It's Getting Better All the Time

Training children to be adult-like is difficult. Between sleep training and potty training, my patience is being tested.

We are, however, making progress. Last night the little guy slept from 7:15 pm to 11 pm, woke to eat, slept till 3:30 am, woke to eat, then woke up at 7 am. Not bad, eh? The night prior he clocked from 7:45 pm to midnight and then woke at 5 am to eat again. I think we're getting the hang of this.

My crazy daughter, the babe, went poo poo on the potty for the second time in three nights (she also removed the potty seat and put it around her face thinking it was funny...ha ha ha). We let her stay in a poopy diaper for about half an hour so she could feel how gross it is. By the time we put her on the potty for round 2, she seemed to understand how yucky it is to poo in your diaper. We have to master the potty by September or no school for the babe. And that would make us both sad!

Oh Those Nights

Well, I'm still super wiped out. We've done 3 nights with no feedings after the 11:30 pm meal. We've been making it until after 5 am, but it hasn't always been pretty. Last night was the least pretty with much too much crying and waking. I am going to use my super swaddler tonight, not allow a late afternoon nap (5:30 pm was a tad late for his last nap) and avoid my 5 pm (which was actually a 5:45 pm) tea break. Fingers crossed it will go better tonight. So much for quick fixes. Guess you can't learn to sleep in only 7 days after all.

Mother's Day, however, was lovely. I slept until 10 am, had some coffee and chocolate croissant on the porch with a book, enjoyed a 2 pm massage, and a BBQ celebration with my little family. It was a lovely day, and I'm grateful to my family for supporting my leisure. Now if only we could arrange for more than 1 Mother's Day a year??

Night 2 and 3

First of all, I love all your comments. Keep 'em comin.

Second, I think we're getting the hang of this whole "in your own room" thing. We've now made it through 3 whole nights with the little guy in his crib. We have also established a bit of a pattern already:

• 8:00 pm - asleep without much fuss
• 11/11:30 pm - wakes to eat
• 3:00/3:30 am - wakes to eat again
• 5:00/5:30 am - wakes to eat AGAIN
• 7:30/8:00 am - wakes for the day (and to eat, of course)

SO, tonight, to bring in Mother's Day in style, I'm going to knock out the 3:00/3:30 am feeding. I will give him his pacifier and check on him, but he will have to cry it out tonight. It could be bumpy, but it's what's best for all.

In other news, I just had the most awesome pre-Mother's Day dinner with my hubby. Fillet Mignon on the BBQ, sweet potato, salad, olives, french bread with fancy olive oil/balsamic vinegar. The kids up in bed, and us at the dining room table with a candle and some wine (well, Heineken for the husband and left over Chardonnay for moi). I've even got some cupcakes in the fridge for desert. Now it's time to kick it in the La Z Boy and catch up on Lost.

Happy Mother's Day!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Last night was the first night the little guy spent the whole night in his own crib in his own room. Major achievement. I left him to cry himself to sleep at 8:00 pm. This is what followed (after 30 painful minutes of screaming):

• 8:30 pm - asleep
• 10:15 pm - awake to eat
• 12:30 am - awake to eat
• 3:30 pm - awake to eat
• 5:00 am - awake to eat and a diaper change
• 8:30 am - awake for the morning

I am going to have to do the cry it out thing, or "extinction" as Dr. Weissbluth calls it. Or Richard Ferber's method. But I figured I'd start with getting him in his own room. Tonight I should start with the crying. It's just not easy as the babe's room is right next to the little guy's room and noise travels. The whole family may not be getting much rest for the next few days. But something has to give.

Today was our last day with the babysitter we've had since January. She's done the semester and is heading home for the summer. The babe decided to say goodbye in an inappropriate fashion.After refusing to help with clean up time, the babe got a time out (from the babysitter). The babe, who didn't like this, slapped the babysitter in the face. I'm too tired to even get into this today.

Bad Mama

My regular Tuesday morning babysitter (who we hired in January to help out) has a concussion from being dropped on her head at a bar last Saturday night (at least she's honest). She wanted to work less hours today so I told her not to bother coming in and to take care of her head. That left me alone with the kids for another gray, rainy day. I decided we'd go to a Gymboree class to get some of the babe's energy out. She has been bouncing off the walls with all the bad weather we've been having.

