They need to make sleep in pill form
May. 10th, 2014 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeI forgot to set my alarm the day before yesterday, so I only woke up at 7:00 because Bean was actually quite quiet when he got up (apparently at 5:30!). Since I'd gotten a late start to the day I tried to make up for lost time. Bean had already had breakfast, and he and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pdaughter were slowly getting ready to go to class, so I emptied the dishwasher, started loading it up again, killed a bunch of ants (if they don't want to die, they can just refrain from coming in my house), and got dressed.
I had a pretty productive day, even if I do say so myself. I washed the kitchen and bathroom floors, paying close attention to the baseboards which were sorely in need of it. I washed the glass sliding doors in the kitchen, then all the upstairs windows and windowsills, making sure to remove the screens from all of them to give them a thorough cleaning. Anyone who's been to our house will know that we have a LOT of windows, and they are all quite big (ranging from three to five feet in height, and one to five feet across), which means that the light in the house is great, but there's a lot of window surface to clean.
I changed the filter on the top of the compost pot we keep in the kitchen (the old filter was mouldy and gross). Then I scrubbed out the animals' food dishes, and took apart the cats' water fountain, removing approximately 17 lbs of cat hair from the motor. I hadn't realised how badly it was clogged until I did that, but now we can't even hear it when it's running anymore! The water is also flowing better than it has in well over two years, so it was definitely a good thing I did it. The animals are pleased, too, because I'm sure the water can't have tasted all that great if there was cat hair clogged in the motor and the filter.
I vacuumed all the upstairs except for Bean's room (I don't have an attachment on my vacuum for carpet, sopdaughter generally vacuums in there with the vacuum she brought with her) as well as the stairs leading to the front door. I swept the entrance, the stairs leading to the basement, and the area at the bottom of the stairs where we keep the litter box. I cleaned out the litter box too, while I was down there. I brought the compost out to the bin, as well as a couple of small bags of garbage that had been left out on the balcony. pdaughter had put Bean's diapers in the wash, so I chucked those in the dryer and then did two more loads of laundry.
I took a quick break to check on Detox, who is not doing well, poor kitty. We both think he may not have long left, judging by his behaviour and overall appearance. He's seventeen, so it's not entirely surprising.
pdaughter returned briefly in the morning to pick up her all-season tires from the basement in order to get her tires changed for the summer (yes, and the spring and the fall, before anyone jumps all over me for not specifying), and only got back around noon. I made us a yummy onion, green pepper and cheese omelette for lunch, and then left her to her own devices in order to head out to Home Depot. I wanted to price the paving stones they have there (and holy cow, they are more expensive than I thought, at a minimum of $3.00 per s.f.!), as well as get someone out here to do an estimate for finishing the fencing on the yard. We desperately need a fence to a) keep the neighbours' dog Démon out of the yard, b) to keep Sergent in the yard, and c) to keep Bean from running off either into the neighbours' yard or directly into the street, as he was wont to do last year, no matter how many times we explained the rule that if he wanted to play outside, he had to stay in our own yard.
By the time I got homepdaughter had already left. She went a bit early to Bean's school because it was the Mother's Day Tea Party there, and so she was supposed to have a nice drink and a cupcake with him. Apparently, though, Bean preferred to play in the sandbox rather than sit with her, and claimed her Mother's Day tulip for himself. Oops?
Anyway, I had no idea this was going on, and when I got home the dog was hysterical with joy at seeing me (because I'd been gone for a whole hour and a half). He twisted himself into knots and gambolled around me and acted like I'd been gone for years, so I decided to take him for a nice long walk to burn off some of that excess energy. We ended up only walking for about half an hour, at which point I remembered that it was close enough to the end of the day that there might be other dogs for him to play with at the dog park. We were the first to arrive, but sure enough within minutes there were about eight other dogs, and Sergent galloped in circles with them until his tongue was practically dragging on the ground because he was so tired. He's had a long, sedentary winter, and not only did he pack on a few pounds during those months, well, he's also getting on a little bit. He just turned eight in March (the day after Bean's birthday), and for a Husky that puts him squarely in middle age.
