to cop a few minutes of sleep on the couch.