Naps, Etc

Let's talk naps for a moment here. I know many a parent that is staunchly in the pro-nap camp. I used to be one of those parents. Naptime was sacrosanct, and if M. and I didn't get those two hours to ourselves every (weekend) day, cranky tempers abounded. It was the only time we had during the day to get anything done around the house, the only time we had to ourselves. I swore up and down that Finn would nap as long as possible - until Kindergarten! We made it a point to be home by 11:30 am for a nice, early nap (because everyone knows that the earlier they go down, the better/longer they sleep...).

Well, things have changed. I'm sure my sisters, who are both still firmly pro-nap (and whose kids both nap AND sleep 12 hours a night, a feat my kids have never, ever managed), think I'm crazy. But I actually can't wait for Lucy to give up her nap. Now, I find that naptime is restrictive, particularly since the kids sleep a little later than they used to. Yes, when Finn would rise at 5:30 in the morning, it was easy to do a LOT and still be home by 11:30 for a nap. But we try to roll out of bed as long after 7:00 am as we can get away with. And now that TV rules have been relaxed, wake up time is followed by lounging and coffee-drinking while the kids entertain themselves with mind-numbing TV. It's a challenge for us to get everyone out of the house earlier than 9 or 10, a far cry from the early days of parenthood.

We could, of course, get our act together and get out of the house earlier, and make napping more of a priority. But we already have one kid that doesn't nap. Finn stilled napped when Lucy was born - he was only two and a half then, and still pretty good about going down. By the time we got Lucy on to a semi-regular nap schedule, though, Finn was already fighting the nap, and fighting it HARD. By 3, I gave up the war. Finn still napped at school, but not at home. I can count on one hand the number of times we got both kids to nap at the same time on the weekends.

So, we're already up with one kid anyway. We might as well have them both awake so we can go out and DO stuff, too. We are getting closer to that new reality. Lucy still naps at school (though her naps have always been shorter at school than at home), but weekend naps are intermittent at best. Not because she fights the nap - she doesn't. She usually falls asleep for us pretty quickly, and sleeps for over two hours. Yet this weekend, I didn't put Lucy down at all. She didn't melt down into a ball of hot toddler mess, she was fine.

And the best part? She goes to sleep INSTANTLY at night. Tonight I put Lucy down, went in to tuck Finn in, and grabbed each kid a cup of water from the kitchen. By the time I went in to Lucy's room to give her the water, she was out. Despite the fact that I heard her calling out to me no more than 3 minutes before then. The silence was music to my ears, because on the days she naps, we often have an hour or more of shenanigans coming at us over the monitor, and more than one trip back up to her room.

Yes, I am firmly in the anti-nap camp now, proud to be a member.

Unless we're talking about grown up naps, of course. I strongly, strongly support the naps that I take.

How about you? Are you wedded to the nap? If your kids don't nap anymore, at what age did they give it up? Do YOU nap? :-)
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The kids and I had a pretty good day together - the snow stayed away, Finn went to his last swim class of the current session, we ate lunch out where the kids were shockingly well-behaved, and we watched two old school Disney movies - The Aristocats and The Sword and the Stone. The kids are bathed, both are asleep, and I have only 12 more hours left as a solo parent. Yes, we relied heavily on the television to get us through the day. Yes, that was in part due to the fact that I am trying my darnedest to finish reading Game of Thrones. I am totally sucked in, and yet no matter how much I read, I only seem to be able to move a percentage or two on the Kindle. It is apparently a freakishly long book. There may have been a little benign neglect from all the reading. Just a little, though.

Some pictures from the goofing around that occurred today:

Same profile!

Greasy face from Movie Night pizza (he ate three pieces! This kid LOVES pizza!)

Finn's report card from swin class - he can do all the required skills, and he got two A+'s. It's entirely possible this will be the best report card of his life (you never know...), so I'm saving this one for posterity!

Green FTW!