Still, he had a great time, and was reluctant to head home with me at first. We got home at the same time aspdaughter and Bean, who had managed to leave school a bit early in order to beat the traffic. While I was getting dinner together, Bean demanded to go play outside. That's still problematic, as the back yard still isn't fully cleaned up (my own fault, since I can't go out there when it's raining, and I haven't been home as consistently when the weather would have allowed for me to do some serious yard work), and Bean got very upset when we said no. It quickly devolved into screeching interspersed with promises to be "veddy, veddy caretul!" and not to step in the dog poop (which is a totally empty promise when you're four years old and can't even see where the dog poop is. There was more screaming, and then declarations that he didn't need us, didn't need help, and he was going to go outside ANYWAY. Eventually his mother told him that if he listened very well and didn't fuss and ate his dinner nicely, we could go for a walk after dinner.
Bean promptly inhaled his macaroni and tomato sauce, and whilepdaughter and I had barely sat down to start eating he pushed his chair away: "I going to go wait at the door now!" No amount of coaxing or persuading could get him to do anything else, though he eventually did go to the bathroom before we left. He refused to have pdaughter come with us, insisting that I was the only one allowed to go. He did bring his toy stroller and Malik Mollum, his favourite plush doll from Ikea.
As a rule he listened pretty well on our way there and on our way back, which was very nice.
He was fascinated by the older kids who were at the park, especially the teenagers who were playing a game of pick-up basketball ("Me want to twy the soccer ball game!") and doing tricks on their skateboards in the mini skate park nearby. There were some tweens at the park as well who were climbing all over the bigger jungle gyms, and Bean was goggle-eyed at their prowess. It was pretty hilarious, especially when he went over and realised that he was quite simply too short to do what they were doing. His gross motor skills are advanced enough that I'm quite sure he'd be able to do it, were the playground equipment not much too big for him. He picked up on what the other kids were doing incredibly quickly, though, and began emulating what he could almost immediately.
Still, he's growing like a weed. Last year when we went to the park I had to hover close by because he was much too small for most of the equipment he wanted to climb on, whereas now he can pretty much do all of it on his own. Of course, that means he now thinks it's too easy, so he keeps trying to do things "backward" or "upside down," neither of which are good ideas on playground equipment. Oy, vey.
The swings are still his favourite spot, naturally. Though I have it on good authority that I am not as good at pushing the swings as Mama is. Oh well. Since I was the only one there, he had to make do. :P
At the five-minute warning he decided he absolutely had to take Malik Mollum on the slide with him, and had a rollicking good time going up the stairs and down the slide. I did have to remind him multiple times that he had to sit on his bum to slide and hold on to the railing when he was going up, and also not to hang over the edge head first. He protested that he was being "caretul!" and that he was big enough not to need to hold onto the railing, but really, who are we kidding? Once the message sank in he managed quite nicely.
He didn't put up too much of a fuss when we left, though he kept trying to squirm free of my grasp for quite a while, forgetting the rule about having to hold hands while we're close to the busy traffic. Naturally, I was the one who ended up carrying the stroller home, which I did for the sake of expediency.
We found an empty robin's egg on the way home, and no sooner had I shown it to Bean then he grabbed it and very deliberately crushed it into smithereens. I have to say I was a little startled, because I remember when I was a kid we were always very careful about not breaking the fragile egg shells. They were so pretty that we used to collect them (boys and girls alike!) and it was a point of pride to see who had the most "complete" eggshell. So having a child Bean's age go out of his way to destroy the shell was a bit shocking to me. Luckily we found another one a few feet away, and I was able to get a picture that time before we moved on, and that time Bean was very careful with it.
