Yoga in the trees

So it's been 8 days since we moved and probably 8 weeks since I really paid much attention to my body, exercise-wise. All week I've been trying to unpack around a roving three-year-old and struggling with various frustrations (check out my complaint about my phone service at "Life without internet" on DC Metro Moms today).

This morning, the heat and humidity had broken. While breakfast cooked under the eye of my husband and my son nibbled on fruit and listened to a CD, I did yoga out on our back deck looking out the new sun peeking through the tall, thickly leaved trees in the woods behind our house.

Talk about ahhh.

Moving pains

We are all a bunch of giant mood swings around here. Remember that neighbor's great big tire swing you always wished was in your yard? Imagine it's in your hands. Now yank it, fling it, and watch it hit someone else in the head.

Yes, it's ouchy. Yes, life has to go on.

We will be moved in less than 72 hours. I hope eventually the swing just snaps and we can toss it into the woods and all just sit together under the tree.

My poor little dude

My son is having such a rough time. Even before this weekend, he was already chewing on his hands and having a tough time with all the transitions going on, what with all the stress of the impending move. I've been sitting him with pillows all around when we read books, and I do think this helps him feel safe and secure.

But it's not enough to weather the tornado swirling around him. After our travel to Michigan this past weekend, resulting in a big sleep deficit, he got thrown further off kilter by the weird schedule in general and in particular by some chocolate and a little gluten at the grandparents' 50th anniversary party. He whined and cried during Sunday night's flight home, he was really tough to be around on Monday, and on Tuesday, he apparently pushed all the kids in Spanish class. The teacher said she didn't recognize him; he's usually so gentle and loving.

I took him today to a previously scheduled craniosacral therapy appointment. In the midst of our crazy move (contractors here this week, we move this weekend ourselves and next week with a company doing the furniture), I wanted to scrap the appt., which was a 30-minute drive away (this time an hour on the Beltway in rush hour to get home). But clearly it was needed. The dr. (Ron) said that E's sagittal suture was pretty stuck and that that connected to closedness in his back. Ron worked on that section last time, but he also said this time that cabin pressure from the flight might have caused a problem.

After 25-30 min. Ron felt fine letting E play (which he did happily) and then working on me. He worked a lot on my gut and then on my head just a bit, but enough to totally erase the headache I walked in with.

Let's hope we all wake up in a decent mood tomorrow. Oops. It's already tomorrow. And I still don't know what color paint to tell the contractor to get. If I have to drag that kid back to the paint store one more time, I don't know what he'll try to get me to buy. I think this calls for Shopping While the Kid is in Childcare. Assuming I don't get a call to come pick up my little brute.

Procrastination runs in the family

So now I know where I get my inclination to stay up until all hours. My parents just had a 50th wedding anniversary, and the night before, we were all up until 2:00 a.m., matting photos, coming up with a table seating chart, sewing part of the party outfit... It was as if it were the middle of a workday. You can bet I scoffed when my husband woke up from his 8 hrs no more spritely than I after my <5.

My poor son. He is so damn tired. He got to bed one of the nights miraculously around 7 p.m., but the other nights -- with the northern and western extra 60-80 minutes of light (Michigan vs. our home in the DC Metro suburbs) and all the excitement -- he got such little sleep. The night we arrived, he went down at almost 10:00 (no nap, no real down time all day). Another night was almost 10:00 after a nap 3:30-5:00. The night of the party he was so overtired but couldn't even fall by 11:00 (he'd had a little chocolate at the party and a hard-won 2.5-hr nap earlier that day, thanks to a low of fossil fuels). The night we flew home (last night), it was almost 10:00 p.m. by the time we got him down; he'd had zero nap and not even 8 hrs of sleep the night before.

Today he was exhausted and could not figure out how to go to bed ... wanted me, but then wanted more food, cried and cried with his dad (the usual to-bed-putter and his sleep-mate for the past several nights at my parents' house).

Maybe part of the problem was that this morning, I had an appointment with a designer to discuss wall color and the organization of my new office... for the house we are moving into this week. (And that we got possession of today, but there was no electricity because I never called the company.) He was so confused trying to play in an empty house, wanting whatever was different than his current reality: "I want to go home and rest in my bed" (which he never does.) Then, "I don't want to go home. I want to stay here." Also: "I don't want to take the wagon. I want to ride my tricycle." Then later, when we have only the trike to take home: "I want the wagon!"

After this weekend seeing the way my whole family operates, I have no illusions that I will change my temperament, but I really do hope we can make some strides toward less last-minute and more thoughtful ways to approach life once we're settled in our new space (whenever that will be). But as long as he's three, is everything I try going to be thwarted anyway?

I've got to hope that sleep will help. Speaking off, I'm a little undercooked in that department, myself.

We used to nurse

Last week things finally started to settle a bit once we had a buyer for our house. This piece was started several days ago but never finished, so I guess they didn't settle down all that much! I'll let the rest flow as it was written (verb tense inconsistencies and all) and just finish the story where it stood last week.
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Maybe now that my son sees that I'm not totally frantic all the time, he's able to stop being as whiny and just plain drop down to show he needs a close connection. And I think I've been more in touch with my own feelings than I'd been able to, living with half my life stuffed into closets or in my car or in storage and having to scrap dinner plans to get take-out or eat cold (organic) hot dogs and sauerkraut for dinner because some realtor wanted to bring over a client. We hope those days are behind us, and though there's still a lot to do, we are breathing easier...

So, for the first time in the two months since my son weaned on his third birthday, I've had the desire to nurse him and sense he wishes he could. He's been touching me in a way that says "we used to have a special way to comfort me, and now that's gone." He's also been putting his hands in his mouth a whole lot, and he was whiny and tired for the sitter the other day. So I made an appt with the craniosacral therapist who will split his time -- work on E for 30 min, and then work on me for the rest of the session. It's not ideal, but at least we both get something.

R said that E was pretty restricted in his head and compressed in his thoracic area. He said his fall a month or so ago was something he was indeed working around, and he recommended probiotics. Of course, now that he's not getting nutrition from me, I've got to be more vigilant about the probiotics and cod liver oil. I can't just assume he'll get a share from me. He's all on his own now.

And I have to find ways to meaningfully connect with him even if things are still a little nutty and rhythms & rituals are not so established. He fell asleep after the appt (at 6:15) and then woke at 10:45 p.m. a little hungry. I was still out at a MNO dinner, so my husband fed him and then I returned, quietly changed clothes and planned to snuggle him down to sleep since he'd been asking for me when he woke. Part of me thought I should just let him come into our bed and be a big family, but I knew that none of us would sleep as well as we would if he were in his room. I walked into his room to get his jammies, and he followed me, clearly content to go back in his bed.

I snuggled him and remembered why I loved for so long cosleeping in a family bed. It really is beautiful to share sleep, to share closeness. And it's great to be able to do that now that he doesn't need it all the time and feel like it's a homecoming. I am glad he has his own space, and he says with high eyebrows and a gleeful sense of pride, "I slept all night in my bed!" when he does (typically first waking us with the sound of pouring his IKEA mini-potty pee into the big toilet).

I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with me for not feeling nostalgic about nursing -- for just feeling such a clear-cut break after being so connected to nursing as part of my mothering identity for three years. It kind of felt humanizing to get the sense that we both felt something of a longing, even as we understood that chapter was over.