Hello from a decidedly more relaxed, less panicky state of mind. That last post was, as advertised, a vent, and it did it's job - helped me get all my angst out so I could start the next day with a fresher attitude. But thank you everyone for the reassurance and kind comments. We are all doing well, and things are looking up - we've just had a wonderful weekend, and take a little look at Finn's behavior chart for the week:

Started off quite poor (hence the vent), but finished with lots of green circles all around! We are tracking the color he gets when he's at school, and then also giving him another circle depending on his behavior at home after school (on the weekends, we just kind of divide the day in half). That's why he has two circles for every day - we are trying to reinforce the school's system (and encourage good behavior at home, of course). Finn has been insisting and insisting and insisting that he CANNOT get a green circle - the best he would try for is a yellow (yes, there are yellow circles, too, for the "so-so" crowd). Hopefully the latter part of this week has convinced him that he can, indeed, behave well enough to get a green circle. And it's given us lots of opportunity for positive reinforcement.

Not sure if this is coincidence or not, but the green circles made their appearance the same day that I called the daycare director and asked her for some suggestions on how to deal with Finn's napping abhorration. For now, Finn's teacher is going to let him look at books on his mat while the other kids sleep. This is a bit tricky, as it's possible the other kids will see him doing this, and try to get out of napping, too. And there is still potential for Finn to create a ruckus, as he doesn't necessarily have the attention span to flip through books for a couple of hours, what with his inability to actually read yet, his innate desire to be active as many hours of the day as possible, etc. But it's an improvement, I think, and when the center's summer camp opens in three weeks, he'll be able to go hang out with the camp kids during nap time, avoiding the situation entirely.

Then we just have to figure out how to deal with nap time once again when summer is over. But we are thinking of moving daycare centers by the fall, anyway (for several reasons, several of which are logistical and meant to set us up for the next year when he attends kindergarten), so who knows what the situation will be by then.

M. is out of town for the next couple of days, and I need to get myself to sleep so I can power through the morning rush without him. I'll wrap this up with a few new photos - good night!

Finn was wearing boxer briefs last weekend, so he had M. wrap his hands with blankets to look like boxing gloves.

And then he boxed.

We went to an event at the NASA Goddard center last weekend, and had to park and take a shuttle to the campus. The shuttle was a school bus, and it was Finn's second time on a school bus - but he doesn't remember the first. So he was very excited.

The outing took place right after swim lessons and during nap time. So Lucy slept (on me) through her first bus ride. She was pretty confused when she woke up after the drop off. But she did manage to stay awake during the return trip.

The next few pictures were taken yesterday:

Put Your Own Title Here, I'm Going to Bed

So sorry to leave you all hanging there on poor Winnie's demise and how we broke it to the kids. We ended up telling them right after finishing dinner last Monday - we told them that Winnie got sick and died, and that we were very sad about it (to put "death" in a bit of context for them). Finn insisted on seeing Winnie - and we obliged, as we hadn't disposed of the body yet. He was curious and sad and seemed to think that Winnie died because he/she ate the blue gravel at the bottom of the tank. We tried explaining that it was just bad germs, but... who knows, kids get strange ideas in their heads. I think he still believes it was the blue stuff.

I opted against holding a "funeral" in the bathroom - I thought having the kids watch us flush the body might be too macabre or traumatizing or just destined to be the topic of many, many future conversations. But we did go around the table and each say something nice about Winnie. Things like "I really liked how we could see through Winnie." Scintillating stuff, as I'm sure you can imagine.

By the next morning, Winnie was mostly a distant memory. I caught Finn trying to reach the tank a couple of days later, when he noticed it sitting in its usual spot. Which, ahem, we still had not actually cleaned out yet. Including the body. Gross, I know. I cleaned it out that night.

This past weekend we were at the pet store to buy cat-related items, and the kids were (per usual) absolutely fascinated with all the fish. I think they could have watched them for hours. I sense there is a fish or two in our future, once we feel ready to risk a wet pet once again.

