Category Archives: sleep
Slacker Parents
So I’ve been intermittently working on a few post-drafts lately but the majority of my bloggy time allotment has gone toward slowly working on the site revamp. It’s sad but true that if I treated this venue more seriously and really put some effort into it, the overall web design would be much snappier. But as I treat this as something akin to self-therapy / entertainment, I’m afraid that if it becomes too much like work, it’ll kill my desire to even bother. This is, incidentally, one of the reasons why I never proof, and rarely edit/correct actual posts either. I really want to focus on that stream of consciousness for the most part, and let it exist in its natural state. This often results in less than perfect style and form. But hell, I’m good with that.
WELL, that was a really long explanation (excuse?) for my anemic writing efforts lately. I REALLY do have to get cracking on that kindergarten post, or before we know it, she’ll be off to college! Oh well. On to the good stuff!
So over the last few months, the little genius has naturally undergone a bit of a circadian rhythm shift…fortunately for us this has been fairly concordant with the onslaught of a very demanding school schedule. It has, however, altered our family weekend rhythm a bit, because she has been getting up earlier than her poor tired parents typically do. I needsssss my weekend R&R, people!
Fortunately, we gradually devised a natural solution to the issue by embracing our slacker parenting skillz, and empowering the little genius to self-serve her early morning needs while we continue peacefully snoozing. She was already good on getting herself dressed (check), and recently learned how to master the DVR system to load up her fave recordings if desired (check), often prefers to play with her downstairs toys in the morning anyway (check), and she loves to periodically graze rather than eat specifically scheduled meals (double-check!). So all that was really necessary to put these components together was to gently urge her to go free-range in the mornings and ensure that she could access appropriate (and at least semi-healthy) snacks and beverages. Voila!!!
So far, this has worked out pretty damn well, if I do say so myself. Often she will let us sleep an extra 60-90 minutes, and I have completely refused to allow even a smidge of guilt to disturb my conscience, because I have been hard selling myself on the idea that we are “encouraging a healthy level of independence”. Muahahahaha, who’s the evil genius NOW?!
However, we have run into a few small pitfalls that required adjustment. Such as the morning when she felt it appropriate to snack on about half a jar of peanut butter, spoonful by spoonful. Apparently generalizing portion size for most types of foods did not click in her brain when it came to jar and spoon. Go figure. And then one morning she was breakfasting on grapes, and felt compelled to come in our bedroom and give me a play-by-play on every grape (look Mom, a TEENY TINY one!)
So, all of that background to give context for today’s experience: K got up as normal and went off to do her thing. About an hour and a half later, she came in to talk to me just as I was getting up, and so I gave her a hug and asked her if she had already eaten anything for breakfast. She responded “oh yes Mom, I had a slice of cold pizza.”
It took a few seconds for my barely awake brain to let THAT sink in…my first thought being something like, “oh god, she’s already turning into a college student!”. All I could think to reply at that moment was a shocked, “you ate cold pizza for breakfast?”
To which she elaborated, “well, yes, I got the pizza slice out of the fridge and I ate MOST of it, but not the crust part. I went back to the fridge to put it back in the box but it was too hard to get in there so I decided to throw the crust away in the trash. Is that OK?”
If I hadn’t still been mentally asleep at that point, I might have laughed hysterically at her explanation, but as it was, I was still more dumbfounded than anything else.
Well, ultimately I guess this is proof that she really IS taking that independence thing to heart, because this is the kid who wouldn’t even skip wearing socks to bed without asking for ‘permission’ first! And lest anyone wonder, I solemnly swear we are not uptight control freaks….the kid has always been extraordinarily attuned to routines, norms, rules and very precisely observes such behavior systems. She has an incredibly analytical mind for such things and any deviation will prompt countless questions until her need to understand is satisfied.
But apparently, eating cold pizza for breakfast was just the thing to inspire her burgeoning independence!
I’m not sure if this should make me proud, or horrified. 
Bedbugs, Brain Collapse, & Birthdays
Long time, no type.
Mainly, I’ve been riding the wave of gleeful post-homework life and spending very little computer time doing anything that requires significant cognitive processing. Not to mention that the last few weeks at work have been tremendously busy, and insanely stressful what with top-down administrative reorganizations, severe budget cuts, and the like. So needless to say, I haven’t been in much of a bloggy frame of mind.
