Day #91: Prayer Vigils, Bees, and Why Doesn't Max Want to Sleep Anymore?
Max started sleeping through the night around the time the quarantine started. He was nineteen months old. Yep, those are the kinds of babies I make. James started sleeping through the night consistently around seventeen months old. Every time I hear of someone whose baby slept through at six (which doesn't happen that often, if I'm honest,) I want to throw things.
I guess I should have known at the time that it was too good to last. I think I did know it. But a girl can dream, man.
Max has never been a great sleeper. Max was always that baby who needs to be next to a breathing adult human. Getting Max to sleep alone for even a couple of hours was hard and didn't happen until he was close to a year old.
In the past couple of weeks, he has figured out that he can open his bedroom door. For some reason, this makes it extra hard for him to fall asleep and means that he will also get up early and come to my room to wake me up. It has been the norm for the past few days that we don't finally get him down until 10:30 and he's awake for the first time at 4:30. He will go back to sleep for a bit if nursed but if James is up at 7, you can see where the problem comes in. Mama tired. AKA, this was a bad month to buy that bullet journal planner thingy. I should have known. I'm barely keeping my head above with this blog and the regular Bible reading poetry writing self care I try to do as often as possible. He'll nap, but not super long. Honestly, not sure how the kid is functioning. He's moody and clingy when awake, too, although he is still Max and fortunately it doesn't last. But I'm tired. We need babyproofing covers for the doorknob in his room. He might still scream, but at least being forced to stay in there might help. A little.
So we didn't make it outside until around 11 by the time you figure Mama is wiped and James has school stuff to do. But the highlight of the day was our neighbor has bees! A couple of people were running around the neighborhood passing the good news...a neighbor named Jill who we had not met until today has leaf cutter bees, which don't sting and are great pollinators. So we got to walk over to her house and see them. I wasn't sure James would go because he is TERRIFIED of bees, but he was into it. She even gave him a little cottage cheese container of them to take home and we got to sit in our backyard and watch them hatch, which was super cool. There were probably half a dozen kids there. It was fun.
Speaking of outside, we are really enjoying our yard these days. We've got the guy from across the street doing some work for us maintaining the landscaping and it looks nice. The kids play all the time outside now. Max's big thing is he loves to "flip," aka have mama somersault him on the grass. So fun.
Our other big thing today was the prayer vigil. A person I follow on Instagram who lives in Minneapolis and had been protesting held a virtual vigil tonight to mourn the lives lost in police violence. I really wanted James to participate with me...I'm trying to help him understand what's going on...but wasn't sure how it would go. It was so lovely. We sat in the backyard and lit candles and James's prayer was just so sweet and heartfelt...God we feel sad about all the people who have died, please help people stop dying of coronavirus and help people to not have to die from police because they are black. I don't know how much he fully understands but I think a lot of this is sinking in and I'm glad we are having the conversation. I have definitely noticed that it is easy for little kids to separate the world and divide people by color and gender and all kinds of things...it's not enough to just teach them to be nice, you have to intentionally help them dismantle that.
He asked me today if he could marry a boy when he grows up. I said sure, the important thing is to find someone you love and only marry them if you do, and if you do find someone you love and want to marry them I will be happy and dance at your wedding. I think it was more of an answer than he wanted...I think a simple yes would have done it.
The book Not My Idea which is a picture book about whiteness for kids was made available as a free pdf this week. We've read it before from the library but we got the pdf and read it again. He likes the pdf and wants to color it. Works for me.
Other media consumption: other than bad television, I've been working on the Zora Neale Hurston reader. I bought it back in February and in March set it aside because my brain was fried and couldn't do it but I picked it up again yesterday for #blackouttuesday when the goal was to listen to more black voices. It's super interesting. I've worked my way through the essays section and am trying to finish the autobiography/folklore section. She was a divisive figure, still is, and there's a lot to her. I'm glad to be reading it. I had to cut my book buying because of the current family situation but I did order a few more books by black authors to read this month because in all honesty I don't have that many. It turns out after looking at what's on my bookshelf that I read a lot of diverse books but dont' buy them so much. Live and learn.