I'd blog more, but I'm exhausted. Lucy has been waking up at night recently, and only MOMMY will do to settle her down. About 20% of me really enjoys that, and the other 80% just wants to sleep 7 hours without interruption. So rather than scouring my brain for more a) entertaining stories, or b) complaints about my children, I shall pour myself into bed and get ready for wake up call #1. Should be coming in about 3 hours.

Something My Non-Parent-Self Never Realized Would Be Different, Post-Kids

This used to be one of my favorite weekends of the year. An extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning. Less painful risings at the start of the week. In my 20's, it also meant a whole extra hour of drinking time, should I feel like staying out 'til closing time.

Now this weekend is dreaded. Now, I do not stay up later, knowing I can just hang out in bed a bit longer the next morning.

Now I have kids.

They do not understand the concept of "fall back".

They do not really even understand the concept of time.

On a good weekend morning, Finn might stay in bed until 6:30.

Oh, 5:30 am, I do not want to see you tomorrow morning. I sure as hell do not want to see 5:00 am.

Though it *should* still feel like 6:00 am to me, it will not. Intellectually, emotionally, psychologicially, I will KNOW that it is only 5:00 am.

I will need lots of coffee.

I Hate Putting You To Bed

Those are the words I spoke/whisper-yelled (so Lucy wouldn't wake up) to my son last night. And the worst part? Was not that I used the word "hate," which in our house is on par with a swear word and is not allowed to be uttered. It was not that I lost my cool in front of Finn, which I have been trying not to do.

It was that I meant it.

There was a time when I loved putting Finn to bed. Those nights are long gone. Now bedtime is naught but a source of stress, leaving me exhausted and glassy-eyed once all is finally quiet in the house. Every moment is a battle. Let me just list for you the possible fit-inducing aspects of Finn's bedtime:

Pick one toy to bring to bed
Go upstairs
Use the potty
Brush teeth
Get in the tub (only a possibility every other night)
Get out of the tub
Pick out pajamas
Put on pajamas
Pick out two books to read (can be a process, and he usually wants more)
Songs while cuddling in chair (usually wants more/interrupts)
Get in bed
Get under covers
Say goodnight

Typically several of these points in the bedtime routine are accompanied by crying fits or flat out refusals to listen/do what we ask him to do. The worst is the "say goodnight" part - it is guaranteed to be greeted with lots of "I want you" whines and crying. Nothing makes me want to be motherly and comforting LESS than hearing "Mommy, I waaaaaaaant youuuuuuuuuuuu," by the way. Then once we do get out of his room, we are almost certain to have to go back in because his "nose is stuffy" or he need to be tucked in tighter or he needs to pee again or he wants a different toy (we do not give in to this, of course) and(my favorite) the poop fake out. You know, where he says he needs to poop, you get him all situated in the bathroom NAKED (because he can't spread his legs wide enough if pajamas/underwear are still on), and not a particle of poop appears. Then you have to grumpily get him completely dressed again (because child REFUSES to dress himself - something we are working on) and dump him back in bed. And say good night, again.

We typically alternate, M. and I. One night I'll put Lucy to bed and he will take care of Finn, then the next night we switch. In theory, the one putting Lucy to bed is supposed to take the additional kid-free time (since she's out by 7-ish, when Finn is just starting the bedtime extravaganza) to work out. In theory meaning that does not always happen, of course. Aside from working out, we developed this system to make sure each kid got some quality one-on-one time with each parent, fairly evenly throughout the week.

I can't take it anymore, though. It's making me act evily toward my son. I am behaving in ways I do not like, and saying things I do not like. I feel like a terrible mom. M. will be handling Finn's bedtime for a little while (does this mean I have to jog every night?) to give me some time to adjust MY attitude, which I appreciate.

But how can I adjust Finn's, too? Will this ever get better? Will I ever be able to just read him a couple stories, tuck him into bed, give him a kiss, and say good night? Conflict-free, where we both go to bed with smiles on our faces?