However, I feel the need to issue a report on our grand vacation in early June; a whirlwind trip that started with my #1 niece’s high school graduation and ended with a crazy 5-day stint in…..you guessed it…..Las Vegas. The Vegas leg of the trip was a long-awaited family celebratory extravaganza to ring in a host of decade-centric birthdays (ahem, yes, I wasn’t the only one with a milestone this year.) One of my nephews, my brother, and my dear hubby all hit “decade” birthdays between mid April and mid June. So naturally we all felt the need to hoop it up in sin city.
But before I get ahead of myself too far, let me reel back a bit and describe the first segment of the trip. My dear eldest niece, so lovely in body and spirit, was graduating with honors from a tremendously rigorous International Baccalaureate-affiliated school the first weekend of June. I was very excited to attend, particularly to hear her speak at the graduation ceremony. However, seeing as said ceremony was scheduled to begin quite early in the morning, at roughly a 2-hour drive from our house, we opted to drive up the Friday before and meet up with GMom to share a hotel room.
Considering that we also had to plan ahead/pack for the Vegas trip, get the pets settled, load the car, feed the kid, and a million other things after an already-long day of work, we didn’t get out of town until almost 8pm, which put our arrival into a rather late-ish timeframe. After unloading our overnight gear and securing a late night snack courtesy of the only open business in the area — Circle K — I started prepping the little genius for bed. I left her in the hotel bathroom to marinate in the shower for a few moments while I went to unpack her jammies and get the bed ready. Upon reaching for a pillow, what did I see but a tiny little bug on the pillow!
Now, not that I travel all that much, but you’d have to live in a deep cave anymore these days not to be aware of ye olde modern hotel bedbug epidemic. Being a bonafide bug-o-phobe already, of course my mind leapt to the possibility of bedbugs, although the little specimen was very tiny. I asked FF and Uncle Bubba (also sharing the room) to give it an eyeball, and in the course of examining that and other pillows, they located a much larger and more suspicious looking critter, which we caught in a plastic cup. At that point, with frantic smartphone image Googling underway, we felt rather alarmed and certain that we hit the unlucky jackpot of a bedbug-infested room.
And honestly, the front desk wasn’t all that much help…they offered to move us to a different room, but that wasn’t very reassuring considering that all of us had horrific images of bringing home our very own bedbug buddies to our respective domiciles, never to be pest-free again. This was particularly unsettling to FF and I, considering that a few years ago we suffered through an epic, almost yearlong flea war at our old crappy apartment. And believe me, we tried everything, to no avail. Moving out WAS the final solution. So needless to say, we are pretty particularly picky when it comes to bug issues.
So our troops did a quick huddle and we decided to relocate to another hotel (by this time nearly 1am), yet unfortunately the only affordable place reasonably nearby was a 30 minute drive away. Ugh. However, despite our collective exhaustion, this seemed a better option than potentially offering ourselves up as blood donors to the native fauna. The little genius was taking everything in stride pretty well, despite some confusion and tiredness. We repacked our overnight gear and shuffled back down to the van. Unfortunately however, during the baggage and kid-loading insanity, we managed to lock a) the kid b) all our stuff and c) the keys, snugly in the van.
Oh shit.
So yes, friends and neighbors, we stood outside a bedbug-ridden hotel in a sleepy small hamlet at 1am shouting instructions through a closed window to our frantically crying daughter on how to escape her snug, safe, 5-point carseat harness with the child-resistant latch so that she could unlock the van for us. Totally not one of my proudest moments. Fortunately the little genius is a trooper and she calmed down and persevered enough to get us out of the fiasco. After that, we hit the highway and about an hour later we all collapsed into an exhausted slumber.
So the management did call and talk to Gmom the next day (she had made the reservation) and were properly apologetic and all that crap, issuing refunds and free night coupons ad nauseam. And a few days after that, they emailed a copy of their pest company report, predictably denying any bedbug issues but admitting the presence of some “carpet beetles”. Well, I appreciate them sharing the report and all but I gotta say that I’m still not convinced and I don’t think they actually examined the critter we captured and showed to the front desk staff.
