Shamefaced

So, uh, the horrific insomnia I wrote about a couple of posts back? That's been keeping me awake, wandering my house and eating pudding cups after midnight for nearly a month now? You know what else has been going on for nearly a month now?

*dying of shame*

I've ... um ... kind of been drinking iced tea by the bucketful. Like almost a pitcher a day.

And I understand that for most of you, this would be a no-brainer connection. Tom had even asked me at one point, as I sat sipping an enormous frosty cup of iced tea at 7:30 pm, if it had caffeine.

"No," I assured him happily, "It's Lipton. All Lipton tea is decaffeinated."

Right? Right? Tell me I'm not alone on this (wrong) assumption. Wasn't their slogan something like "naturally decaffeinated" a few years back?

*crickets*

Well, fine. Suffice it to say that the lack of sleep had become dire enough that I was wracking my brain (and the internet) to figure out what had been keeping me awake at night.

TOP DIAGNOSIS CONTENDERS:

1. Perimenopause/shifting hormonal levels (self diagnosed!)

2. Brain tumor (always a favorite contender)

3. Tom and his creaky C-PAP mask that he wears to sleep (hey, what good is being married if you can't blame random crap on your spouse?)

I don't even know what led me to the cupboard where I keep the tea bags, but as I turned the box over and over in my hands, I do recall thinking You'd think if this stuff was decaffeinated that they would advertise that somewhere on the box. No proudly emblazoned "naturally decaffeinated." Suspicious.

And, oh! There on the back by the nutritional information were the words "This product contains 10 mg. caffeine per 8 fl. oz. serving." I stood there stunned. I felt personally betrayed.

That was three days ago. I've had two really good night sleep since.

NEW POSSIBLE DIAGNOSIS CONTENDERS:

1. Early Alzheimer's (what company used to say "naturally decaffeinated"??)

2. Brain Tumor (I don't want to jinx myself by taking it out of the running).

Culture Month (But Pronounced "Culchah" Because It Amuses Me)

A month or so ago, Tom and I had one of those heart-to-heart "State of the Union" marriage talks, where we ramble indiscriminately, but without rancor, about any and all aspects of our married lives.

For example:

Him: What's up with the new weeding style?

Me: Hmm?

Him: The one where you rip them out and leave them in little piles all over the grass and I eventually pick them up a week or two later when they turn brown...?

Me: Ah. I figured I would eventually mow over them with the tractor and mulch 'em up. Sort of like fertilizing the grass but without chemicals.

Him: Please don't.

Me: Noted. Can we address the energetic sucking of breath mints?

Him: They taste better when you oxygenate them during the dissolving process.

Me: By sucking them like an old person sucking on their dentures?

Him: Oh. OK, then. I'll work on it.

Me: Appreciated.

***************************

The one thing we both agreed on is that we both miss the cultural activities we used to attend when we lived in bigger towns. It's not that those opportunities don't exist in Maine, but you have to be a little more assertive in searching them out. We decided to make that a new priority.

In the past two weeks, we've attended:

*2 end-of-session concerts at Bear's band camp (obviously we would have gone to these anyway, but they were really amazingly good and deserve mention)

*three classical concerts at a nearby college

*"Chicago" at the Maine State Music Theatre

And we're looking into tickets to see the Broadway touring company of "Spamalot" when they come through this fall.

Surprise Side Effects of OPERATION CULCHAH:

1. Bug is now obsessed with taking cello lessons. When we sat down at one of the concerts, she popped right back up out of her seat and demanded that I switch seats with her because she "couldn't see the cello." We're looking into lessons.

2. Bear, three year adherent of the jeans/shorts and t-shirt dress code, is suddenly passionately into dresses.

3. Bug spent Saturday uploading 306 classical pieces onto her iPod. After playing them in her room for several hours, she reports that classical music "calms the cats."

4. I got to buy new shoes. Score.

Frogtography

Yeah, I'm still yammering on about the pond. People, I LOVES IT. Like, ridiculously so. I like the way it looks, like buying cute little water plants to float in it, like sitting on the porch listening to the waterfall, like arranging rocks around it. It completes me. For now, anyway. Until I think up a new project/obsession.