September Summary

The knowledge that it's almost October and I've apparently only blogged ONCE the entire month of Septmeber is shaming me. It's been ages since I last wrote, and I don't even have any good excuses. Work's been busy, sure, but I've just been lacking in the motivation department when I do have free time. It's strange, too, because I find myself sort of thinking "in blog" during the day - as things happen/unfold in my everyday life, I kind of compose blog posts around them, trying out phrasing in my head. Always very witty, of course. But my follow-through stinks - I either forget completely those perfect sentences I was planning to share with my devoted (clears throat and blushes, as you have no reason to be devoted) audience, or I just run out of time until the occasion I WAS going to write about suddenly seems passe.

So here it is, more than two weeks since my last post, and no clear idea about what to write. Not a single coherent story or thought in my head. I don't even have any pictures, as I am afraid that the transfer would kill my computer, an event I am not yet prepared to deal with. To get over this deadening blog silence, I will just try to hit some bulleted, unrelated points about life in the M household lately:

- First, sleep. Ah, sleep. Or a lack there of. Some of you may nod your heads knowingly and smile sympathetically, remembering what it is like to have a 5-month old. But nay, NAY, the culprit is not Lucy. Or at least, the MAIN culprit is not Lucy. It is, instead, my charming 3-year-old. Really, I don't even know where to begin describing this one. Finn is insistent on calling/crying loudly for us almost as soon as we close the door to his room at bedtime, often multiple times a night until he falls asleep. He has also taken to waking up at random times in the middle of the night or early morning, again calling/crying (usually crying) for us. The calls and cries grow louder and louder if unanswered, to the point where I am afraid neighborhood dogs will start howling. We have tried everything, it seems. Being nice and giving him extra time before leaving his room (but really, who can keep up a bedtime routine that lasts over an hour!?!), comforting him when we go back in, ignoring him, talking sternly to him when we go back in, threatening to take away priviledges/blankets/stuffed animals if he doesn't go to sleep, actually taking away priviledges/blankets stuffed animals, giving him a flashlight to comfort him if he gets scared, giving him extra blankets/pillows/stuffed animals to comfort him, using a sticker chart to reward him for nights he goes to sleep/stays asleep without incident... Yeah, pretty much every strategy has been attempted and FAILED. We are all upset about it, and M. and I have been feeling a bit deficient in the parenting department. I guess at this point we are just keeping our fingers crossed that it's a stage and he'll grow out of it.

- Finn will be going on his very first field trip in a couple of weeks, to a local orchard for some fall-type activities (hay ride, pumpkin patch, etc). The kids will be taken in the daycare's little school bus (well, it's more like a van, really). M. was immediately excited and all for it, while my first thought was "will there be any car seats in the bus?" Hmm, can you tell we think about things differently? When I suggested to M. that we should find out about the car seat issue, he tried to talk me out of it and clearly didn't want to be the "bad guy" that asked. Or the bad guy that might keep Finn from participating if there aren't any car seats. But goodness, Finn is still only 2, I'm not comfortable with him riding in a moving vehicle without a car seat. So I asked, and lo and behold, the daycare has car seats for the bus. Who's over-reacting now, eh? Anyway, sigh of relief and all that, and I've now been asked to accompany the kids as a parent chaperone. If things are slow enough at work, I think I just might.

- Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. Such a happy baby! Ack, I think about her, and I just want to get in my car and drive over to daycare and give her a big, squeezy hug. Good thing it's half an hour away, I guess - temptation removed. But she has, in her own small way, been contributing to the M. family sleep deficit. It's not her fault, really, she's just so darn hungry! 32-36 ounces of formula are apparently not enough for her, so she's taken to waking up around 5 am, hungry. It's clear that we really, really need to get moving on the solid foods. But cereal didn't seem to sit well with her (oatmeal made her poop too much, rice made her have a little trouble pooping, and both seemed to wake her up more at night, probably from gas), and we've only just started introducing some fruits. This weekend we need to move it into high gear and experiment with a schedule that incorporates solids at least twice a day, so that daycare can start helping with the feedings.

