Tag: #Health

  • Lost Night of Sleep

    We had a rough night of sleep. More like, we had a rough night of not sleeping.

    I’m a night owl, and if I had my choice, I would stay a night owl forever! But, I’m not twenty-four anymore, and as I have more things to live for, and as get closer to my death and further from my birth, I am starting to take my health more seriously. In that regard, I am trying to get more sleep to help regulate my body, or whatever it is that my doctor told me I needed to do to lose weight, and live for a long time.

    I have been making progress. I got one of those health apps on my phone, and I have noticed that I am moving from five hours of sleep, to very closely to getting six hours of sleep. The goal is seven, and if one day comes and I get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, I might actually be dead.

    Then last night, we had a rough one.

    My daughter normally is a great sleeper. Like, she’s out in five minutes after hitting the pillow. In fact, she’s always been like that, even as a baby. We had very few nights where she was cranky and wouldn’t sleep. It was a blessing that we were very grateful to receive. Yet, last night wasn’t her night.

    See, she had a test this morning at school, and even though she’s an A+ student and on top of all her school work, tests do make her very anxious. So, before bed, we talked about her feelings, what she was nervous about, what she hoped would happen. All the normal steps we take when she has a very important day in the morning. And after we put her to bed, she was back up in about ten minutes. We did the same thing again, and talked through all of her feelings, making sure she knew we were here to support her no matter what happened, and also building up her confidence for taking the test.

    She was down for about an hour, and then she got up again, but this time she was sleep walking. This is also a normal reaction that she has when there is a big day ahead of her. Usually, we can gently get her back into bed. But last night, she was up three more times, and with each occurrence, she was angrier and angrier. And each time, we remained calm, got her back into bed, and tried to sooth her to sleep. The final episode was at 1am, and I have to be up at 5:30 to get our family going.

    And she was tired this morning when I got her up, but she had no memory of the night before. She remembers getting up the first time, but nothing else. I don’t believe that the kid is trying to deceive me, I don’t think she was lying. I know that the best thing to do in these situations is not to draw too much attention to the night before, and make her feel guilty. It happened, and we are all okay, and we are all here to support each other.

    On the way to school this morning, she was bubbly, and said she was ready for her test. Then we ran into a friend, and the two of them talked Percy Jackson books, and summer camps. I guess she’s okay; I mean, I won’t know till after school. She seems okay, but sometimes that isn’t always the truth.

  • Missing Sleep, and Snuggles

    Last night was a rough night of sleep for me. The wife went to be at 10, and I was going to follow her at 10:30, which is normal for us. (She needs a head start, because if we go to bed together, I will fall asleep first, and I will snore which will cause my wife not to sleep, and you can see why I don’t want this to happen.) And right as I was about to get off the couch and go to bed, the kid got up.

    She was sleep walking, and mumbling, and I quickly put her back into bed. This happens from time to time, so no big deal. Other than the fact that I was awake, and had trouble falling asleep. Then the kid did this three more times, and by 1:30 in the morning, I started to wonder if I was ever getting to sleep. We all did, but my total for the night was four hours of sleep.

    To say that I am dragging, well, that’s accurate. I have nodded off twice while trying to write this. Sure, doesn’t help that I am sitting on my bed, but still – nodding off over here. I might do a power nap before I leave to get the kid from school.

    When all of this was going on last night – the kid sleep walking and try to coax her back to bed – I thought about when the kid was a little baby, and getting her fussy little butt to calm down and get some sleep. We had a rocking chair then, and even though we normally got a few hours of sleep during that period in our life, there was an understanding that fussiness with sleep was a temporary problem, she would grow out of it eventually, and also that her being tiny and snuggly was also a limited timed offer. She wouldn’t be a snuggle bug for long.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Dentist, I Want My A/C, and Ice Cream Treat

    (It’s miles away…)

    The kid went to the dentist yesterday. Luckily, she enjoys going, so we never had to deal with any anxiety with people poking her teeth. And we’ve been seeing this dentist for three years now, so we know each other and they have a solid file on the kid. In fact, at some point, the kid told them that she wanted to be a dentist, which they added to her file, and was brought up immediately as soon as she sat in the chair. I’m not sure if that is still a goal of hers, but everyone there thought it was awesome that there was a kid that wanted to be one of them. Or maybe they’re all really nice to all the kids…

