How to Make Jetlag Work for You!

Belgium is 6 hours ahead of New York. While we were away, we stayed with RaggedyDad's sister and her family in their home. They've got 2 daughters, aged 5 and nearly 2.

Summer schedule in their household means that bedtime is on the late side. Here, I usually get everyone to sleep between 6:30 and 7 p.m., though Little Rag wakes up at least twice over the course of the night. Bedtime in Belgium, between the sun going down late and the kids being busy with extended family, ran more about 9:30 or 10 p.m. The kids woke up later, too.

Rather than make some kind of doomed-to-fail attempt to recreate their home schedule, we only encouraged the kids in their gleeful staying up late and the sometimes inevitable later morning sleeping that followed.

This all meant that when we came home, it was just a couple of days of making the effort for them to stay awake until 5:30 or 6 p.m., since that was just a couple of hours 'later' for them in Belgian time. The gist of it all is that we're back for 3 days and are doing fairly well with their sleep.

The one caveat is that by 5 a.m. or so, everyone's up. But when I consider that from the perspective of the mature adult I pretend to be on some days, I realize that this is actually beneficial. Ann's got a much earlier morning from now on due to the BGST ("Big-Girl-School" Transition), so early mornings will be busy and productive around here. Wish us luck! Yawn!!

Morning Person

When I was dating RaggedyDad, there were some mornings when he asked me to call him and wake him up. He was in college at the time, and apparently, he and his roommate had such difficulty in the mornings that they set up a computer program called "Wake Me Up" that would set off an extremely loud alarm. Loud enough for security to come and bang on their door. "Wake Me Up" had woken the rest of the floor, but not RaggedyDad and his roommate.

This was incomprehensible to me. And it worried me. Was this an indication that he'd be unable to wake up for a job? For kids? Be irresponsible in general? Be undisciplined in other areas of his life?

In our home, my parents woke up Very Early. They are morning people to the extreme. I've mentioned before that my mother's extensive daily cleaning routine is usually finished at around 5:30 or 6 a.m. My dad is out of the house very early as well. I really can't remember waking up in the morning and finding my parents groggily ambling about in pajamas (like RaggedyDad and I do).

Thankfully, RaggedyDad's shtick was more or less a college thing. His alarm clock is extremely loud and annoying, and it may go off an extra time or two before he actually responds to it, but we have learned to live with it or even tune it out somewhat. He makes it out of the house early and calmly.

While we don't enjoy early morning life the way my parents do, we've come to terms with it. And I do finally agree with my mother about how much more productive it is to be busy in the early morning (although I guess Ezzie will probably comment that that depends on the individual or something).

Pre-kids, I taught 25 miles from home and had to be there by 8:30. But since Ann was born five years ago, I haven't had a pre-9 a.m. destination besides helping everyone at the breakfast table. I've had part-time jobs and she's been in preschool, but nothing started very early or was all that far away.

Next year, Ann's school day will start at 8:15. The bus will come considerably earlier than that. And of course, I'll need to get the boys ready so that I can bring them along to the bus stop.

A friend suggested I leave the younger kids at home with RaggedyDad while I venture out to the bus stop with Ann. "He's gone by then," I told her. My former late-riser, while not quite a Morning Person himself, sure does a good job of acting like one these days.

Counting Sheep

The Raggedy kids are known to be poor sleepers but good eaters. It seems you can't have both.

Ann was a baby who simply did not like to sleep. For a while, it seemed like she never slept at all. There were novels that I started and finished in one long night while I stayed awake nursing her and taking care of her.

For the first two years of her life, I taught on Sundays and also two afternoons a week (big thanks again go to my mother who rearranged her part-time schedule around mine) RaggedyDad's hours back then were better and he wasn't in school. And baby Ann did not sleep.

Before becoming RaggedyMom, I didn't have much experience with babies or children, so I thought this was a cruel joke no one had told me about. We were the first ones in our neighborhood chevrah with a baby. Some of them were expecting soon, and I wondered, "Should I tell them how insane this is?"

During Ann's babyhood, there was a period of time when RaggedyDad would come home at around 8 p.m. and we'd do a 10-minute version of "hi-how-was-your-day?" and then I'd go to sleep. My shift of sleep was 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. and RaggedyDad would sleep from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. Then it was time to be awake and start a new day all over again. If either of us got the baby to sleep during our 'awake shift', that was a bonus. Life continued this way for a while. As difficult and cranky a newborn Ann was, she turned out to be extremely sweet and good-natured.

Andy was the only baby to take a pacifier. He slept a lot better than Ann did, and all those extra hours of sleep helped him prepare for his current role as the lively, hungry two-and-a-half-year-old creature he has become. Part Curious George, part Animal from the Muppets, Andy adds a lot of, um, fun to our lives.

Little Rag is his own unique brand of Raggedy. But his sleep habits definitely fall along the lines of another Ann. He thinks that the big kids are cute to look in on when they're sleeping and he enjoys having another supper time with RaggedyDad. He's very close to being a year old (!) and sleeps more poorly than some 2 month olds I know of. Sigh.

We still check on the big kids several times a night. Watching them sleeping is one of the few quiet enjoyments out there. Ann's gangly arms and legs inevitably sprout their way out of the covers. Andy's pajamas twist, or he is halfway off of his little toddler bed. As for Little Rag, when he's actually asleep, he is firmly in tush-in-the-air territory.

I do try to tell them how much they'll want to sleep when they get to be teenagers. But for now, they don't quite seem to believe me.