- In other Lucy news, she is showing a lot of progress with falling asleep on her own in her crib for naps. She's ready to handle going to bed on her own, and I think the Great Bedtime Unswaddling will occur this weekend, where we see if she can go the whole night unswaddled. We would have done it this past weekend, but she came down with her first cold and we wanted to make sure she would keep her head elevated for drainage purposes - hence, one more week of the Miracle Blanket and sleep positioner combo.

- In A. and M. news, we just celebrated our sixth anniversary this past weekend. Although "celebrated" may be an overstatement as we didn't think ahead about getting a babysitter and going out. But it was nice to relive memories of our wedding (I really, really loved our wedding) and think about all the changes we've had in the last 6 years. Not to get all mushy or anything, but seeing what a great dad M. is has definitely deepened our relationship, and I love him even more than I did 6 years ago. Here's to at least 6 more, right, honey? ;-)

- In news that should be shared by A. and M. but so far has yet to involve M., we are getting back on the "eating healthy and exercising" bandwagon. The muffin tops and love handles in this house have gotten a bit out of control. The plan is for the parent that puts Lucy down (we take turns, I put Lucy down for two nights in a row, and M. puts Finn down those two nights, then we switch) to hit the treadmill whenever possible. So far, I have managed to work out twice since we started this arrangement, bringing my total treadmill workouts since Lucy was born over 5 months ago to 4. Insert sheepish grin here. M. has yet to get on the treadmill, so his grin should be far more sheepish. I am forcing M. to watch The Biggest Loser for inspiration, though he does protest. And I understand the protesting, really. Way too much filler and replay of scenes between commercial breaks, and Jillian's attempts to psycho-analyze everyone are soooo annoying. But I love seeing all the weight losses at the end of the show, and all the sweating and over-the-top working out that goes on. Even though I can't devote my entire day to working out the way the contestants do, I figure if they can lose 10, 13, 15, heck 20 pounds in one week, I should be able to drop a couple of pounds in a month, no? So we watch. And M. complains.

- Finally, Finn's third birthday is fast approaching. Three! My baby is almost three! I just... no, cannot fathom it, can't be true. Anyway, disbelief aside, we are biting the bullet and throwing a proper birthday party for him this year. Somehow he got the birthday party memo, and now that he knows they exist he is expecting one. We're planning on holding it at a local park, so fingers are double and triple crossed for good weather. I am NOT a party planner by nature, but now that things have started to slow down at work I am hoping I can pull it together for baking and goody bag-making and activity planning and decorating. Must channel Martha Stewart, must channel Martha...

So, yes, no coherent way to end a mish-mash of topics, so I'll just go then. And try to be back before 2010 :-).

My only guess is that she must be able to read

Breaking her streak of 8 or 9 nights, Lucy woke up at 1:55 am last night. I see that she's already trying to sass me and prove me wrong.

True Confessions of a Temporary Housewife

One more week. That's all I have left of my maternity leave. Only one more week of not setting an alarm, of not putting on make-up, of meeting-free days. Only one more week of letting Lucy doze on me mid-afternoon, of watching her wake up all smiles from her first nap of the day, of knowing exactly what she did and how she felt all day long.

It's also only one more week of terrible daytime TV programming, of spending significant portions of my day trying to get one little person to fall asleep or stay asleep, of feeling out of touch with the rest of the world.

Am I ready? Yes and no. I'm starting a new job at work, so there will be challenges and new experiences when I return. I'm a little nervous about it, but also excited. I do, of course, have concerns about how Lucy will transition to daycare. But this isn't my first rodeo, and I know it will all eventually work out. Plus, we've arranged it so that Lucy is not starting daycare at the same time I am starting back at work. She will be spending two more weeks at home with M. before she starts at daycare. Then she'll have to start getting used to an earlier wake up time so she can join us all in the morning rush out the door.

Yes, I did say EARLIER wake up time. Which brings me to one of my two confessions, the "secrets" I have been keeping from this blog for fear of somehow inviting bad karma that puts an end to them.

