Laundry room + poor sleeping
Jun. 13th, 2011 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
same_skySince we've been going to church, I've been feeling the pinch of a certain lack of dressy clothes. You don't have to do much dressing up to chase kids around, so I had to go clothes shopping yesterday. When I came home, I went to throw it in the washer so I could wear it today---
Quick question for the day: do you wear new clothes without washing them first? Or does everything that comes into your house need to be washed before wearing? I am definitely a "wash first" sort of girl, which I imagine is not a shock to anyone--
and found that my last load of laundry was still in the machine, covered with water. Experimentation found that I could make it agitate, but it would not drain water or complete the cycle, so a few minutes of brief troubleshooting later, we pronounced it dead at the scene. It's over ten years old. We've sort of been expecting it any time. A year or two ago, it started rusting around the bleach dispenser, which caused occasional rust stains on our clothes. As far as I can tell, you can't get rust out of clothes. It seems to only like getting on new, favorite pieces of clothing, too. Weird.
So,, we ordered a new washer last night, to be delivered tomorrow morning. I convinced M that it would be an unusually sensible time to paint the laundry room, which is a project that we've been procrastinating on for, oh, years. Turns out that my laundry room is an immense pain in the ass to to paint! For some reason, it has a red brick floor and about two feet of brick on the bottom part of the walls, and countless nooks and crannies and raw wood ceiling beams and counters and cabinets and outlets and hook-ups and hoses. I acquired the paint for this project free from Glidden probably two years ago in one of the deal-chasing things that I do.I must say--excellent paint, and the price was certainly right. It's a buttery yellow, and it looks great, if I do say so myself. I'm so happy. Now I don't want to put anything back in there, but I suppose I must. :)
We're currently going through some sleeping issues that end up with all three of us grouchy. I think there has to be some underlying cause--growth spurt or emotional development or something. She refuses to go to sleep and she's trying out the full list of thisty-hungry-need to pee-want mommy-want daddy-can't sleep. We're going to have to start tinkering with her sleeping routine again, which is always super-fun. She falls asleep with one of us--almsot always M, but I get called in as backup occasionally, and at least half the time in the past week--there, singing/snuggling. We tried that tonight, and then I decided to try that thing where instead of laying with her, I sit in a chair and start moving the chair closer and closer to the door gradually over days/weeks. And, I thought ishe was asleep! Alas, no. Finally, I told her that although we wanted very much to help her sleep, it clearly wasn't working well for her to have us laying there anymore, so I would just leave the room and come check on her in two minutes. At two minutes, she talked to me. At five minutes, she either didn't notice me peeking my head in, or she was asleep. At around fifteen minutes, we heard definite snoozing sounds so we closed the door. (Too dark to see her face from the door.) So, she fell asleep without us! And I am excited about that except I am absolutely sure that she won't do it again, ever again, and when she goes to college we will have to show up at her dorm room every night so we can lay down with her and get her to sleep. I'm sure that her roommates won't think that's weird at all.
If you don't have kids, you probably wish parents would stop talking about sleep already. It's hard, oh so oh so oh so hard, to think about anything else when you're embroiled in the middle of sleep drama. An hour or two of fighting whining crying fidgeting every evening can really take it out of you. But, at least our big sleeping problems now aren't taking place in the middle of the night. Those days were much worse than these. :) I'll just try to remember that when I'm stucki in the middle. :)
Quick question for the day: do you wear new clothes without washing them first? Or does everything that comes into your house need to be washed before wearing? I am definitely a "wash first" sort of girl, which I imagine is not a shock to anyone--
and found that my last load of laundry was still in the machine, covered with water. Experimentation found that I could make it agitate, but it would not drain water or complete the cycle, so a few minutes of brief troubleshooting later, we pronounced it dead at the scene. It's over ten years old. We've sort of been expecting it any time. A year or two ago, it started rusting around the bleach dispenser, which caused occasional rust stains on our clothes. As far as I can tell, you can't get rust out of clothes. It seems to only like getting on new, favorite pieces of clothing, too. Weird.
