Coffee Chat: Winter, Boys, and Dogs

Hello dears.   It's early morning and perhaps you too could use a pot of coffee or more.  I'm on my second cup.  Come join me and we'll watch the sunrise together.  There's a baby chattering at the other end of the house...do you hear him?  He woke up a few minutes ago.   His parents will attend to him, and Gramma shall keep to herself for a little bit longer.  Alone moments are few and far between these days.

I tried to have a coffee chat yesterday afternoon...but Bess wanted to chat, and the baby and Josh both refused to nap and I wanted to sit with my feet up and computer on my lap but two little boys were continually poking and jabbing and twisting cords and grabbing the mouse and I eventually realized I was losing that battle and put things away and promised myself I'd catch up with you all this morning.   I thought I'd have a big broader window of opportunity, but I know that if I stick my head out the door, I'll not have any window at all.  I'm learning to let the household run without me for a bit and take the time I need to prepare myself for day.  It's not the lovely quiet start to the day I've most enjoyed but that day shall return soon enough.



I was so tired out the other night that I completely forgot the wonders of technology.  I had to close my computer but didn't want to lose the page I'd been reading on...so I slipped a magazine over the keyboard and shut the lid and only moments later realized I'd 'bookmarked' my place in a very old-fashioned way rather than simply save it as I'd normally do.   I shook my head and determined that after all I might be modern but when my brain is overtaxed, I quickly revert to very old behaviors.

Spring has been making itself known now for weeks.  It's been a prolonged spring for us and yes, I know the calendar doesn't say spring but believe you me, it's here in the South, despite the past few mornings of frost.  Things have bloomed and bloomed and bloomed.  The dogwoods and redbuds are now in full bloom.  In the river swamps the trees have come alive in glorious color, which I always think is far better suited to autumn than spring.  Yesterday we topped the hill coming down into the river valley and I looked across miles of woodlands flushed the faintest green.

It's a new season, no matter what the calendar says the dates are, no matter that we've had frost 6 nights out of the last 14.

John cut the lawn for the first-time last Friday.  We were a week or two behind most of our neighbors who had long since begun the mowing season.  I am not looking forward to mowing beginning.   Generally, it is done in 1 or 2 of John's off days.  Given that most weeks he spends 1 day recovering from work after a shift and then 1 day mowing the week is done and we've gone nowhere much besides into town to get gasoline for the mower.  Not my idea of fun, even if he is providing me with the occasional Dr. Pepper for going with him.  However, it's one of those necessary things and so I bite my lips and admire the yard and appreciate the sort of husband who does mow instead of leaving it undone.  It's bad enough in town to have an unmown lawn but in the country briars and privet and cedar and pine quickly lay down seeds and begin to grow in an amazingly quick fashion.

John and I managed a date after church on Sunday, but I felt I was owed a 'do-over'.  First was his weariness and utter reluctance to even pretend to want to have a date though he'd taken an extra half shift on Monday.  Second it was miserably cool with rain that was insistent upon drenching you from every direction.  We stopped in the next town over on our way home after going into the grocery store and found the business not busy in the least but before we'd ordered our meal a man approached us asking for money.   The couple behind us immediately offered to buy him a meal, which he refused.  No, he just wanted the money.  He was unkempt and muttering darkly to himself as he roamed about.  He simply would not settle and sit nor leave and the atmosphere shifted to uneasy.   John urged me to hurry through my meal as other customers got up and left.  I did but I loathe having to wolf my food.
When we left, John, who hadn't wanted to go out at all looked at me and said "That wasn't much of a date at all.  I owe you another."  I agreed with him but said "But it was what I could get so I took it."