Lucy has been sleeping through the night.

Not the "if your baby can sleep 5 or 6 hours straight at night, she is technically sleeping through the night" crap. The "we get her into her crib asleep anywhere from 7:30 to 8:30 pm, and she doesn't wake up until after 6:30 am" sleeping through the night. 10, 11, even edging toward 12 hours in a row.

She's been doing this every night for at least a week - I can't remember exactly when it started. Disbelieving, M. and I continue to prepare for middle of the night feedings. We prep the bottle warmer with the necessary water for heating, and we bring an insulated sleeve with ice packs and a bottle up to the kids' bathroom. Where it then sits, all night long, until either I start to hear a few stirrings over the monitor, or I get worried that it's been too long since I heard anything, and I decide that it MUST be time for us to start our day. Today I went in at 6:55 am and had to wake a dead-asleep Lucy in order to give her her reflux medication.

I'm under no illusions that this will keep up forever. Eventually, Lucy will need to learn to sleep unswaddled, and she will need to learn to fall asleep on her own (THIS, she still does not do. Much effort to get her to sleep, followed by many wonderful hours of sleep). Not to mention growth spurts, ear infections, teething... there will be wake ups. But for now, it's heaven.



Confession #2 involves Finn. With very little work from M. and I, he is now just about completely potty trained. It's crazy how wonderful he has been about it. We still put him in a diaper at night and a pull-up for his naps, but he has been keeping them dry. The rest of the day he spends in big boy underwear, and he's had nary an accident in days. I think, very soon, we will be attempting underwear at night, too.

I'm not sure what did the trick. Daycare had been putting him in underwear, but he was having some pee accidents and (if he didn't poop in his morning pull-up first) a good number of poop accidents. Poop in the potty just wasn't happening. After one poop accident that happened at home (v. traumatizing for all of us, not my finest parenting moment), we decided to take a break from the underwear. We continued to send Finn to school in pull-ups, and just before the 4th of July, something clicked for him. He started pooping in the potty. At home and at school. So we've been running with it, and it's working out great. We've even done errands and trips out of the house in underwear, and he has been perfect. It almost makes up for the tantrum/discipline troubles he's been giving us lately ;-).



We had friends over this weekend, and finally managed to get a family picture of the four of us together - our first one since Lucy was born. Now I can finally update our picture on the sidebar of this blog!



And a couple of bonus pictures of my angelic (kidding, kidding) children:

Filling the Silence

Lucy's napping is still a bit erratic/non-existent, hence my absence. It's amazing how one little baby can suck up so much of your time! Lots to say, but no time to actually sit down and write a fully developed post on each idea. So, just to put something out there for the sake of updating (as I have been told by my grandmother that my blog stinks because I don't post enough), a few bullets:

- The last several days involved family, family and more family. Stacey and Cameron arrived on Friday. My brother Andrew, in the area for work, stopped by on Saturday afternoon for a bit. Kristin flew in Saturday night, Stacey and Cameron left Sunday morning, and I had Kristin and her BlackBerry for company until Tuesday afternoon (seriously, the girl works too much!). I must admit that once everyone was gone, the house seemed pretty quiet and lonely. I'm sure the rainy weather didn't help. I took some pictures, but better ones can be seen at Stacey's blog here. Her post is missing pics of Finn, though, so I will try to put up some recent ones soon.

- Stacey brought me the complete three seasons of Veronica Mars on DVD. I'm only 4 episodes in, and I'm already amazed that I somehow managed to miss this one when it was on the air. Fantastic show (and theme song)! I may have to re-watch with M. so that he can see it, too. Thanks to Stacey for filling some of my maternity leave TV boredom.

- I bought the Miracle Blanket because Lucy has been busting out of my swaddling jobs at night, and I think it's keeping her from sleeping longer stretches. The jury is still out on this one. Lucy seems to absolutely hate it - she fights against it constantly. But I did manage to get her to sleep the first night in it, and she slept one of her longest stretches yet. She will not nap in it (then again, she often just will not nap), and last night wasn't quite as successful - we couldn't get her to fall asleep until almost 11 pm (as opposed to her more typical 7:30/8:00-ish), and then she woke up again at 1:45. It may have been a $30 waste of money.