SO, needless to say the next morning came very early and as for my little family pod, we reluctantly decided to skip the main ceremony and let the little genius continue to get some much-needed rest. We did attend the post-ceremony graduation party and it was a lot of fun, particularly when my niece “unwrapped” a very exciting present: a car! K thought that was just about the coolest and most exciting thing she’d ever heard of, and I’m pretty sure she will not forget it, and thus expectantly hold it over her parents’ heads until her own high school graduation. Sigh.
So with that dramatic report out of the way, I’m happy to say that the Vegas phase of the trip was tons of fun and very smooth sailing with no buggy or incompetent parenting episodes. We bowled, we saw movies, we gambled, we swam, we played a lot of cards in the sumptuous top-floor suite that K2 & family occupied, and generally a great time was had by all. The young guys (uncle bubba, my #1 nephew and #2 nephew) camped out in the 2nd suite bedroom and turned it into an X-box blazin’, Dr. Pepper guzzling, stinky man cave. They loved it.
FOUR LAYERS!
The guys went to see Cirque’s new Elvis show one night, and the next night the girls went to see Menopause: The Musical. Which was, um, quite an experience and has given me a slightly worried perspective on my future hormonal event horizon. (Is it too early to already be experiencing the whole brain collapse thing? ’cause lately….) Seriously though, the show was quite a laugh and a lot of fun to see with Gmom and Aunt D (K2′s mom).
Speaking of Gmom, she brought some serious magic to the table and managed to somehow make an amazingly elaborate cake in a hotel mini-kitchen for us birthday folks! Totally awesome. (and delicious!)
All in all, a trip (and birthday) to remember!
Sleeping with Strangers
Or alternately titled:
How I Regained Some Perspective by Having the Shit Scared Out of Me
So, let me tell you about last week.
Tuesday night, I was burning the midnight oil (again) trying to finish up my apocalyptic capstone proposal paper. And still moping about the whole capstone-requirement-program change thing. I never feel very adult or proud when I find myself moping, but there you go. At any rate, around 2am as I was furiously typing away by the glow of my desk lamp, and plugged into iTunes via earbuds, I heard a strange sound, like a barking dog. SO I took out an earbud and realized that the little genius was awake, and coming over to my desk while doing some kind of schnauzer impression. I couldn’t figure out what kind of subversive midnight game she had in mind, but as she got closer it became apparent that it was no game — the poor kid was coughing in a way I’d never heard before. It truly sounded like a barking dog, but she didn’t seem very bothered by it…just tired, so I sent her to my room so she could snuggle with an already-snoring FF. By the time I joined them at 4am or so, it was apparent she had a fever and was very restless, so I got her some acetaminophen and changed her out of her sweaty PJs. And of course, we kept her home from school on Wednesday.
Wednesday, she was chipper and playful most of the day, albeit still running a fever of about 100° and coughing a little bit here and there. We, the parental units, basically wrote it off as another minor cold and didn’t think much about it. Prior to bedtime on Wednesday, we gave her some ibuprofen and she went to sleep with nary a whimper. About an hour later, I heard her crying over the baby monitor, which is unusual because 95% of the time when she wakes up at night, she pops out of her room to get us / lay down with us / get a drink /whatever – no drama involved. So I ran in there to check on her, to find her cough-barking, gagging, choking, heaving, spitting, and otherwise having a major freak-out. I grabbed a nearby towel and did the best I could to help her calm down and get past the coughing/gagging fit, but it was difficult because she was absolutely panicked and in between barking fits kept repeating over and over “Mommy, help me! help me!”. Just recalling her sheer terror and typing about it makes my stomach and toes do a little trauma-induced tango.
By that time FF had arrived on the scene and was offering what support he could, all the while reflecting my own panic in his eyes. After a few minutes (but felt like an eternity) the worst of the coughing passed, her breathing improved, and she began to calm down a little. The fit was so intense that she broke dozens and dozens of tiny blood vessels (petechiae) across her face, giving her cherubic cheeks the impression of adorable freckles. It was also apparent that her fever was still quite high – between 102° and 103°, and so I turned to FF and said “I think we better make a trip to the ER tonight”, to which my poor daughter responded “MOM AM I GOING TO DIE?”. If that doesn’t break your heart, just about nothing will.