He remembered this Wednesday when he came in from work and asked me later that afternoon what I'd like to do.  I suggested that I'd like to go to Kroger to pick up some very good sales items that were one day only and said, "And perhaps we could go early-ish and have breakfast."   Well John did very well by me for our second attempt at a date this week. Not only did he make a slow and leisurely drive of it before hand, but he took me to a place we'd seen on a billboard several times.  It's a hotel that offers a morning breakfast buffet.  We were suitably impressed when we walked in.  All the finishes are nice and there were intimate seating groups as well as more group friendly seating.   And a real honest to goodness chef preparing entrees to order behind the scenes though there were plenty of items on offer on the food bars.  We had lovely homemade pancakes and eggs and turkey bacon for our breakfast.  It was really nice and peaceful.  If ever a 'do-over' was done right, it was our date.

I was asked about John's working such long hours.  Right now, they are down by 5 employees and several more have called out sick or simply not come in, mostly part-time workers.  Those people will be written off the schedule next month but, in the meantime, this month's schedule must stand.  In order to save the director, who is John's usual partner, from working a million hours each pay period, John and one or two other staff members are taking on full or half shifts as extra work.  It is hard to work a 24-hour shift.  It is harder to work a 30-hour shift.  The EMS employees have learned the art of cat napping in any down time they get between calls and filing reports and restocking the trucks with needed equipment.  When John works a 24-hour shift he's pretty tired.  When he's worked a 30-hour shift or done a 12-hour shift one day and then worked a 24-hour shift the next day he's very tired.  He spends most of the day and night after these shifts snoozing or sleeping.

The lack of sleep is something we all hate to think of and something which certain public service professionals deal with constantly.  It's not at all uncommon to have a doctor in charge of ER over a weekend and get barely as much sleep as the EMS staff.  Shifts tend to be long for doctors, nurses, EMS, firefighters, police and sheriff deputies and they must function as well as they can on whatever sleep they might.   That the EMS crew actually has beds to lie down in is a plus.  But no, they do not get to sleep unbroken sleep at any point and sometimes they get no sleep at all or very little.

I've read about sleeping for years.  I think because I tend to have periods of very low sleep, I have studied all about it because I'm curious how the body continues to function without it.  And even more curious as to why it's so necessary for us humans to get the required rest daily.   Sleep disturbance studies have delved into years of research into the effects of those who had jobs which required them to change shifts from days to nights routinely or for those who got broken sleep, as well as for those who worked various night shifts and slept days, etc.   It does affect the body and the brain and there are consequences such as anxiety, pain, lowered immunity, etc.

On a personal level I've noted firsthand that some people just plain seem to require a greater than average hours of rest, while others manage to function on far less than suggested minimum hours.   John and Bess both have the rather envious ability to not only sleep nights but to take long naps in the daytime as well without any noticeable effect upon their nighttime sleep.   It makes me curious why some function just as well as others on far less and others require far more to keep up the same activity levels.

So long answer to a short question, how does John function with broken sleep?  He adapts by sleeping longer hours when he can.

I can think of dozens of tasks I wish I could grab a moment to do just now.  Flowers are something I'd love to be playing with or at least the task of prepping flower beds and pots for flowers as soon as the frosts quit.   The back porch railings are in rather desperate need of cleaning.  The sheds could use a decent coat of paint this year.  I'd like to take time to go shop for new bath towels and hunt out fabric for two or three sewing projects but currently my level of functioning is limited to meals, laundry, dishes, an almost continuous round of picking up behind little fellows and grasping desperately for brief moments of time to call my own for writing or Jamberry work.  The two boys are pretty consuming and since they take alternate nap times it's often hard to get those moments.   Truthfully when I do have time to stop each day, I'm often too tired to contemplate doing anything much at all except stare at the clock hoping that bedtime will hurry along (mine not the boys).

There are times though, I confess, when I allow myself to indulge in a fantasy I used often when I had children at homes and times were trying:  I escape to my own little dream home tucked neatly into a shady spot between hills where all is peaceful and quiet, and I do as I please...alas not a place I know of in actuality...

And now, while I have a few brief moments I must go sort out my fridge.  There are leftovers which I must do something with or lose the foodstuffs something I am working hard at not doing.
Lovely to take time to chat once more!