Mom is Just a Nickname

Ah blessed sleep. I finally got a whole night, with only one child awakening and no bad dream awakenings (my own bad dreams, not the kids’). It was such a good a night of sleep, I’m reluctant to wake up this morning! I’m still in the fuzzy state between sleep and wake, but the trash had to go out early this morning and the kids are up. It’s not good for them to be up for too long without adult supervision and Toph left for work early this morning.

The last few days of sleep deprivation have left me plenty of time to knit, as that’s about all my brain has been capable of focusing on. I finished up X’s scarf and have started on something new. I’m really not sure what it will be. I think when I started, I thought it’d be a rectangular shawl. I added three stripes to one end, though, and now I’m not sure it’ll be right as a shawl. Maybe I’ll line it and make it into a pillow or a bag or something. We’ll see. I should take pictures of all the junk I’m making, shouldn’t I?

I’ve finished initial editing on the next chapter of my Nano-novel. I have yet to mail it to Topher or Stacie for their readings. I think I’ve been inundating them with things to review lately. I’m not super impatient for their comments, so I hope they’ll forgive me for sending them so much.

Today is Friday. Friday is a good day, simply because it means that it’s the start of the weekend. Weekends are really the highlight of my week because it means that Topher is home. Even if I lose him to his homework for hours at a time, at least he’s here. The house is different when he’s home.

I was reading something online the other day. It was a website for a housekeeping service here in the Jax area. I was scouting it out as a job possibility. The owner’s description of her own life is more than a little intimidating. Yes, she does have a housekeeper come in once a week to clean. In between cleanings, though, she vacuums and sweeps daily, makes all the beds every day, cleans out all the toilets each day, oh and she changes the sheets every three days. I must be a slob if this is what most women do in their houses each day. I vacuum once a week and sweep as needed, I do not make beds (not even my own), I clean bathrooms (toilets included) once a week, and I change sheets once a week. Sure, I stay at home, but my house is not pristine. I’m happy if it’s sanitary and there’s a path to walk in the living room. OK, I’m happier the day I do my cleaning when the house is sparkling and uncluttered, but I have no desire to do such cleaning every day! Who does that?!?! Talk about feeling inadequate. heh.

The X-man is demanding his breakfast, and I suppose I should also feed myself. Hope this Friday is good for everyone!

I feel like I’m at a junction right now. I have to decide whether I want to make money with my blog(s) or focus in on my writing. Long term, I suspect the writing will benefit me more. Short term, I feel compelled to monetize the blogs.

Monetizing the blogs feels like selling out in some ways. And really, I don’t have that much traffic on my blogs so the monetary benefits of selling adspace and all that might not be all that big. I worry that I will alienate what loyal readers I do have if I do paid reviews and that sort of thing. I worry that all of my time will be spent searching out new ways to make “quick money” rather than concentrating on the writing.

And that brings me to another hard point. It’s been very hard to concentrate on my writing lately. Where the months of November and December seemed to rattle my muse awake, the holidays and the month and a half since have lulled her to sleep once more. I’m trying to edit my Nano-novel and have made it into Chapter 4, which will actually be Chapter 3 since I’ve decided to start with Chapter 2 instead of Chapter 1. Did that make sense? heh. Well, no matter. Even harder to decipher is that the new Chapter 1 is actually about 14 or 15 chapters in to the stuff I wrote in November! How does that phrase go: A rough draft is 70% trash and 30% usable? I would have to say that’s very true.

Butt-In-Chair and write is all well and good, but how do I convince my butt to stay in the chair? How do I convince my fingers to write? Just start writing whatever and then go from there, I’ve heard, but so far it’s not working for me.

I’m wrangling with a mental lethargy and it’s killing me. I did brush up something I wrote years ago in order to submit it to an anthology. I have been knitting, too. I actually finished a scarf with the idea to give it to my niece (shh, don’t tell her about it, Lanie!) and I am working on another scarf for X (who insisted I should make him a blue one). J has several projects she’d like me to do for her, although I think it would make her day more to have me teach her to knit.

I’m drifting off topic. I like to do that, don’t I? In any case, I want to make money. I want to write. I’m trying to reconcile the two, but unfortunately I think I keep searching for the quick outs rather than investing the time and effort in a process that scares the pants off of me. At some point, I will have to buckle down and do the time. I hope I’ll be able to keep myself pulled together until that times comes.

My sleep-less nights lately can mostly be attributed to poor X. He’s fighting a cold right now. Several times a night I wake up to the sound of him crawling into bed beside me, coughing his lungs up. There are few sounds in the world as grating to me as the sound of constant coughing. I try not to get irritated by it, especially when it’s my kids hacking, but really it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.

Then another of my least favorite sounds follows during the day, when it becomes obvious that X didn’t get enough sleep either: Every thing that comes out of his mouth is a whine. It doesn’t matter what he’s trying to say, he seems to have forgetten how to speak without that high pitched tone in his voice.

So, after spending most of November and December getting hooked on coffee, spending January and most of February in withdrawal, I’m once more turning to the coffee-press. Maybe if I get some caffeine in my system I’ll be able to function above ‘zombie’. Right now, I feel more like I could fall over and sleep, no matter what I’m doing.

How do you cope when your sleep has been interrupted and crummy?

There have been a few new posts on my other blog.

Is it Right to Submit to Motherhood?
“Momma, You’re So Funny!”
In Response to “Is it Right to Submit to Motherhood?”

Jump over and join the discussions! I’m curious if any fathers have experienced similar feelings of ‘losing themselves’ to parenthood, especially stay at home dads. I’m also interested in what mothers whose children are already grown have to say about it all.