Today I'm grateful for Max flips, bees, that Max is finally asleep, praying with James, life in the backyard, jammies at 7 p.m., a homecooked dinner not cooked by me (kinda nice to have my husband at home,) and my faith. And health. Another day of health.
I guess I should have known at the time that it was too good to last. I think I did know it. But a girl can dream, man.
Max has never been a great sleeper. Max was always that baby who needs to be next to a breathing adult human. Getting Max to sleep alone for even a couple of hours was hard and didn't happen until he was close to a year old.
In the past couple of weeks, he has figured out that he can open his bedroom door. For some reason, this makes it extra hard for him to fall asleep and means that he will also get up early and come to my room to wake me up. It has been the norm for the past few days that we don't finally get him down until 10:30 and he's awake for the first time at 4:30. He will go back to sleep for a bit if nursed but if James is up at 7, you can see where the problem comes in. Mama tired. AKA, this was a bad month to buy that bullet journal planner thingy. I should have known. I'm barely keeping my head above with this blog and the regular Bible reading poetry writing self care I try to do as often as possible. He'll nap, but not super long. Honestly, not sure how the kid is functioning. He's moody and clingy when awake, too, although he is still Max and fortunately it doesn't last. But I'm tired. We need babyproofing covers for the doorknob in his room. He might still scream, but at least being forced to stay in there might help. A little.
So we didn't make it outside until around 11 by the time you figure Mama is wiped and James has school stuff to do. But the highlight of the day was our neighbor has bees! A couple of people were running around the neighborhood passing the good news...a neighbor named Jill who we had not met until today has leaf cutter bees, which don't sting and are great pollinators. So we got to walk over to her house and see them. I wasn't sure James would go because he is TERRIFIED of bees, but he was into it. She even gave him a little cottage cheese container of them to take home and we got to sit in our backyard and watch them hatch, which was super cool. There were probably half a dozen kids there. It was fun.
Speaking of outside, we are really enjoying our yard these days. We've got the guy from across the street doing some work for us maintaining the landscaping and it looks nice. The kids play all the time outside now. Max's big thing is he loves to "flip," aka have mama somersault him on the grass. So fun.
Our other big thing today was the prayer vigil. A person I follow on Instagram who lives in Minneapolis and had been protesting held a virtual vigil tonight to mourn the lives lost in police violence. I really wanted James to participate with me...I'm trying to help him understand what's going on...but wasn't sure how it would go. It was so lovely. We sat in the backyard and lit candles and James's prayer was just so sweet and heartfelt...God we feel sad about all the people who have died, please help people stop dying of coronavirus and help people to not have to die from police because they are black. I don't know how much he fully understands but I think a lot of this is sinking in and I'm glad we are having the conversation. I have definitely noticed that it is easy for little kids to separate the world and divide people by color and gender and all kinds of things...it's not enough to just teach them to be nice, you have to intentionally help them dismantle that.
He asked me today if he could marry a boy when he grows up. I said sure, the important thing is to find someone you love and only marry them if you do, and if you do find someone you love and want to marry them I will be happy and dance at your wedding. I think it was more of an answer than he wanted...I think a simple yes would have done it.
The book Not My Idea which is a picture book about whiteness for kids was made available as a free pdf this week. We've read it before from the library but we got the pdf and read it again. He likes the pdf and wants to color it. Works for me.
Other media consumption: other than bad television, I've been working on the Zora Neale Hurston reader. I bought it back in February and in March set it aside because my brain was fried and couldn't do it but I picked it up again yesterday for #blackouttuesday when the goal was to listen to more black voices. It's super interesting. I've worked my way through the essays section and am trying to finish the autobiography/folklore section. She was a divisive figure, still is, and there's a lot to her. I'm glad to be reading it. I had to cut my book buying because of the current family situation but I did order a few more books by black authors to read this month because in all honesty I don't have that many. It turns out after looking at what's on my bookshelf that I read a lot of diverse books but dont' buy them so much. Live and learn.
Today I'm grateful for Max flips, bees, that Max is finally asleep, praying with James, life in the backyard, jammies at 7 p.m., a homecooked dinner not cooked by me (kinda nice to have my husband at home,) and my faith. And health. Another day of health.
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