    I bought an air conditioner from a big box retailer who I’m not naming as of yet. It is a super nice and fancy window unit that we had to budget for, but we were due for an upgrade. Anyway, it was promised to be delivered today, but when I check their website, my delivery status has not advanced beyond “order received.” It is a bit troubling as we still have to get through the “shipped” and “out for delivery” stage with only 11 1/2 hours until estimated received time expires. This is going to be in the back of my mind all day today… (UPDATE: I received an email and a text message from the retailer saying that the delivery date has changed. The text said the a/c is coming on Monday, while the email says today…)

    Serving Suggestion: Vanilla ice cream in a bowl, topped with Reese’s Magic Shell, then topped on that with crushed up Reese’s Cereal. Enjoy!

  • Working Out Together

    Who does this? I’m not judging; just wondering if I know any friends, couples actually, who go and workout together? I see this couple activity depicted in tv and movies, and there sure does seem to be a great number of people on social media presenting videos of them and their significant other lifting weights, running, or drinking protein shakes together. They seem to be enjoying each other’s company. Now and then, at the gym or in the park, I will see a couple running together, so I know it happens.

    The reason I ask is that the wife and I might start working out together. OR to be more accurate, both of us will be in the gym at the same time. See, I run and the wife does yoga. Recently, after a back issue, her doctor suggested that she might want to start lifting some weights. She does have a membership to the gym I go to, a perk of her job, so she thought that we should go together on the same day… you know, to help motivate each other.

    I’m not opposed to this idea. I just never saw us as a workout couple on our life BINGO card. When this happens at the gym, she’ll go to her weight machine, and I’ll head to the treadmill. After thirty minutes, we’ll leave together. Maybe we’ll talk about “gains” but I doubt it.

    And I would say that this is the unexpected path that middle-aged life is taking us on. I still hate working out, but I at least know that working out 30 minutes a day, five days a week, can have a huge positive impact on your health. So, I’m not stupid. It’s just not my favorite thing to do. Call it an “eating your vegetable” problem – I know it’s good for me.

    I never really thought about what being middle aged would be like, because I never really thought that I’d be middle aged. Not that I would die young or anything like that; I just never thought about being bald, with a little tummy pudge, worrying about retirement and the cost of college for the kid. Thinking about my life with the wife, I just assumed we’d get older, but look the same, and drink and smoke, eat food we want to eat, never change, and and stay up late every night.

    Didn’t turn out that way. I’m not unhappy about the way things worked out; most of it is pretty great. But now I have things in my life that I want to spend as much time with as possible, and though it’s like fighting the tide, if I can snatch some extra time, I will.

    So, we’re going to the gym together.

  • Haircuts

    I am a balding, middle aged man. I look like my father, who is a very spry senior man, who has been bald since the first time I remember seeing him. My brothers are bald, and my paternal grandfather was way bald! To be in this family is to be a bald man. I knew this when I was a child, and my uncle, my dad’s brother who was also bald, told me that I needed to grow my hair long before it’s too late. We all knew it was coming. And I did grow my hair very long for a period of time in the late 90’s.

    Around the age of thirty, I started to notice that things were beginning to thin out on top. I wasn’t too worried about it. But the year that I was engaged and leading up to our wedding, I did use minoxidil to keep what hair I had. It was an act of vanity as I wanted to look as youthful in the ceremony and pictures as possible. Somewhere around forty, my hair just took off for the hills. I started wearing a ballcap, not because I was ashamed of my head, but because one Summer I got an awful sunburn on the top of my head, and now I can really feel how cold winter winds can be.

    I say all of this because haircuts are an odd conundrum for the balding man. What hair I have left still grown and needs to be cut and shaped. Yet the quantity of hair I have is significantly less than the average head. I had a barber. He was a good man. But I began to notice that what used to take him thirty minutes to do, was now taking ten minutes to accomplish. And I could tell he was trying to stretch it out.

    That is why I started cutting my own hair with a shaver. Sure, I save money, but now is a chore I need to do every three months. The shaving part is easy; cleaning up all the little hairs is a pain in the butt. (My father still sees a barber, but I know he goes for the social aspect.) I have gotten pretty good at it. Start to finish, including cleanup, about thirty minutes.

    I have thought about growing out my hair, my kid wants me to do it, but I don’t think I’m the type of guy who can pull off bald on top, long in back. Besides, I already had long hair.