Another reason that I am not getting enough rest is the current climate in our home. Not the emotional climate, but the temperature and humidity. With Maxine in our bedroom, we keep the temperature a little high, and the humidifier on all night. Makes it a bit hard for me to get to sleep at night, and if I wake up, I have to get out of the bedroom.
Last night, for example, Maxine went to sleep around 11 p.m. Not bad at all. She then woke up around 3 a.m. Pretty standard. Usually, she goes back to sleep after feeding, burping, and a change of diapers, but last night it didn't work out that way. Around 4:30 or 5, Horyon asked me to get up and make formula for Maxine. Usually she breast-feeds, but after being awake for a long time, under stressful conditions, Horyon doesn't provide enough milk for Maxine to sleep soundly, so they resort to formula.
I popped right out of bed with a smile on my face and a song in my heart, and made formula. (Would you believe a grin and a whistle? How about a grimace and a rhythmic groan?) This time I managed to do it without dropping anything on the floor, or making any kind of mess, and I actually got the temperature right the first time. I was quite proud of myself, or at least I am now in retrospect. I went back to bed, and the spot I was laying on immediately became too hot to be comfortable. So I rolled over. That cool spot lasted about a minute. So I rolled onto Horyon's side, as she was busy feeding Maxine anyway. That lasted a bit longer, as she had been up long enough for it to totally cool off, but eventually it got uncomfortable, too. My original spot had cooled down some, so I rolled into it.
After completing this circuit a couple of times, I realized that I was simply not getting back to sleep. I got up and went to the bathroom, and felt great. Not because of the physical process of urinating, but because the bathroom is the coldest room in our house.
(Just a side note here: in every Korean apartment I have lived in, the bathroom was always the most poorly insulated room. In one apartment, it was so cold that it actually hurt my feet to take a shower in the winter. The apartment we are in now, however, is a big improvement. It has a bath and a half, and it is only the half-bath, off the master bedroom, that is cold. The full bath actually has heating in the floor like the rest of the house. Progress indeed!)
I went back to the bedroom, and told Horyon that if I were to sleep, it would have to be in a different room or with the bedroom window open. So off to the sofa I went.
By that time, it was around five in the morning, and my eight o'clock wake-up call came pretty darn quickly. Fortunately for me, Horyon only allows me to "snooze" past a certain point, then she nags me awake. Sometimes I miss my clanging alarm clock, unused since Maxine arrived. It was the only alarm clock I could find in this city that actually has old-fashioned bells on top, which are rung by a small mallet bouncing back and forth between them. It's not a wind-up, but it's the next best thing. Even ticks loudly, like a wind-up. And when the alarm goes off, it wakes up the neighbors. It's that kind of loud. Somehow, for me that is less annoying than the "beep beep beep beep" of digital clocks. In the States, I like to use a clock radio tuned to NPR, but here I think it would be a bad start to my day to wake up listening to Korean talk-radio.
So last night was also not so great. Not typical of our nights here, but not exceptional, either.
The last tiring thing is a whole different issue. One which I do not care to tackle this late into an already long post. So I bid you all goodnight.
Peace,
Rob
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