You can imagine my delight when I discovered that the pond had acquired its first voluntary resident the other day. I'm not counting the minnows we caught and dumped in. For all I know, it's like Guantanomo Pond to them. This little guy came on purpose.

Meet Leonard:

Leonard's about two inches long and already has staked out a favorite spot right by the waterfall. We think he's ridiculously cool, and even Tom has been delightedly spouting things like," If you build it, they will come." We're easily amused around here.

Yesterday, Bug and I went out to toss some fish food into the pond and see if we could spot Leonard, when she said, "Look! There's another one." The dark blob on one of my water plants that I'd dismissed as a leaf turned out to be another frog.

His name is Emmett, and at four inches long, he could absolutely take Leonard in a frog fight.

People! I MADE AN ECOSYSTEM!

Frogparazzi: Bear was mid-facial, but rushed outside to meet our new resident anyway.

We don't get out much.

Insomnia

I have always been a champion sleeper. I excel at:

-Falling Asleep Instantly

-Sleeping Regardless of Actually Laying Down

-Ability to Stay Asleep for Ten Hours (Unless Prodded by Offspring to Make Breakfast)

No, I'm not narcileptic, which, inconvenience aside, would be a cool and obscure diagnosis I could use to impress people. Rats.

On a typical night, I tend to wake up several times a night, listen for restless children or serial killers who may have wandered into the house, then roll over and fall instantly back asleep. Lately? Not so much with the falling back asleep part. I've been going to bed, falling asleep with my usual élan, only to awake an hour and a half later in a state of what I can only describe as WIDETHEFUCKAWAKE. (Apologies to those of you with delicate sensibilities; there is simply no other description which conveys the exact shade of wakefulness I experience).

After a night or two laying in bed watching the minutes, then hours tick away without a hint of drowsiness., I began to wonder if this was no fluke, but the new normal. If so, the new normal sucks.

The third night, I began to wonder What do people do to make themselves sleepy? Warm milk, it occurred to me. Then, ew. Being one who prefers one's milky beverages of the icy cold variety, just the thought of warm milk skeeves me out. I doubted it would result in sleep. Vomiting, possibly. Sleep, no.

Which is why, at 12:20 a.m., I was seated on my kitchen floor, back against the refrigerator door, eating a pudding cup. What? Pudding is made with milk. Also: yummy. It just didn't make me sleepy.

I wander to the living room and do pretend yoga, which is mostly just stretching and assuming poses that are vaguely "yoga-esque" because I don't actually know any yoga poses. I now feel stretchier, but not the tiniest bit sleepy. I lay on my back on the floor for awhile and think about how not sleepy I feel. 12:58 a.m.

I open my laptop and squint at Facebook and email for awhile. Getting my glasses from the bedroom would enable me to actually read FB and email, but I don't want to wake up Tom by rummaging around on my dresser. Plus, reading my friends' Facebook status updates while having to guess at about every other word is pretty entertaining. For about four and a half minutes. 1:05 a.m.

1:06 a.m. I eat another pudding cup.

1:12 a.m. I go sit on the front porch. Too hot. Too dark (is that a bear lurking behind the hydrangea bush?). Still humid. I go back inside.

I rummage oh-so-quietly on my dresser and retrieve my glasses. In the guest room, I read an entire library book of Bear's. This kills about an hour and a half. 2:52 a.m.

I go back to bed. Surely, surely now I will fall asleep. I lay on my right side for awhile, then flip to my left. Tom is maddeningly asleep. I ask softly, "Hey, does the air conditioner sound weird to you?" He doesn't answer. I flip back to my right side and think That's it! No more tossing and turning. I will just lay here very still and eventually I will have to fall asleep.

3: 05. Except... I keep remembering how much better my left side felt. I feel like if I could just flip back to my left side, I would finally fall asleep. My right side sucks. My hip aches, and my feet feel twitchy. I tell myself sternly that I'm not allowed to change position.

Twenty seconds later I cave and turn to my left side. Damn. The right side was better.

