When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep
October 14, 2008
More times a day than I can count I have the following conversation:
“Mom, are the dishes in dishwasher dirty or clean?”
“I don’t know. Do you have eyes?”
“Can you come and look? I can’t tell.”
“Well, if you can’t tell I think that they are clean enough.”
“But are the really clean?”
“Clean enough.”
“Moooooooo-ooooom.”
*******
I have been completely off of sugar for about 6 months now. Maybe even longer. Tonight on the way home from my son’s football practice I stopped to buy the kids a little candy, their bribe for behaving for the babysitter, and I bought myself a bag of Skittles. Because sometimes you just need it. Then I came home and had a cup of coffee. I should be ready to go to sleep sometime next week.
*****
Speaking of next week, I will be in Chicago. I have spent the past two weeks buying and returning clothes. I hate using the dressing room. The thing about finally getting down to your pre-baby weight (four YEARS LATER) is that nothing you own fits. So now I have some random non matching pieces of clothing. It’ll have to do.
I have been pretty ruthless getting rid of my non fitting clothes. I have discovered that I am not at all sentimental about clothes. I haven’t gotten rid of my wedding dress yet, but I do look at it in the closet and wonder why I am hanging on to it. Before anyone suggests that my daughter might want to wear it, it is a casual maternity dress. So I kind of hope not. Though it is white because I was all about looking virginal on my wedding day. Just call me Mary.
*****
English is hard.
“Whoa TMI. Let’s just keep this on the surface.”
“On the swordfish?”
“Surface.”
“Surefish?”
“Sur-face”
“Surefish?”
“Are we having a language barrier here?”
“Spell it”
“C-O-W-B-O-Y-T-A-T-T-O-O”
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We would always have that dishwasher convo at my house thanks to pre-rinsing the dishes before putting them in. My fiance on the other hand does not believe in pre-rinsing so I know if they’re clean or dirty at his place (I also usually can tell what he ate for each meal because he just sticks the plate with crusty food on it right in the dishwasher). I always tell him that he needs to pre-rinse because my parents made us do that but his dishes usually come out clean anyway.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:13 amnice to know you’re up, chris. out here in California it’s only 10:30 but the husband is in bed and the kids have been asleep for hours and I am making love to my laptop in the quiet. you have many soulmates across the country.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:24 amPlus you have fans in California that can’t sleep . . . must be part of that big “M” word (men-o-paws)! But hey, with all that sugar, maybe you’re still up? YooHooooo, Chris, are you there?
October 14th, 2008 at 4:50 amSorry, caught by the holy “pre-baby weight” phrase. My pre-baby weight was nothing to brag about, what I want is my pre-HUSBAND weight!
October 14th, 2008 at 5:24 amGuess what happened when I mistakenly thought it was morning and time to get up… half before 3 in the morning? And didn’t realise my mistake until after a cup of coffee? Go see my post on the 13th of this month.)
October 14th, 2008 at 5:30 amplease, please tell us the whole cowboy story. i’m itching to know who announced that they were going to get a cowboy tattoo and/or what they actually meant. also, in my family we had a magnet that was turned upside down if the dishwasher was dirty, and in the break room at my work we just leave the dood open when its not clean.
Chris says: Sadly, that IS the entire story. It is just one of those things that never stops being funny. To me at least.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:36 amI’m the same way about my wedding dress… it’s almost 8 years old, and I even purchased it second-hand. WHY am I keeping it?!?!
October 14th, 2008 at 6:50 amWe should never have the dishwasher discussion at my house, because if there are dishes in the dishwasher, they are clean. Around here, we are never, ever finished wtih dishes, so they get loaded, the dishwasher run and unloaded, and loaded again. Somehow, there is ALWAYS a full load. And yet, dispite having this situation for years now, my children STILL ask me if the dishes are clean, and I answer, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. “If there are dishes in the dishwasher, they are clean!” I think all of my children have some sort of memory disorder.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:35 amNot wanting to wear a maternity dress to my wedding, I waited until our first-born was 2 months old to tie the know. He played the role of “best baby.”
October 14th, 2008 at 8:00 amSadly enough, I have the same dishwasher conversation….with my husband. Yeah.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:47 amI am going to try the “If you can’t tell than they are clean enough.” Line. That is genius.
I HATE that conversation and I seem to have it at least once a day with my husband and/or son. For while I made magnetic signs to hang on the dish washer that said “Clean” or “Dirty”. That stopped the questions, but then my husband would walk around with the “Dirty” sign on him Austin Powers style.
So, I am back to having the same stupid conversation.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:11 amI had to giggle at the skittles & coffee comment.
Hubby can drink coffee and sleep ten seconds later; me, on the other hand, not so much.
So, how did your summer goal list work out? I’ve been wondering that as I suddenly realized it’s OCTOBER. When did that happen?