So this is the point where I wish I could say that we bundled her up, went to the ER, got her checked out, received a breathing treatment and reassurance, and we all went home to bed, happily ever after. But, not so much. See, even though there is a 24-hour pediatric urgent care fairly near our house, I reasoned it might be best to take her to the dedicated pediatric ER at the hospital where our pediatricians have physician privileges. This particular pediatric ER is also highly regarded in our city and I had every expectation for excellent care for our daughter.
We got there about 11:30pm, went through the check-in and paperwork process and were sent to the waiting room, where we discovered about 30 or so other families in various stages of waiting. I probably should have been more concerned about the crowded conditions, but I’ve been in busy ERs before and still received pretty efficient care, so again, didn’t think much of it. K, of course, simply wanted to introduce herself to all the other children and go check out the play area. (cringe.) She would not be dissuaded, and her breathing/coughing were fine at the moment, so we went exploring, and within moments managed to get chastised by the security guard for making too much noise in the play area (WTF – wasn’t this a pediatric ER?). After an hour or so, we finally got called back to triage and the nurse perfunctorily checked her oxygen levels, listened to her chest briefly, and inquired about her symptoms. She declared that it sounded like a classic case of croup and that the kiddo would probably need a breathing treatment and told us to go back to the waiting room, and to return to triage if she started any more coughing fits. Sounds reasonable, right? So yeah, that’s what we did. And it was rather difficult to contain the kid, strung out as she was on adrenaline and exhaustion and being in an area with lots of hyper children, but we did the best we could. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. I tried to track down a vending machine or cafeteria to get the poor kid some juice or milk, but none were available at that time of night, in that part of the hospital.
To make a long story short(ish), we waited over SIX hours. Fortunately she never had any more major coughing fits, and she made friends with a similarly strung-out 18 month old girl and they entertained each other for several hours. My daughter, of course, outlasted every other child in the hospital for sheer willpower to stay awake. One by one, starting around 3am, the kids and parents started falling asleep on benches, chairs, strollers, and in some cases, even the floor. Around 4am, I insisted that she lay down on a bench and try to rest a bit, snuggled up with her stuffed Valentine monkey, and her fuzzy purple bathrobe as pillow and blanket. After 45 minutes of wiggling, she finally dozed off. After another hour of waiting with no further communication about our likelihood of ever seeing a doctor, we finally reasoned that the poor kid would probably be better served resting at home for the mere 3 hours remaining until our regular pediatric office was open. So we checked ourselves out and went home.
The doctor’s office agreed by phone that it was croup and told us to bring her in if she had any more serious episodes or continued to have a fever beyond a week. The good news is that she is fine and never had any more major coughing/breathing episodes, although she did have a fever and continued to wake up 2-3 times a night with SOME coughing for another 5 days. Oh and she basically went on a food strike for about 10 days, subsisting only on water, juice, and the occasional cup of instant-breakfast-fortified chocolate milk.
Now, I realize and respect that it is peak season for all things viral, and that the pediatric ER is very popular, and that there were probably many other children who were sicker and more urgently needed care than my daughter. What I AM still upset about is the basic lack of communication and measures taken to help people deal with the long wait. For example, when we checked in, there was no mention of the likely LONG wait. Nor did the triage nurse communicate this fact. Nor did anyone from the administrative staff even bother to check in with people who had been waiting 6, 7, 8 or more hours to convey the situation and offer alternatives. Further, if you are going to have dozens of families waiting overnight for care, would it be a significant financial burden to offer a pillow and blanket to the poor kids sleeping on the bare tile floor? Not to mention the overall messiness of the waiting area — no visible trash cans, with empty wrappers and coffee cups on every horizontal surface. And if you aren’t going to provide a 24 hour cafeteria, for the love of god, please provide a vending machine for desperate parents to buy graham crackers and juice.
So, all of this to say that we had a total and complete hospital FAIL and we won’t be going back to that particular location unless there were no alternatives.
What little good may have come of this…is that despite my internal second-guessing monologue (should we go to the hospital? should we go to urgent care? wait and see?) and fear that I would be perceived as a hysterical hypochondriac mom, I am pleased that I took action without delay or doubt. As ridiculous as it sounds, this is something I have worried about, dating back to those horrifying first days at home with the little genius and not knowing what to do about her incessant crying and/or if she was sick, dehydrated, part devil-spawn, whatever. I had this paralyzing fear that calling the doctor after hours, or going to the hospital, etc without serious and obvious need would make people think me an idiot, or hysterical, or both. I’ve slowly taught myself to reject those low-confidence gut reactions and let go of worrying about what others think, and I guess you could say this experience was a little test to see if I could walk the talk.