She had a great time at the class, but when it came time to go, she started acting like a brat. I dealt with the fact that she opened the bathroom door (attached to the play space) before I was done. I dealt with the fact that she ran off from me in the play space about 3 times before I got her to the entrance. I dealt with the fact that she then ran off into the art class when we were putting on our shoes. But I didn't deal so well when she ran off again and pulled off her rain jacket. The little guy was crying, I was lugging the car seat (with child in it), my very full diaper bag, and my grocery bags (I was about to hit the store in the complex) when she bolted for the last time. And out of my mouth came: "If you don't start listening to me, I'm going to jump off a bridge." OK, so maybe that wasn't the best thing to say in public (or private, for that matter). The Gymboree desk staff stopped what they were doing and gave me the "I'm going to call child protection services" look. That look is still bugging me 2 1/2 hours later.

I suppose it doesn't sound good to say that sort of thing. And the fact that my nerves are shot and my patience is gone is not an excuse. But I'm guessing those Gymboree staff don't have kids. If they do, they don't have 2 kids. If they do, their kids aren't rambunctious and challenging like the babe. I'll try to stop saying stuff like that, though. I agree that it isn't really nice for a Mama to say.

Some Random Updates

I broke down and swaddled the little guy last night. I thought it would be the answer to my prayers. It wasn't. He did a 3 hour stint (I gave up my shower so I could crash at the same time), and then proceeded to get up 3 or 4 more times before morning. Ugh. I am getting tired of writing about it and you've got to be tired of reading about it! Feel free to share your thoughts/suggestions with me.

In other news, our family has been bonding over BBQ. Last week we invested in our first real grown-up BBQ (a lovely Weber), and we celebrated with BBQ on Saturday and Sunday nights. All 4 of us sat at the table and had a few meals together. Eating with kids is rather distracted and at some points I had a baby hanging off me while I tried to consume overly dressed cheeseburgers. But that's OK, because it felt like we'd reached this new level of being a family of 4...we'd created our own family BBQ ritual that will carry us through the years. How lovely.

I had the kids Sunday morning (my husband also deserved a nice sleep in). After a little cartoon watching and Cheerio eating, I decided it was time to trim the babe's bangs. She's never been to a hairdresser and I've only ever cut her bangs when they get in her eyes. By yesterday, they were seriously in need of some snipping. A friend had just told me about an "easy" technique to cut children's bangs so I thought I'd give it a shot. It didn't work for us....most likely because the babe won't sit still. Needless to say, the bangs got shorter and shorter until I just had to stop. Those bangs are definitely out of her eyes now (similar to Jeannine Garofolo in one of my fave movies, Reality Bites). I take comfort in the knowledge that they will grow back. I was not destined to be a stylist of any kind.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

This is a shout out to my loving husband. By yesterday I was a complete mess. I was so exhausted I had just given up and accepted that I may not sleep more than a few hours at a time for the foreseeable future.

Our doc apt. on Thursday did not give me any answers other than I shouldn't start sleep training right after the little guy had just had 4 immunization shots. The doc said we need to do what "we feel comfortable with." I must admit to you that part of the little guy's excessively frequent waking is that I have not swaddled him for the past 3 1/2 nights. I have decided that he needs to get used to being free, despite the fact he scratches the hell out of his head.

Back to my loving husband. So last night he said that I could sleep in and he'd watch the kids in the morning. The little guy was up every 2 1/2 hours to eat, which was better than the previous night where he'd only been clocking 1 hour stretches of sleep. At 7am, the babe was in our room wanting to hang out. Hubby took our daughter downstairs and I continued to doze for about half an hour until the little guy woke up wanting to eat. I fed him, changed his insanely full diaper, and tried to get him to go back to sleep. It didn't work so I brought him downstairs and dumped him in my husband's lap. I climbed back upstairs to try and get some more shut eye.

At 11:48am I woke up and realized I had probably slept over 3 1/2 hours straight! AMAZING! Talk about feeling like a million bucks. The little babe even downed a 3 oz bottle of hypoallergenic formula while I was in sleepy time land.

