Making Negatives into a Positive.

One good thing that has come out of my inability to sleep is being able to provide Yubo with a decent breakfast. Since there have been a number of times when I would still be awake to hear his alarm go off in the bedroom, I took the chance to get him something to eat since he would usually rush out of the house and not eat until lunch.

It started about a week ago when I didn't get much sleep at all. He didn't have to clock in until 8am, and even then, there wasn't anything scheduled for him first thing. So in my wide-awake state at around 7am, I went off to Noah's Bagels and picked up a box of bagels. I got home with about 10 minutes to spare before his alarm went off, and prepared a bagel for him.

Since I had 6 more bagels left for him, it was easy for me to make for him on the mornings when I was up earlier than he was.

Yesterday was a frustrating morning. His alarm went off around 3ish -- it was a surprise to me. I checked on him and he asked me to wait for his next two alarms to go off. When I heard the third alarm, I prepared is bagel. He wouldn't wake up, and the bagel eventually was left on his nightstand for an hour. In a huff, I put his drink back in the fridge and put the untouched bagel in a zip-lock bag in the fridge. Shortly after a little more of my nagging (which I tried to not make nagging, but it just happened that way), he finally got up, grabbed his drink and bagel from the fridge, and left without a word.

Shortly after, I sent a text message to him apologizing for my nagging. I reminded him that it would be better if he would just give me a more accurate time for when he needed to be up, or else to tell me that it wasn't so important for him to be up at a certain time. I also told him that it hurt me that he left his breakfast untouched for so long.

On a side note, I've known this about myself for a while, but I don't think Yubo's really caught on yet. When I prepare a meal for him, I get very upset if he ends up leaving it to get cold. I guess preparing meals is my way of showing affection, and when he leaves it for so long, I feel a little rejected. There was a time when Yubo's parents visited. In the days leading up to their arrival, I searched for recipes of dishes they might like, and desserts that didn't contain sugar -- things that I could make for them so that we would have been able to sit at the dining table and eat together instead of going out to a restaurant. It was disappointing to hear that they would much rather go to a restaurant, so I ended up not cooking anything at all during their visit. I know that they probably just didn't want to make trouble for me or anything, but I was sad feeling that they didn't want to eat what I wanted to cook for them.

Anyway, even though I was hurt yesterday, this morning I decided to change up Yubo's breakfast a little bit. It was a surprise again to hear his alarm go off so early. Since he only had two asiago bagels left, and I only have strawberry cream cheese, I decided to make an egg sandwich. The eggs haven't gone bad yet, and I don't think strawberry cream cheese would taste good on an asiago bagel. So this morning was a microwaved scrambled eggs with salt and pepper on an asiago bagel, toasted with butter and melted swiss cheese. He ended up adding mayo to it (yuck!), but said it tasted really good. I like seeing that he appreciates being brought breakfast in the morning. And he seems happy to receive it, probably because he usually goes without.

I think I'm getting a little better at not hanging on to my upsets. I can move on and still do loving things for him, but at the same time, I won't let issues go until they're resolved. However, I'm not as accusatory when approaching him. Letters and text messages are helping. Starting off with an apology for my huffy behavior seems to help him too. We haven't had a chance to sit down and talk about anything though, but I'm sure that will come when he's ready to try. So I just gently remind him of my requests to have him think about things I've asked and said.

Overall, it's been tough lately, but we're working through it. It might also be helping him that for the past few days, I've been asleep when he's been home. So even if it was an upsetting day, he can have some peace without me for a while. Whatever it is that we're doing, it's making a little progress for us. However, I'm anticipating when we'll actually talk about the notes I've given him.