I think I passed.
Director
Well, I got another fascinating glimpse into my daughter’s psyche yesterday, from a conversation that went something like this:
K: Mom, I had good dreams from the director in my brain last night.
CM: what? you have a director in your brain?
K: oh yes, he is my tiny little director friend and he lives in my brain.
CM: really, that is very interesting. What does he do?
K: oh, he takes the dreams and puts them on the screen in my brain so I can watch them.
CM: oh wow, that’s really cool! [trying SO hard to keep a straight face...]
K: yes, he is very, very tiny and he has a little computer in there that he uses to put the dreams on the screen. And there is a girl director in there too. And they are going to have a tiny baby someday too.
CM: that is great honey, thanks for telling me about the director in your brain.
K: Sure, mom! I’m a smart cookie, right?
CM: Absolutely.
Did You Hear a Bell Ring?
I guess this is how blogs die a slow, lingering, death and get their angel wings? Through the author’s careless inattention, unmotivation, and allergy to computer time? Well, I guess if so, then you dear readers can thank graduate school for the sorry state of things. Alright, I can only shift just so much of the blame, but honestly, I’ve been out of school for about three weeks now and I can barely, and I mean barely drum up enough forced attention span to sit in front of the computer to pay bills. (Work, is of course outside this artificial barrier, since I’d be out of a job in mere days if I refused my technological leashes at work.) Honestly, I don’t even know how it is possible to both love and hate something so equally. I mean hell, I shouldn’t complain about the amazing opportunity I have to go back to school and learn really interesting things, but holy bejeezus, it saps my will to live some days. Even though I am still pretty shell-shocked from this academic year, I am trying to focus on two important positive things: a) I get the summer off (WOOHOO) and b) ONLY NINE CREDIT HOURS LEFT TO GO! I might just survive this thing afterall.
So yeah I’ll agree, it’s pretty contradictory to be all “yay! 1 year blogaversary / empowerment / discipline / accomplishment / blah blah blah shit” and then just drop off the radar, but see paragraph #1, above. By the last week of the semester, my soul was bleeding out through my fingers every time I had to log onto the course system. I didn’t even bother checking my final grades for several weeks. Sorry, sorry state, people.
So I’ll try to tackle a series of “latest and greatest” posts to get back on track and we’ll see how things go. Not that there is really anything all that interesting to relay, but it’s my party and I’ll blog about it if I want to. So there. Of course the most interesting thing in my life is my little genius child so I think that’s a logical starting point. You’re welcome.
Dr. K. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Weird / Random Things She Throws My Way
Where to start? Well, she is on this side of four, and creeping up on the landmark age of FIVE this November. She is feisty, funny, and strong-willed as ever, precocious-ly talkative (seriously, her verbal functions are off the chart according to her preschool). At her last checkup she measured at the 75th percentile for height and she seems to be continuing in that growth pattern because when shopping for summer clothes, we had to go pretty much with all size 6′s because the 5′s were already too short in most cases. I packed away her size 5 long pants and shirts for fall but I sincerely doubt they’ll fit for long. Oh well, it means she’s healthy, right?
Which is pretty amazing considering that the kid never eats! OK, that’s not strictly true but she is still pretty picky and will go for 2-3 days at a stretch eating practically nothing. She has recently started eating chicken (as long as it is crispy, boneless, and fried to an acceptable shade of golden deliciousness (sigh). At least it is something new that she actually likes, so I am trying to feel encouraged. She is doing better with eating fruit, and willingness to try tastes of new foods, but still pretty much sticks to her usual routine of pasta, cheese, bread, milk, crackers, and yogurt. She has recently decided that fettucine alfredo is pretty much the cat’s meow at italian restaurants, after a yearlong consideration period of the merits of alfredo sauce for dipping her breadsticks in. I guess it passed the test or something because now she’ll eat it on pasta too, on occasion. And the girl absolutely LOVES garlic bread. She’ll even ignore a sprinkling of parsley on garlic bread, whereas you would think it toxic poison on any other lesser foodstuffs.