Becky
October 14th, 2008 at 9:48 amThat was so funny!!!
October 14th, 2008 at 9:55 amI tried SO hard to convince my mom to sell my wedding dress to a consignment shop and she was DEAD SET against it. I have no idea why. It’s not like I’m going to wear it again and hell, I think everybody deserves a new dress.
Maternity wedding wear is hawt. Well - except for the hideous brown potato sack I had to wear as a “bridesmaid” (i.e. fat-assed preggo potato bridesmaid) for my friend’s wedding. I think I’m still traumatized from that experience.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:02 amI have a similar conversation regualary…
Mom, can I get out of time out?
Were you in time out?
Can I get out?
I don’t think you’re in time out.
Can I get out?
I didn’t put you in time out.
Can I get out?
Sure, come on out.
Mom, can I get out of time out?
God help us.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:06 amNo sugar for SIX MONTHS…I can’t get past that. I think I would die. You are my hero.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:36 amMaternity dress eh? My oldest daughter was almost 1 at our wedding. I am wondering how you plan to or have handled that situation with your kids. Sis asks all the time why she was at our wedding. ugh. kids and their thirst for knowledge, pain in my ass I tell ya
October 14th, 2008 at 10:50 amThe People In The Know say sugar is a carbohydrate and therefore should make us sleepy. I wonder about those People In The Know sometimes.
There are magnates that say “clean” or “dirty” that you can place on the dishwasher. There is always the added complication of kids walking by and randomly flipping the magnate making it useless for it’s intended purpose.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:07 amOh god, the dishwasher. The other day I held up a fork I pulled out of the washer for my 14 yr old daughter. On the fork was a nice, thick layer of peanut butter, caked with syrup. Uh, honey? I appreciate you picking up after yourself but try to not put caked utensils into the dishwasher. It is not a magic dishwasher.
And it’s always so interesting to me that my family has this strange belief that mom is the only one who can empty the dishwasher. If I don’t, it usually means that people take clean dishes out as they need them, forget whether the dishes are clean or dirty in the process, and then I end up with a washer full of both clean and dirty items.
I’ve been tempted to make a fun little clean/dirty magnet. But I’m not really sure it would even make a difference.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:18 amStuck in rever-er-erse.
Right?
Chris says: You got it.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:10 pmKristin-
At my parents wedding, my mom was 4 months pregnant with me. Tey never really told me, just said they were married before I was born.
When puberty and babies etc. was explained, I then sort of put 2 + 2 together. On asking my mom, she was honest about the fact that they were married after she was pregnant and explained it away by saying that a wedding takes a while to plan (I was 9 or 10 and had only been to one or two weddings in my life). She always made a big deal that my brother and I were her “best surprises”*.
Now 23, I know other facts about this story but I think my parents handled it well.
*on the surprises thing, it made me feel special as a kid.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:59 pmYay! You are coming to my neighborhood! The leaves have started to change and the 85 degree temps of last weekend have hopefully left for the season.
Congrats on weight loss! Three cheers for you!
October 14th, 2008 at 6:46 pmWhat is super funny about this post is that one night about 4 years ago my brother and me were driving to a mutual friends house. He looked over at me at a red light and said “sometimes you just need a skittle”. He always says random things like that, and what is even worse is me thinking about it for a minute then quietly saying to myself “yes sometimes you do just need a skittle otherwise they would go out of buisness”. Then I come on here and look at what you wrote, you too needed a skittle!
Turns out my brother isn’t just some freak with random sayings that totally feel like your mind is being scrambled when he says them…. he’s actually a genius!
October 14th, 2008 at 6:59 pmSomeday I’m going to have my wedding dress made into a baptism gown for my grandchildren.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:50 pmWait, wait, wait. You gave up sugar for six entire months and we’re just now hearing about it? (Or did you write about it and I missed it?) Please share. I can guess why you did it. I know you’ve mentioned food allergies. But how hard was it? Did you go cold turkey? Did you get excruciating headaches? Did you go through withdrawal? Did it get easier with time? I’m very interested because, you see, I have this friend (yeah, that’s right, a friend) who might (just might) be addicted to sugar, and she has considered giving it up, but it just sounds too painful…
October 17th, 2008 at 9:19 amOooh, the dishwasher conversation. Had it way too many times! It’s really nice to see that I’m not the only one to say that if you can’t tell, then it’s clean enough.
I’m saving my wedding dress only ’cause I made it. One of the few projects I started and finished (although, should I ditch it when the divorce it final???). I’ve already told my daughter that she’s not allowed to get married. And certain not allowed to have children. Mine’s a maternity dress, too.
The sugar thing! Wow. Six whole months? Amazing. I love Skittles, and Starburst, and whole lots of other sugary sweets. Sweet tea!!! Six whole months without sugar would drive me sane.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:33 pm