Bean "collected" two fistfuls of rocks on the way home, which now reside on the dining room table (hopefully not for long). We had a late dessert of milk and melon, and he went to bed mostly with no fussing, though he was again wound tighter than a spring factory (this has been happening a lot lately, probably because it's still light when we put him to bed these days). He insisted that I do most of the bedtime routine (though not all of it), and bounced out of bed several times before we were able to get him to settle.
I ran the dishwasher, and we were finally able to settle down to watch the latest episode of Elementary. I brought up my last load of laundry (which I'd forgotten in the basement), let the dog out, put the cats in the basement for the night, and we settled in to sleep.
And that's when the thunderstorm started. Did I ever mention that Sergent is terrified of thunderstorms? He paces and pants and generally panics, and it's no fun for anyone at all. He paces back and forth between my side of the bed andpdaughter's, and no one gets any sleep. I put on his Thunder Shirt, which helps a bit but not that much, then tried to distract him, but there was nothing doing. Shortly after 23:00 I gave up and went out to sit with him in the living room, so that at least one of us would get some sleep last night. Sergent continued to pace until well after 1:00, and I dozed on the sofa until about 3:00. When I awoke the dog was fast asleep, so I crawled back to bed and slept until my alarm went off at 6:30. At least I remembered to set my alarm today so I wouldn't sleep in.
Thus far I have gotten dressed, gotten Bean his breakfast, unloaded the dishwasher, had breakfast and written this LJ entry. The post has taken the longest to write, and I was honestly expecting to be done by now, which means my morning hasn't been nearly as productive as it should. I am not sure if I should try to go outside and clear more of the yard or go downstairs and mop the basement floor. The weather network says no precipitation expected for the next three hours, so I should probably do yard work. I gotta say, three hours of sleep after yesterday's rather full day (I know it doesn't sound like I did all that much yesterday, but the windows, the floors and the vacuuming actually took the better part of the morning) makes me tired just thinking about yard work.
Still, I can't be lazy about this. I'm going to have more water and change my shoes and get out there. Even if I only clear a little bit, it'll be worth it.
Here I go. Wish me luck!
pdaughter were slowly getting ready to go to class, so I emptied the dishwasher, started loading it up again, killed a bunch of ants (if they don't want to die, they can just refrain from coming in my house), and got dressed.I had a pretty productive day, even if I do say so myself. I washed the kitchen and bathroom floors, paying close attention to the baseboards which were sorely in need of it. I washed the glass sliding doors in the kitchen, then all the upstairs windows and windowsills, making sure to remove the screens from all of them to give them a thorough cleaning. Anyone who's been to our house will know that we have a LOT of windows, and they are all quite big (ranging from three to five feet in height, and one to five feet across), which means that the light in the house is great, but there's a lot of window surface to clean.
I changed the filter on the top of the compost pot we keep in the kitchen (the old filter was mouldy and gross). Then I scrubbed out the animals' food dishes, and took apart the cats' water fountain, removing approximately 17 lbs of cat hair from the motor. I hadn't realised how badly it was clogged until I did that, but now we can't even hear it when it's running anymore! The water is also flowing better than it has in well over two years, so it was definitely a good thing I did it. The animals are pleased, too, because I'm sure the water can't have tasted all that great if there was cat hair clogged in the motor and the filter.
I vacuumed all the upstairs except for Bean's room (I don't have an attachment on my vacuum for carpet, so
pdaughter generally vacuums in there with the vacuum she brought with her) as well as the stairs leading to the front door. I swept the entrance, the stairs leading to the basement, and the area at the bottom of the stairs where we keep the litter box. I cleaned out the litter box too, while I was down there. I brought the compost out to the bin, as well as a couple of small bags of garbage that had been left out on the balcony. pdaughter had put Bean's diapers in the wash, so I chucked those in the dryer and then did two more loads of laundry.I took a quick break to check on Detox, who is not doing well, poor kitty. We both think he may not have long left, judging by his behaviour and overall appearance. He's seventeen, so it's not entirely surprising.