She has approximately 3,908,214 toys (I’ve counted) but I find it difficult to retire / donate any of them because she plays with EVERYTHING. She is the most creative, imaginative child I’ve ever known when it comes to the variety of toys she integrates into her play. I so look forward to the day she moves off to college so I can reclaim even one floor of our house to be semi-toy-free. Dinosaurs, stuffed animals, and pretend kitchen toys remain key favorites, but she really is an equal opportunity toy-spreader.
Ever since the loss of her beloved sleepytime Pooh bear (more about this in another post), she has taken to sleeping with a whole herd of critters on her bed. She generally has about 10-15 piled on there every night, but only 1 or 2 favorites are worthy enough to cart back and forth between her room and ours when she wakes in the middle of the night. Pretty crazy.
Yeah, she still wakes up every night and drops by for a visit (AKA taking over 2/3 of the bed and methodically trying to kick her father into permanent male sterility). So, she is sleeping somewhat better than a few months ago where we could barely get her to stay down for an hour. Lately she has been doing pretty well in her room until 4 or 5 am, which is pretty reasonable for her. We tossed around ideas such as draconic sleep training, rules and regulations, bribes, etc etc but when she started sleeping a bit better again, we let the notion slide. Mostly because when it comes right down to it, when I have a bad dream, a bad day, or watch something depressing on TV where kids are hurt, there is something so precious and comforting about having the chance to cradle her noggin in the crook of my arm, kiss her forehead in her sleep, and go to sleep to the sound of her peaceful breathing. I just figure that she is growing up fast enough that I don’t need to make a war out of this right now, even though at times it can be maddening…the sweet, good moments outweigh the rest. For now.
Her vision is much improved with just a few months of wearing glasses and she will most likely not have to go through eye patching or surgery. We are relieved and glad that we caught the vision problems in time to prevent further strain. She still looks totally cute as a bug in her glasses, and she takes really diligent care of them. She has been so mature and easygoing about the whole thing; it really swells my motherly pride factor.
We have been letting her grow her hair out longer because she wanted to start wearing it in ponytails. It is longer than shoulder length now and looks super cute when put up in ponytails or clips, but like a wild bushman otherwise. She prefers the wild bushman look about 5 days out of 7. Sigh.
How is it that they leave so many details out of the parenting manual? No one told me that I’d be called upon to make emergency trips to restaurant or store bathrooms to deal with urgent problems such as “really itchy buns!” Really kid, REALLY? Or that three month stretch when she’d randomly get the urge to throw up after eating (we think it was a mild acid reflux problem) which was super! fun! to deal with at restaurants. Usually after purging, she’d then want to go back to the table and order up some dessert. Um?
Preschool ended in early May and the last-day party was a hoot. Still not exactly sure what lies ahead for her schooling future but we’re still working on it. For now, she gets the summer off just like Mom and has been having a pretty good time. We are looking for some supplementary extracurricular activities to keep her busy along with weekly summer gymnastics.
Speaking of gymnastics, holy cow, I had no idea that a spring gymnastics graduation ceremony for 4 and 5 year old kids could be so hysterical / dramatic / entertaining / cute! They did it mock-olympic style and K and K2 got to show off all their mad skillz. Well, K mostly, since K2 was suffering an attack of performance shyness, but she was still cute as all get out. I think we’ll keep signing her up for the next 5 or 6 years just so I can keep going to the graduation ceremonies, hahaha. Yep, am pathetic example of humanity that is extremely easily amused.
She has a big-girl bike now and is learning to master it. She especially likes taking certain stuffed animals for rides and pedaling around in her gymnastics leotard, sparkley flip flops, and wild bushman hair. Hey, why not?
K has been getting into movies with nuanced storylines and more complex characters, and she has an attention span like a steel trap. We saw How to Train Your Dragon and Shrek in theater and she enjoyed both, especially the popcorn. She wants to see Despicable Me, but I’m not sure how appropriate that may be… She is watching less Noggin (AKA Nick Jr) and more Penguins of Madagascar, Fresh Beat Band, and food network shows with Mom and Dad. She is in love with Alton Brown, and rather enjoys Guy Fieri, too.
So, I guess that’s the latest and greatest with Dr. K. Strangelove. Every day seems to be a little mini roller coaster. She is a very intelligent, loving, generous, stubborn, and lovable kid and I think we’ll keep her for a few more years.
