Service to Others

My goal tonight is to get to the point in this blog post where I explain what the title means.   This might not seem particularly challenging, but I  keep falling asleep while I'm writing.   I don't know what's happening.   I'm not particularly tired or behind on sleep.   I haven't taken a muscle relaxant or Benadryl or any other medication I would expect to make me groggy, and yet it keeps happening.

I try and keep awake.   I do things that should perk me up like walking around the room or getting something cold to drink.   Then as soon as I start writing again, in just a few sentences, I'm back to nodding off.   And this is particularly frustrating because I'm trying to write a blog post that hangs together on a single topic thread.   Sometimes, depending on what I'm writing about, I start in one direction as an initial tangent with plans to converge on a second topic towards the end of the post and I need to be alert if I'm planning on writing anything that makes sense.

This post tonight is just that kind of post.   I'm writing about falling asleep while writing, which is completely unrelated to "service to others."   For two days I've been wondering if I had started associated sleeping while sitting on my bed writing a blog post.   This has happened to me before.  For instance, I can't stay awake for a plane to take off.  I am always asleep just before we accelerate and take off.   I fall asleep just before and wake up just after we take off.   And while that's all well and good as it doesn't interfere with anything, I can't start connecting writing this blog post with sleep in my mind.

For the last two days the urge to sleep was so strong I ended up just trying to get something, anything, whatever it was I thought I might be writing about down, so I could press Publish and go to sleep.  I didn't proofread.   I just hoped it made some sort of sense.   I hoped it didn't sound like I was drunk.  I wasn't.  I don't drink much anymore.   Used to, but I managed to escape from that vice.

But guess what?  Right after I published the post I wasn't sleepy anymore.   Hence my concern.   This is good though,  I've been rambling on with the preamble to this post, making it more wordy and longer than I otherwise might, because I'm waiting to see if I get sleepy.   I'm not tired.   This means I'm going to keep typing.   I suppose I should go ahead and get to the service post topic.   I've alluded to it enough.  I'm a bit concerned it's going to be a bit anti-climactic, but as long as I make it to the end of the post without falling asleep writing, mission accomplished for the night.

Today my daughter and I were doing some food labeling.   I really need to do this more often because there are so many things in this house and in her life she just has no idea about without asking for help.   Today was one of those steps to help her be more independent.

My daughter is responsible for putting a snack in her backpack every evening before school the next morning.   It is easier for her and for her school if we just send in something pre-packaged.  She doesn't have dietary restrictions, she likes junk food, doesn't have a hyperactivity problem with sugar intake, and she goes to public school where pre-packaged food that doesn't need to be refrigerated and can stay in her backpack for several days, is ideal.

The problem is, all the little packages look, I mean feel alike.  My daughter was holding them up to Alexa and asking, "Alexa, what product am I holding?"   Alexa would ask her to turn the package around and then would tell her, "You have Golden Oreo Minis."  She would put that package with the others of that kind together and then move on to the next packet.

After the Bunny Grahams, Goldfish, Chips Ahoy cookies, Nutella dipping sticks, and raisins had been sorted she was going to put some braille letter stickers on the package so she would be able to tell later what was what when looking through the big bin of snacks.

There were at the bottom of the bin four fortune cookies from some Chinese delivery meals most likely.   My son, daughter, and I decided we could get rid of them right then and there and not have to worry about how to label them in braille.

We each opened our cookies and took a different path through the cookie/fortune process.   My daughter ate the cookie and ignored the fortune.   I opened my cookie, ate the cookie, and would probably have thrown the little strip of paper away if my son hadn't asked about what mine said.   My son, opened his cookie, at a bit of the cookie, gave the rest of the cookie to me to eat, read the fortune and then handed it to me, saying it was a good fortune for me, he thought.

The fortune read, "Your career is moving more and more towards service to others."  I read it and laughed.   I laughed because my son didn't mean for it to be funny, but it was.   He and his sister have heard a good bit recently, "your father and I are not your servants; if you want more water in your water bottle, you can get it yourself."   That, or any number of other similar statements.   Maybe my son really thinks my career is in service to others.   It sure feels like I'm in service to my children some days.   I am betting all parents feel like this at times.

Hey, I'm still awake!

The Big Boy Update:  There are some things you just don't ask a lady.   You all, as adults, know that list of no-no questions without even thinking about them.   My son, however, does not.   For example, just the other day my son said: "Nana, are you pregnant?"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and I were walking the dog around the block a few days ago.   There was a house we drive by frequently that has a lawnmower robot.   If you know what a Roomba is and can imagine one mating with a lawnmower, the thing it would spit out is what grooms our neighbor's yard several days a week.   I mentioned it to my daughter and she got rather stiff, saying, "I'm afraid of lawnmowers."  I told her, "me too."   She said, "yeah, but we have different reasons."  I didn't get a chance to ask what her reasons were, and I have all ideas I wouldn't get a fully clarified reason, but I can imagine that to her, lawnmowers are a big unknown and could be very scary.