pdaughter returned briefly in the morning to pick up her all-season tires from the basement in order to get her tires changed for the summer (yes, and the spring and the fall, before anyone jumps all over me for not specifying), and only got back around noon. I made us a yummy onion, green pepper and cheese omelette for lunch, and then left her to her own devices in order to head out to Home Depot. I wanted to price the paving stones they have there (and holy cow, they are more expensive than I thought, at a minimum of $3.00 per s.f.!), as well as get someone out here to do an estimate for finishing the fencing on the yard. We desperately need a fence to a) keep the neighbours' dog Démon out of the yard, b) to keep Sergent in the yard, and c) to keep Bean from running off either into the neighbours' yard or directly into the street, as he was wont to do last year, no matter how many times we explained the rule that if he wanted to play outside, he had to stay in our own yard.By the time I got home
pdaughter had already left. She went a bit early to Bean's school because it was the Mother's Day Tea Party there, and so she was supposed to have a nice drink and a cupcake with him. Apparently, though, Bean preferred to play in the sandbox rather than sit with her, and claimed her Mother's Day tulip for himself. Oops?Anyway, I had no idea this was going on, and when I got home the dog was hysterical with joy at seeing me (because I'd been gone for a whole hour and a half). He twisted himself into knots and gambolled around me and acted like I'd been gone for years, so I decided to take him for a nice long walk to burn off some of that excess energy. We ended up only walking for about half an hour, at which point I remembered that it was close enough to the end of the day that there might be other dogs for him to play with at the dog park. We were the first to arrive, but sure enough within minutes there were about eight other dogs, and Sergent galloped in circles with them until his tongue was practically dragging on the ground because he was so tired. He's had a long, sedentary winter, and not only did he pack on a few pounds during those months, well, he's also getting on a little bit. He just turned eight in March (the day after Bean's birthday), and for a Husky that puts him squarely in middle age.
Still, he had a great time, and was reluctant to head home with me at first. We got home at the same time as
pdaughter and Bean, who had managed to leave school a bit early in order to beat the traffic. While I was getting dinner together, Bean demanded to go play outside. That's still problematic, as the back yard still isn't fully cleaned up (my own fault, since I can't go out there when it's raining, and I haven't been home as consistently when the weather would have allowed for me to do some serious yard work), and Bean got very upset when we said no. It quickly devolved into screeching interspersed with promises to be "veddy, veddy caretul!" and not to step in the dog poop (which is a totally empty promise when you're four years old and can't even see where the dog poop is. There was more screaming, and then declarations that he didn't need us, didn't need help, and he was going to go outside ANYWAY. Eventually his mother told him that if he listened very well and didn't fuss and ate his dinner nicely, we could go for a walk after dinner.Bean promptly inhaled his macaroni and tomato sauce, and while
pdaughter and I had barely sat down to start eating he pushed his chair away: "I going to go wait at the door now!" No amount of coaxing or persuading could get him to do anything else, though he eventually did go to the bathroom before we left. He refused to have pdaughter come with us, insisting that I was the only one allowed to go. He did bring his toy stroller and Malik Mollum, his favourite plush doll from Ikea.As a rule he listened pretty well on our way there and on our way back, which was very nice.
He was fascinated by the older kids who were at the park, especially the teenagers who were playing a game of pick-up basketball ("Me want to twy the soccer ball game!") and doing tricks on their skateboards in the mini skate park nearby. There were some tweens at the park as well who were climbing all over the bigger jungle gyms, and Bean was goggle-eyed at their prowess. It was pretty hilarious, especially when he went over and realised that he was quite simply too short to do what they were doing. His gross motor skills are advanced enough that I'm quite sure he'd be able to do it, were the playground equipment not much too big for him. He picked up on what the other kids were doing incredibly quickly, though, and began emulating what he could almost immediately.