It's 3:28 am. I'm never going to sleep again, I think. I probably have a brain tumor, and it's pressing on the brain thingy that makes you sleepy. I consider Googling what part of the brain makes you sleep, but don't.

Finally, at 3:40 a.m., mostly because I can't think of a single other thing to do (interesting how productive things like cleaning never occur to me when I can't sleep), I take a shower. I stretch it out by using every single shower product I own. I rinse and repeat. I exfoliate. I shave. I loofah.

And finally, at 4:03 a.m., I sleep.

Until 7:00, when Bug wanders in to ask if it can be a pancakes for breakfast day.

Here's the phone call you don't want to receive while your kid's at camp:

Bear: Hi, Mommy.

Me: Hi, kiddo!

Bear: So did you hear what's happening up here?

Me: What do you mean?

Bear (very matter of fact): There was an armed robbery at a bank near the university, so they put the whole campus on lockdown.

Me: What?

Bear: The guy escaped, and they haven't found him yet.

Me: Where are you?

Bear: We had to go to the basement of the dorm. They just now let us go up to our rooms, but we can't leave the building.

Me (frantically logging on to the computer to find a news update): OK, honey. Are you all right?

Bear (sounding distracted): Yeah. Hey, I think they might get us pizza for dinner!

Now I tend to be pretty good at thinking up potential random disaster scenarios in my head, and I had already worried about Bear having a nut allergy reaction at camp, developing appendicitis, dorm fires, and whether there would be a lifeguard when they went swimming. I confess that armed robbery had not occurred to me. I guess I need to start thinking bigger in my paranoia.

All's well that ends well, and they ended the lockdown an hour or so later in time for the kids to go to the dining hall for dinner. Bear was mostly bummed that they didn't get to order pizza.

Lake Days

We've actually been having summer weather this summer in Maine, something many of you, no doubt, take for granted where you live. If you were reading my blog last summer, you'll remember that 2009 was The Summer That Wasn't in Maine. Rain, rain, rain, followed by very cloudy cool day, followed by rain. June through mid-August. Every damned day. In mid-August we had precisely five summery days, and then it began to cool into fall-like weather. I'm still waiting for my refund check.

2010 has decided to make up for 2009 with a cavalcade of heat and humidity. I walk out my front door and am instantly drenched in sweat. Sitting perfectly still in the shade? Full-body sweat. My best friend has coined a new word: "swass" to describe the lovely combination of sweat trickling down your *ahem* heinie, such that when you stand up you appear to have wet your pants. This is usually accompanied by "swoobs", which I'm betting you can figure out on your own, and I will only hint delicately at by saying that it usually results in having to wring out your bra.

My favorite coping mechanism for the heat is to sit inside in the air conditioning with a glass of iced tea and my Kindle. When my mothering guilt kicks in, I load up the kids and head for the lake.

This is our go-to lake, about 20 minutes north of us. It's kid-friendly (sand beach and a gradually sloping lake bed that provides a huge swimming area that's not scary-deep). It's also mom-friendly (clean bathrooms with FLUSH toilets!). Win-win, except for the having to wear a bathing suit in public part. I just got a cute new one, though, so even that isn't too big of a deal this year.

The girls each brought a friend:

Which didn't stop them from engaging in some light sibling warfare:

The older girls discovered the ruins of an old stone wall way out in the lake, where the water was about eight feet deep. They dove down wearing goggles to examine it and check out the fish swimming amongst the rocks. The younger two, of course, were dying to check it out, but because I have this secret paranoia of someone else's kid drowning on my watch (I've never been the same since reading "Map of the World", an Oprah book from years ago, where a little girl drowns while her mother's friend is watching her), I made them each take a noodle out with them and buddy up with one of the big girls. I kept an eagle eye on them while pretending to read a book.

I am totally unfair and don't trust them, I've been informed. I can live with that.

Side note: do you see how crazy-tan my girls are? This after diligently slathering them with 50 spf sunscreen each time they go out. It's their grandma's Native American blood showing. They're usually both about the shade of a burnished walnut by the time they go back to school. I would have killed for that base back in the day. I remember laying out in the backyard with coconut suntan lotion (not to be confused with sunscreen!) and never wound up even half that tan.