I must say I am a much nicer person today. Our family is having a lovely day, despite the fact the sky is gray.

No Driving Day

Today is what I call a "no driving day." That means it is not safe for me to be behind the wheel of a car. If I thought I was tired yesterday, I had no idea what was around the corner.

Both kids were up for multiple hours multiple times. Things are not going well with the sleeping...for any of us.

The babe takes forever to settle down and go to sleep these days...the whole sunlight thing doesn't help. After we do bath time, story time, and sing a few songs and tuck in time, she proceeds to drink massive quantities of water from her sippy cup. She'll then get out of bed, stand at the gate and yell down and ask for more water and for us to put her covers on. After changing the wettest diaper in the history of the universe last night, I've decided to cut her off the H2O. No more over-hydrating. Not sure what to do about the blanket thing.

The little babe continues to wake every 2 hours to eat, but then can't settle down after eating. He farts, fusses, sometimes cries and wakes his sister, and is generally just a little cute ball of frustration. I'll admit I was pretty flat out mad at both my kids last night. I thought they were being selfish and unkind. Don't they know I'm hanging on by a thread?

The 4 month apt is tomorrow, and I'm ready to talk out a solution...even though I know docs don't have all the answers. Right now I just want someone to tell me how to fix this.

Yesterday

Last night I put on a suit (the date on the dry cleaner tag was 7/11/2005--yikes), some eyeliner and mascara, and some sandals which were not flip flops. I drove to the Canadian Embassy (all alone) and proceeded to mingle with adults. It was really great. I am still able to speak with strangers in a professional like environment and I can still answer the question "what do you do" with a smile. I was home by 9pm and in bed by 11pm. I went to sleep with a comforting feeling that I will be OK (we broke down and turned on the AC which may have helped).

Before I took off for the evening, I gave the rice cereal a try again with my son (the allergist said rice cereal is the least allergenic food you can give a baby). This time he ate a whole half a tablespoon and did not spit it up. I was pretty thrilled and plan on doing it again today. He went a 4 hour stretch last night, which I attribute to the food (granted he woke up a lot after that stretch). I am still exhausted.

I am also still waiting for a call from the allergist regarding the babe and her allergy "action plan" for school. They didn't have her chart last week when all 4 of us showed up for the appointment (not cool), so we need to go over her official testing results before we can finalize anything. I am hopeful she will not need to be in a "nut free" room. Will keep you posted.

Brain Meltdown

My son is getting up every 2 to 3 hours every night to eat. I therefore feel as though my brains are melting out of my ears. I have heard of a 4 month growth spurt, but this is ridiculous. We have his 4 month doc appointment on Thursday and I am going to ask about night weaning. I am ready for some sleep, and I think it would benefit him as well.

I know part of the problem is that I still have him in the co-sleeper next to our bed. It has made life so much easier for all the night-time feedings. I am not good at getting out of bed, so being able to simply lift him out, feed and burp him, and put him back in his little co-sleeper has been awesome. But those days may be coming to a close.

His crib is all set up in his room. We moved the babe out of her crib and into a big girl bed in February and she hasn't missed her crib at all. We lost a lot of control (she can now get out of bed any 'oll time she likes), but she was able to climb out of it which was a pretty good sign she was ready. We gave her some time to get used to the idea of "her" crib being moved into her little brother's room, and after a month of having both the crib and toddler bed stuffed in there, we moved the crib on out.

Now it may be time to move him into it. It is going to be hard and I foresee a lot of crying (both him and me). But perhaps there will be a way to combine the night weaning with the crib sleeping. I will get the doc's opinion and move forward. I need to do something as I am in a serious fog and it's really not healthy for me or the rest of my family.

In other news I'm off to a university alumni cocktail reception at the Canadian Embassy tonight. In 1996 I graduated with my BA Hons in pol sci from Concordia University in Montreal. Tonight the new President, Judith Woodsworth, will be in town to meet DC alum. I will be attending on my own without any children, which should be nice. I will also be expected to make intelligent conversation with adults, which I am dreading. Do I remember how to be a normal person in a social situation? Can I pull of wearing "business attire" after all these years in sweats and jeans? I have 9 ounces of pumped milk in the fridge so am willing to give it a shot. Wish me luck.