saved by french toast and music

Yesterday morning was a bit....... blech.  Claire had a rough night the previous night, which of course meant that we all did.  By the time yesterday morning came, I was just not ready for yesterday morning.  Mike was already at work at the fire department, or at least on his way.  I wanted to stay in bed.  I wanted to sleep.  Not her.  She was ready to get up and demanded that mama follow.

I'll briefly mention here that, even though she is days shy of two years old, Claire is still a long ways away (it would seem, though I'd love to be proven wrong) from sleeping through the night.  And I don't even mean 'all night' as in 8 hours or so.  Briefly, when she was 3 months old or so, she slept all night long for weeks and I thought I was so lucky with my good sleeper.  Well.  Not so much.  I think it has a lot (maybe everything) to do with the fact that that child has an incredibly strong association between sleep and nursing that I most definitely helped to create.  She still nurses a couple times a day and at night, still goes to sleep just for me.... Decisions we made about how we were going to raise her do not always make for restful nights and bright, sunny mornings.  Often, since my body has had time to adjust and since I don't have to get-up-and-go in the mornings, it doesn't bother me so much.  I can hang.  It won't last forever.  She's my baby.  Lots of other mothers are in the very same situation and we will all survive.  Etc.  Other times, though...... other times I can be a big crabster and dread the sun's arrival.  Other times I dream of going to a hotel for a night so I can again know sleep, letting Claire and papa figure it out together.  They will, of course.  When we're all ready.

Anyway.  That was just to say that I'm no real stranger to rough nights.  More often than not, that's just kind of how we roll around here.  The degree of rough varying quite a bit and sometimes being not so terribly rough.

So, the sun came up yesterday morning way too soon and I was all "ugh, go back to sleep!" and "just let mama sleep!", etc.  I fought it.  The waking, the doing, the breakfast making and all that the morning brings.  It's possible that I even stomped my feet a little in five-year-old frustration when she screamed at me for leaving her for 15 seconds so I could go pee.  Possible that I stomped so hard it made my bare feet ache.

After a while of fighting it, I remembered that I was the grown-up here, after all, and I put my (possibly achy) feet on the cold floor and headed to the kitchen to be a good mother and feed my devilish non-sleeping daughter.  Because feeding your child is just one of those things you have to do as a mother, it seems.  Even if you'd rather hide under the covers.

Of course just getting out of bed helped to shake off a bit of that funk.  As did putting a record on to play on the way to the kitchen.  And then, deciding between our usual oats or eggs and toast I brilliantly decided on french toast, my favorite.  Claire's too, perhaps.

I'm sorry, but I just can't eat french toast without it making me happy.  Is it the nutmeg?  The maple syrup?  The squishy but at the same time chewy and firm texture?  I don't know.  Whatever it is, that's gonna be my new standby cure for morning-after-rougher-than-usual-nights funk.

French toast and good music.

Hours later, heading out the door to work I realized how beautiful and warm it was outside and kicked myself a bit for not having gotten out of the house with her all morning.  For a walk to the creek, a hike, even just to the sandbox... Because certainly that's our other go-to funk buster around here~ getting outside.

A french toast picnic, then?  Maybe next time.