More Vintage Sheets - Animals of the Seventies

Back in the 1970's, animals came in many interesting patterns and colors. Nowadays, wildlife is still thrilling in its variety, but unfortunately, many of these particular species are extinct. Times have changed, and sadly, Paisley Zebra, Floral Camel, Plaid Giraffe, and several others, have vanished with the years. Their images stay with us, however, immortalized in this bedding. This pair is on Ann's bed currently. It's also pictured in my 35-year-old brother's baby album. How did my mom keep this stuff so well?

Vintage Sheets

While we're on the topic of sleep, I wanted to get to something that I've been interested in posting for a while. Ann started sleeping in a bed when we stayed with my parents for Pesach the year she was nearly 3. When we came home after that week, RaggedyDad and my father brought over the bed that was mine since we came to America from Israel when I was 5.

Ann's bed is my old bed, and what better to complete the look than having my mother give us a big shopping bag full of the bedsheets used by my older brothers and me when we were kids. Realize that my mother is the type to keep things in impeccable condition.

I tend to be a sentimental, nostalgic person, and I really like the idea that the old kiddie sheets are now in our home. However, this notion can be taken to the extreme. I know someone who actually found the old potty seat (bleached down I presume) that she used, and uses it for her kids. For me, however, the intermingling of sentiment and excrement is where I draw the line. Take a picture of the old thing if you need to, and then toss it, please.

Back to more pleasant things, like bedsheets. Aside from some fading from being washed a million times, the sheets are in great condition. And I get a kick out of watching Ann (and Andy now that he uses some of the pillowcases) fall asleep while watching and thinking about the same colorful sheets I remember from being a kid.

Can anyone identify all of the vintage Disney characters on these sheets?

Yes Sir, That's My Baby

Because some battles just aren't worth fighting.

Raggedy Road

For about the past month, the Raggedys have been enjoying the sounds of a metro-New York summer. Including, but not limited to: jackhammers, drills that bore holes through bricks, roof overhauling tools and materials, and the like.

The large apartment complex where we live has been actively trying to justify the high maintenance fee we pay, and it has translated into major work projects throughout the summer. While I'm not opposed to the eventual beautification of the grounds, the arduous work being done in the meantime feels endless!

Giant tarps, mesh enclosures, precarious hanging ladders, and men in the windows for much of the day - it gets a little intense! At times, the noise has been mind-numbing. Often, I'm scared to watch what these guys are doing and I'm busy cringing and hoping that none of them get seriously hurt.

On the bright side, Ann and Andy have been very entertained and fascinated by everything giong on around them. Ann is at camp for a good deal of the day, but Andy has been more or less homebound with me for weeks. It has been a sort of blessing in disguise to have these guys out here for him to watch with awe. Especially cute is when some of them respond to his excited shouts of "Man-worker! Hi mans! Hi worker!" etc.

Today's project was one of the more invasive ones. In front of our apartment is a concrete path that leads to all of the apartments on this stretch of the block. The path is being repaved in sections, and for the time being, there is no paving over much of our area. It was pretty tricky navigating getting in and out of the house with the kids, Andy loving the newfound pile of dirt and Ann insisting on avoiding the dirt while staying on the narrow strip of grass near it. Of course, as Mommy, I get the honor of walking on the rockiest or messiest part while holding the 'stuff' and frantically trying to keep everyone from tripping and maintain hand-holding at all times. While whistling Dixie.

When the workers pack up for the day come nightfall, and the kids finally stop talking from their beds and conk out, I'm pretty sure I'll head to bed myself.

Raggedy Nights (rated G)

I want to wish congrats to the JIB finalists, and to say that some of the "best post" nominations are going to give me a sizable amount of backreading to do.

But that shouldn't be a problem, as my nights are seeming pretty quiet, since RaggedyDad is currently embroiled in both finals at school and "month-end" at work. Somehow, month-end is a crazy time that goes a few days into the new calendar month. Don't ask me. If I knew why this was the case, I'd probably also have a clearer sense of what "exotic derivatives" are.

Note from RaggedyDad: My job is absolutely not as sexy as it sounds.

In the meantime, I find that the kids' supper/bathtime/bedtime and the accompanying activities actually go quite a bit more easily when it's just me. When RaggedyDad is around for bedtime on the weekends, there's more fussing, kvetching, and silliness. Even though I'm not really the type, with me somehow it's quieter, smoother, less monkey business.

Ann usually has one or two of her "kids" (dolls) to accompany her to bed. Tonight she got a third in there - a doll we got her for her first birthday, aptly called "Dolly."



Andy looked over from his crib tent (I still can't believe this contraption - but he's actually liking it quite a bit), and saw Dolly with Ann, and called out, "Baby! Baby!" which could only refer to our other lifelike-looking doll, called "Baby," who is also Andy's occasional girlfriend. So Baby joined Andy, along with his other nighttime buddy, a soft pink dolly called "Baby Ashira," named by Ann and often referred to as one of her "kids."



It's important to note here that Ann has several "kids" who she lives with in her "apartment in Florida" (Orieyenta, do me a favor and check on her once in a while?).

As you can see, Andy is a prototypical 'boy after a girl', very happy and comfortable with Ann's stuff, similar to my own childhood as the youngest and only girl, but in the reverse - handed-down, red-markered G.I. Joes alongside my own Barbies.

As long as it doesn't get crowded, I don't have too many qualms about what my kids take into bed. Whatever gets us through those Raggedy nights!