All posts by ihatehardware.

ZZZZZZZZ…..

I am in Indianapolis at our corporate office.  I arrived at a meeting this morning at 7:30, and we didn’t stop until after 6:30 tonight.  We then went to dinner where we talked more about doors and hardware, and got back to the hotel at 9:30.  Since then I have answered my email and posted some photos on my other blog.

Tomorrow we’re starting at 7:30 and ending at 5, I have a 6:40 flight and I arrive in Providence at 10:30 with an hour drive to get home.  I’m exhausted and I’m going to need all available resources to make it through tomorrow, so I am going to leave you with this laughing baby video and go to bed. Farts are funny at any age.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP535q3tPuc&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

Chair Potato

Adlani finally opened his eyes yesterday morning, and then his tooth fell out to make it an exciting start to the day.  There was no kindergarten because the new kindergarteners were coming for orientation, so Adlani went to the office with me.  I’m pretty sure that he opened his eyes because he knows we have Doritos at the office.

I had a meeting, so I set him up with his video game, movies, snacks, a drink, and various toys that he packed himself.  Other than occasionally bursting into song, we barely heard a peep out of him and he never left his chair in the conference room.  On the way to lunch I realized that I haven’t spent much time with just Adlani lately.  The girls are always competing for attention, so he can barely get a word in. 

On the way to lunch, he was full of insight…

“Did you know that ‘tinkle’ is pee in sign language?”
“I really like ‘scats.’ That means ‘cats’ in Haiti. I know, because Dad’s from Haiti.” (he’s not)
Passing the AAA building…”HEY! That must be where they make those batteries we use!!!”

He’s a piece of work.

I know I said that I was going to go to bed earlier from now on, but I’m in Indianapolis and I had 2 cups of coffee after dinner and I’m wired.  I’m going to try to hypnotize myself to sleep now.  Good Night!

Sleep is for Sissies

A long time ago (back in the early 90’s) I decided that I was spending too much time sleeping.  I had a lot to do and I needed more time to do it.  Over the years I’ve lived on less and less sleep, until there were nights last year that I was getting less than 4 hours of sleep. THAT’S NOT ENOUGH!

I know, a bunch of you told me that, but honestly, I can sit at my laptop until at least 2 a.m. without feeling drowsy.  Why not take advantage of the extra hours in the day?  The weird thing is that when I’m working at night on my computer, I never feel the normal feelings of being tired, no matter how late it gets.  But at some point I hit the wall and my head starts buzzing and I can’t focus on what I’m doing.  Every morning I wake up and read both of my blogs to make sure I didn’t post something that made me sound drunk.  That’s not good, and I know that.  I need to go to bed earlier.

A couple of weeks ago I ran across an article that explains everything.  Some doctors think that the light from an iPad or laptop can keep the brain from secreting melatonin, which makes people sleep and helps regulate our internal sleep clocks.  The bright light basically fools the brain into thinking it’s time to be awake.  This makes sense in my case because when I’m using my laptop, I’m wide awake (like right now), but if I try to read, I feel sleepy after a few pages no matter what time it is.

It’s not easy, but I’m trying to shut the computer down by 12 most nights…I know that’s still pretty late but it’s much earlier than before.  Baby steps, right?

Here’s the article from CNN.

“When he left here, he had an eye.”

Sometimes I just don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  In the old days I used to cry a lot more.  Now, most of the time I don’t care enough to cry, and the WTF-moments are so ridiculous that I’m beyond crying.

Tonight was supposed to be a double-sleepover, with Adlani at Shane’s house and Victoria here with Aliya.  Adlani has literally been counting the days since we picked the date a month ago.  Every morning when he wakes up, he asks how many more days until the sleepover.

So we got everything packed and went over to the Funsecas’ to drop off Adlani and pick up Vic.  Karen and I needed wine after a long, hard week, so we ordered pizza and let the kids run around the yard while we chatted.  Norah was home with Ben, so it was a little more relaxing than it would have been otherwise.

There were several altercations during the running-around-the-yard period, with various kids coming to us crying that so-and-so had hit her with the swing, somebody stepped on his hand, etc.  Just as it started to get dark, Adlani started shrieking and walking across the yard with his eyes closed.  Ever since the pencil-in-the-eye, Adlani has been really sensitive about his eyes, and the sound that he makes when he gets poked in the eye makes me want to pierce my own eardrums.

The shrieking went on, and on, and on, and finally I decided that the boys’ half of the sleepover would have to be postponed, at which point both boys were crying.  Ugh!  I thought this was supposed to be fun!  What a blast!

I drove home with Aliya, Vic, and the shrieker, gave him some Motrin and put him to bed.  After he woke up crying for the 8 zillionth time, I told Ben it was his turn to comfort him.  It is now 12:41 a.m.  The eye-poke occurred at 8:30.  Ben just came downstairs and told me that the eye-poke was my fault, I was supposed to be watching them, I let it happen, so he was washing his hands of the problem and going to bed, leaving Adlani crying again/still.  I was incredulous!
Me: “You’re saying that it’s my fault that the kid got poked in the eye?!?!”
Ben: “When he left here, he had an eye.  Now he doesn’t.  You deal with it.”

A little part of me wanted to cry at the unfairness of the accusation.  A big part of me wanted to scream, “BITE ME, DINGLEBERRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The girls tried to make the best of it and have fun despite the shrieking.  Here’s their rendition of the Taylor Swift hit, You Belong With Me:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIEIRZK6IyI&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]