I have children who struggle with sleep. My youngest daughter, currently 15 months, is in a constant state of teething: there are always three to four teeth coming in at once. Luckily once this round is done, only two year molars remain, but I have a feeling that once her canine come in, those molars won’t be too far behind.

So I sit here, listening to her wail after having spent an hour in her room trying to soothe her. Nothing works. Now I’m out of her way, and she is practically growling in there. What a mean mommy I am.

It’s frustrating. I’m constantly second guessing myself. She needs sleep training, but is now the time to do it when I know there are three canines coming in? In turn, do I really want my entire night dominated by her cute little presence when I’ve spent the entire day in her presence? Always on call, 24/7, wondering what I’m doing to fuck things up this time — Fuck it up with too much love and back-bending, or fuck it up with not enough compassion in a time of need.

This is why I have trouble getting on track for doing anything. I’ve been reading the linguistics and grammar textbooks, but infrequently and without any real plan in mind. Notes here and there as I think of it. But then I have nights like these, quite often, where I give in to their little demands because it’s just easier that way. Who wants to listen to a baby wail for hours? Not me, especially when I’m already wore down to the marrow.

I had the intention of getting up early in the morning to get some work done then, but I still have frequent night wakings where I have to soothe one or both children at some point during the night. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve had 8 hours of consecutive sleep. Or six. Last night I got maybe four – between 1:30 am to 5:30am. Doesn’t make for very restful sleep, and hell if I’m going to get up early when I can’t even get my ass to bed until late at night because I need SOME down time.

I keep hearing, and keep telling myself, “It’ll get better.” When, exactly? When they’re 18 and out of the house?

Wah wah wah waaaaahhhh.

 

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In other news, I started following some linguistic word press sites. I love posts like this one about distinguishing between theta and eth.

It’s worth noting that function words in English, like pronouns, prepositions, and determiners, tend to have ð, while content words, especially nouns, tend to have θ.

Fantastic.