Still not dead!

Just wanted to post again to say I am still not dead, and I am totally going to post soon.

This has been a pretty messed up month here in Susanland.

First of all, our darling daughter has been sleeping poorly for about a month straight. This is apparently called the “9 Month Sleep Regression” in some circles. We brought it up when we were at the pediatrician, even, and she said that she hears stories like that all the time — baby who sleeps through the night like an angel suddenly is waking up a half-dozen times a night around 9 months. Sources I found on teh intarwebz link it to crawling and beginning to learn to walk — basically it’s neurological overstimulation. And if the internet says it, it must be true. Whatever the case, BEING SLEEP DEPRIVED SUCKS.

We have good reason to be hopeful on this front. But I’m not going to say more because I have this stupid paranoia of jinxing things.

Then I’ve had an avalanche of work deadlines, some of them particularly urgent because my productivity has been lower than usual because I’ve been sleep deprived. See how that works?

Then we’ve had an ongoing battle with our health insurance company over the darling daughter’s acid reflux medication. Don’t say anything, you folks living in countries with decent healthcare financial systems. Not. A. Word.

And then the Pets patch came out, which of course required a major mod update, and a bunch of my CC was borked. I have a couple of bizarre screen shots of Charles sleeping in his borked futon. ModTheSims linked to a lovely conversion tool that would fix the CC, but it of course only runs on Windows. I tried to run it using the Mac .Net framework, but it couldn’t find granny2.dll, which was sitting in the same folder. I could never find a permissions issue or anything to account for the problem. So I had to find a Windows box. I have a Windows 7 tablet that I use for work, but for some reason it didn’t have the .Net framework on it at all, and when I installed it, it triggered a bunch of updates that took over an hour to complete. Plus, slate-style tablet computers running straight Windows 7 are just a terribly bad idea, and the computer is pretty hard to use. But I did get it all updated and have put the fixed CC back in my game.

So, the bottom line is that when I would normally be either playing or posting I’ve been, in order of priority:

1. Sleeping
2. Working
3. Screaming (sometimes literally) at the insurance company
3. Upgrading my game

I am so about to put up an heir poll! It’s so awesome to be ready to move to Gen 4. Most of my readers have gone through 2 Gens while I’ve been working on one. And I’d blame it on my incredibly detailed blogging, but I’ve only played about on Sim-week farther than I’ve blogged. The real issue is that one just doesn’t get as much time to play with a baby.

But I have even picked out the screenshots for the next post.

0 thoughts on “Still not dead!

  1. Well I like your detailed blogging. I really do! Better than just rushing through a generation to get it finished, but not showing how the characters really are like.

    And poor you, so many things apparently suck right now…good luck with all of that! We will keep waiting for your next chapter, no matter what.

  2. I like the detailed blogging too!

    I haven't heard of that sleep regression thing but it sounds like a real pain! Most of the kids I've looked after either just don't sleep at all, and stay that way, or sleep through pretty much straight away and stay that way.

    What I normally do is get the mother to put the baby to sleep if they won't sleep for me. But you ARE the mother – that must be so frustrating! Hopefully things get better for you, hugs.

  3. That's right, Courtney. I forgot you've been a live-in nanny. I can't imagine what kids are like that won't sleep at all. Our little girl has slept like an angel — straight through the night with no feedings since 3.5 months. We knew we were blessed. But then about five weeks ago, she started waking up. Then she started waking up a LOT. And sometimes she won't go back to sleep for over an hour. My husband and I trade off dealing with her in the night, but nobody sleeps well when she's not sleeping.

    This week has been quite good, except that she got sick and slept REALLY badly for two nights. So it was four good nights, two horrible nights, and now two good nights again. We barely know which end is up. But I'm at least getting a sense that there might not be an end. I was really starting to think that maybe we'd done something to contribute to the sleep problems.

    The truth is that I think these are just the dues you pay. Babies are just too random for everything to be good all the time. But this phase has my permission to go away ANY TIME.

  4. I like the details, too!! It's more of a story instead of just a list of what Sims can do and the results. Question: I got the Pets expansion as well, and I'm having lagging issues. Know anything about that, and how it might be fixed?

    Oh, and thank you SO much for leading me onto the Family Echo site — LOVE it. I spent about three hours making my extended family tree…because I am a nerd. >_< Good luck with the insurance slash sleep deprivation issues; can't wait for the poll! 😀

  5. I like the detail, too, and I'm happy to wait for a good chapter!

    I feel for you on the sleep deprivation. My oldest went through a period between 6 weeks old and 6 months old where she work up EVERY 45 MINUTES around the clock. I thought I was going to go insane… I can see why sleep deprivation is used as a torture technique. As it is (with 3 kids), I haven't slept through the night in over 6 years. I sometimes fantasize about sleeping…

  6. DragonWife: Good heavens! Your son woke up every 45 minutes for five months? That's horrifying.

    Sleep deprivation has gotten better over all. Insurance issues have gotten worse. Or at least they have added more stress. It does look like our daughter will get some more meds before the current supply runs out.

    Callenders: I don't actually have the Pets expansion. My game just got the automatic patch update that always comes out when a new expansion is released. Everything I've heard so far is that Pets has improved performance, so I'm at a loss of what to suggest. Do you use mods of custom content? There were major changes to data structures with this expansion, so you probably need to take out anything you're not currently using and check for updates to your mods. Anything not explicitly marked as being Pets-compliant probably isn't and could be causing you big trouble.

    I'm glad you're enjoying Family Echo! Do you have your family tree up? I'd love to see it.

  7. I do have some mods; most of them are Twallan's and I updated them right away…I also have some custom content, I think, but I'm not really sure how to remove it to check if it's causing the problems. From the internet, I have gotten that there are a few people experiencing the lagging issues, but not a whole lot. SO…I guess I'll just have to be patient. Thanks for the advice!

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