Scattered Thoughts

Just a few scattered thoughts on a Friday:

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 Last night I took A., our fourth grader, to elementary school wrestling practice, which lasts an hour and a half and takes us 30+ minutes to get there from home, so I was hanging out in the athletic center, mostly just walking and listening to an audiobook. And considering how much I'm not moving lately, that alone was pretty good. Just walking, wow: it's easy to lose track of how much better it feels to be moving enough. But I also found a quiet spot and did just a little yoga-like stretching and man did that feel good. Magic. Why did I ever stop doing yoga regularly? I did some today during my lunch break too. Note to self: I'm getting old and stiff and it's not good. 

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Speaking of old and stiff, our beloved upper is getting up there. Fifteen and her age is showing more and more. And because L is sleeping on the downstairs couch, we're even more aware of what she's up to. Apparently she sometimes pees on a dog bed or the floor (we knew that) and then licks it back up, which Dr. Google indicates might be a sign of Cushing's Disease. So we need need to manage a vet visit on top of everything else. But also L. wakes me up in the middle of the night to take care of the mess the dog has made and the mess that the dog is. Which, to be clear, is totally fine, she can't deal with it for obvious reasons, but I also haven't had a good night's sleep all week. 

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Speaking of sleep, it's amazing how priorities change. Like, when I was in my 20s, even my 30s, I didn't value sleep that highly. In college it was a mark of pride that I spent one semester getting between 3 and 4 and a half hours of sleep each night (I can be that precise because I was operating under a theory that sleep should be in hour and a half increments) while doing way too many things, taking too many classes, and still getting A's. In my 20s, I thought nothing of staying out late partying or staying up watching a movie or whatever. Now I just want to sleep more, and between kids and pets I never get as much as I want. 

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By the way, this is why we become fertile in our teens--so we can coordinate our who-needs-sleep years with our never-gonna-get-it years. I should be a grandparent or dead by now (44)--either way I could reasonably expect to get enough sleep. But no.