So,, we ordered a new washer last night, to be delivered tomorrow morning. I convinced M that it would be an unusually sensible time to paint the laundry room, which is a project that we've been procrastinating on for, oh, years. Turns out that my laundry room is an immense pain in the ass to to paint! For some reason, it has a red brick floor and about two feet of brick on the bottom part of the walls, and countless nooks and crannies and raw wood ceiling beams and counters and cabinets and outlets and hook-ups and hoses. I acquired the paint for this project free from Glidden probably two years ago in one of the deal-chasing things that I do.I must say--excellent paint, and the price was certainly right. It's a buttery yellow, and it looks great, if I do say so myself. I'm so happy. Now I don't want to put anything back in there, but I suppose I must. :)
We're currently going through some sleeping issues that end up with all three of us grouchy. I think there has to be some underlying cause--growth spurt or emotional development or something. She refuses to go to sleep and she's trying out the full list of thisty-hungry-need to pee-want mommy-want daddy-can't sleep. We're going to have to start tinkering with her sleeping routine again, which is always super-fun. She falls asleep with one of us--almsot always M, but I get called in as backup occasionally, and at least half the time in the past week--there, singing/snuggling. We tried that tonight, and then I decided to try that thing where instead of laying with her, I sit in a chair and start moving the chair closer and closer to the door gradually over days/weeks. And, I thought ishe was asleep! Alas, no. Finally, I told her that although we wanted very much to help her sleep, it clearly wasn't working well for her to have us laying there anymore, so I would just leave the room and come check on her in two minutes. At two minutes, she talked to me. At five minutes, she either didn't notice me peeking my head in, or she was asleep. At around fifteen minutes, we heard definite snoozing sounds so we closed the door. (Too dark to see her face from the door.) So, she fell asleep without us! And I am excited about that except I am absolutely sure that she won't do it again, ever again, and when she goes to college we will have to show up at her dorm room every night so we can lay down with her and get her to sleep. I'm sure that her roommates won't think that's weird at all.
If you don't have kids, you probably wish parents would stop talking about sleep already. It's hard, oh so oh so oh so hard, to think about anything else when you're embroiled in the middle of sleep drama. An hour or two of fighting whining crying fidgeting every evening can really take it out of you. But, at least our big sleeping problems now aren't taking place in the middle of the night. Those days were much worse than these. :) I'll just try to remember that when I'm stucki in the middle. :)
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 05:23 am (UTC)I'm in your camp. Having been an apparel designer with a lot of overseas trips to factories that fabric and garments are constructed in... it's definitely wash first. I cringe even trying on new clothes. Ick. There are loads of chemicals that the fabric is finished with to help keep it from soiling easily and also to help the seamstresses in the factories by stiffing up the fabric a bit for better more accurate seams, etc. Factories are clean-ish but yeah... I wouldn't eat off anything in there and you definitely need to wash your hands after being in one. Just saying'...
Ah sleep. Such a precious commodity for parents with young children. Oh how I miss it so! I love it when kids get wacky and surprise you by actually *sleeping*. Sophie slept in till 8 am the other morning. You could've knocked me over with a feather! I will pray to all things drowsy and droopy that Miss E does it again... at this rate maybe they can go to college together and I'll sing while you snuggle. Then neither of us will think it's weird. lol
no subject
Date: 2011-06-15 02:08 pm (UTC)I must confess that usually, E sleeps until 8:30, and I often have to wake her up then because she'd prefer sleeping until after nine. But then she won't go to bed, so M won't let me let her sleep that long. ;) (He's in charge of that.) We threw a blanket over the window to keep the daylight out at bedtime recently, and she immediately started sleeping later, and more deeply, in the morning and now I have to wake her up every day (before, she'd wake up on her own half the time.) So.. have you tried making sure Sophie's room is very dark? It might help her sleep a little later. :)
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Date: 2011-06-13 01:03 pm (UTC)That sucks that your old washer broke, but new washers are fun! I must be a grown-upu.
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Date: 2011-06-15 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 05:10 pm (UTC)Oops. Ha!
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Date: 2011-06-15 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-16 11:54 pm (UTC)Oh how I laughed :)