Still, he's growing like a weed. Last year when we went to the park I had to hover close by because he was much too small for most of the equipment he wanted to climb on, whereas now he can pretty much do all of it on his own. Of course, that means he now thinks it's too easy, so he keeps trying to do things "backward" or "upside down," neither of which are good ideas on playground equipment. Oy, vey.
The swings are still his favourite spot, naturally. Though I have it on good authority that I am not as good at pushing the swings as Mama is. Oh well. Since I was the only one there, he had to make do. :P
At the five-minute warning he decided he absolutely had to take Malik Mollum on the slide with him, and had a rollicking good time going up the stairs and down the slide. I did have to remind him multiple times that he had to sit on his bum to slide and hold on to the railing when he was going up, and also not to hang over the edge head first. He protested that he was being "caretul!" and that he was big enough not to need to hold onto the railing, but really, who are we kidding? Once the message sank in he managed quite nicely.
He didn't put up too much of a fuss when we left, though he kept trying to squirm free of my grasp for quite a while, forgetting the rule about having to hold hands while we're close to the busy traffic. Naturally, I was the one who ended up carrying the stroller home, which I did for the sake of expediency.
We found an empty robin's egg on the way home, and no sooner had I shown it to Bean then he grabbed it and very deliberately crushed it into smithereens. I have to say I was a little startled, because I remember when I was a kid we were always very careful about not breaking the fragile egg shells. They were so pretty that we used to collect them (boys and girls alike!) and it was a point of pride to see who had the most "complete" eggshell. So having a child Bean's age go out of his way to destroy the shell was a bit shocking to me. Luckily we found another one a few feet away, and I was able to get a picture that time before we moved on, and that time Bean was very careful with it.
Bean "collected" two fistfuls of rocks on the way home, which now reside on the dining room table (hopefully not for long). We had a late dessert of milk and melon, and he went to bed mostly with no fussing, though he was again wound tighter than a spring factory (this has been happening a lot lately, probably because it's still light when we put him to bed these days). He insisted that I do most of the bedtime routine (though not all of it), and bounced out of bed several times before we were able to get him to settle.
I ran the dishwasher, and we were finally able to settle down to watch the latest episode of Elementary. I brought up my last load of laundry (which I'd forgotten in the basement), let the dog out, put the cats in the basement for the night, and we settled in to sleep.
And that's when the thunderstorm started. Did I ever mention that Sergent is terrified of thunderstorms? He paces and pants and generally panics, and it's no fun for anyone at all. He paces back and forth between my side of the bed and
pdaughter's, and no one gets any sleep. I put on his Thunder Shirt, which helps a bit but not that much, then tried to distract him, but there was nothing doing. Shortly after 23:00 I gave up and went out to sit with him in the living room, so that at least one of us would get some sleep last night. Sergent continued to pace until well after 1:00, and I dozed on the sofa until about 3:00. When I awoke the dog was fast asleep, so I crawled back to bed and slept until my alarm went off at 6:30. At least I remembered to set my alarm today so I wouldn't sleep in.Thus far I have gotten dressed, gotten Bean his breakfast, unloaded the dishwasher, had breakfast and written this LJ entry. The post has taken the longest to write, and I was honestly expecting to be done by now, which means my morning hasn't been nearly as productive as it should. I am not sure if I should try to go outside and clear more of the yard or go downstairs and mop the basement floor. The weather network says no precipitation expected for the next three hours, so I should probably do yard work. I gotta say, three hours of sleep after yesterday's rather full day (I know it doesn't sound like I did all that much yesterday, but the windows, the floors and the vacuuming actually took the better part of the morning) makes me tired just thinking about yard work.
Still, I can't be lazy about this. I'm going to have more water and change my shoes and get out there. Even if I only clear a little bit, it'll be worth it.
Here I go. Wish me luck!