- M. is leaving for another work trip this coming Monday, and I've been slowly getting more and more anxious about it. Thankfully, we seem to have Lucy's reflux under control, so hopefully I won't have hours of crying from her while I'm on my own the way I did last time. But both kids have been going down for bed at around the same time, and I have no idea how to begin to come up with a plan to handle this by myself. Lucy often requires about an hour to get her down fully (change her, feed her, hold her upright a bit so she doesn't spit up all over the place, swaddle her, get her to fall asleep). Finn is high maintenance, too - he drags out story-time and bedtime singing to at least half an hour, and then he tends to have at least one (often more) episode of calling loudly for one of us to come rectify some trumped up problem or just cuddle with him before he'll fall asleep. And since his room is right next to Lucy's, we always give in and go up to him so that he won't wake his sister up. M. and I are usually both tied up with whatever kid we're in charge of each night for at least an hour. So my big problem is, which kid do I put down first, and what do I do with the other one in the meantime??? My head hurts just thinking about it.

- We tried switching Lucy to a generic version of her formula, because it's $11 cheaper per can. That could add up to crazy savings, right, since we go through over a can a week? Well, Lucy apparently has expensive tastes, because halfway through the switch she developed constipation and fussiness. So, we are back to the expensive name brand formula, and general brokeness :-).

- Speaking of brokeness, we don't actually know if we are, because M. and I are terrible at keeping a budget. With all the new expenses that come with adding kid #2 to the family (daycare, diapers, formula, reflux meds), we have no idea if what is coming in, income-wise, is greater than what is going out. So, we are going to take a stab (yet again) at keeping track of expenses/keeping a budget. Last time we tried this we used an Excel spreadsheet, and the downfall was that it was just too time consuming and detailed to maintain. I'm looking for something simpler this time, and I'd like to avoid software we have to buy (see above re: we may be broke). I'm planning on looking in to www.mint.com - anyone have experience with this site, or other recommendations?

That's enough of my jumbled thoughts for now!

I'd Sweep, But Who Would Hold the Baby?

SOMEONE has decided that napping is not something to be done in a crib (or a swing, for that matter; and let's not even talk about the carseat...) for any extended period of time. No, only a pair of arms will do. And that's only after crying hysterically for a few minutes to get the point across that she's REALLY TIRED, PEOPLE!! We're hoping it's a side effect of the growth spurt which will disappear (any day now?) when said spurt is over. If not, well, it's only 4 months or so until I'm comfortable going through some sleep training of the Cry-It-Out variety...

Anyway, I'd like to be all flexible and laid-back about sleep, one of those moms who just gets her child(ren) up from a failed nap with a cheerful smile and goes about her day. Unfortunately, even though my children (Finn was the same way for a long time, and even now occasionally pulls this kind of stuff with naps) don't seem to want to sleep for long periods of time, they get really upset about being awake. It's the whole "I'm really tired and want to sleep, but I just can't get there or stay there myself" problem. So we do what we can to make sure sleep is obtained, because otherwise, EVERYONE is miserable.

Actually, as I type this, Lucy is sleeping in the swing. She tried to wake up too early (less than an hour in) from her first nap, and miraculously, popping her in the swing while still swaddled has bought me a bit more blog-reading/typing and coffee-drinking time. She stirs, though, so I'm clearly on borrowed time here.

In other news, M. and I have hired a cleaning lady. The crumbs and dust bunnies and cat hair all mounted an attack, wore down our defenses, and forged a treaty that involves us shelling out $75 twice a month for someone else to clean up our messes. Though we cannot afford this luxury at all, it's the best money I've ever spent. Honestly, the cleaning just wasn't getting done. I could blame it on Lucy, but in reality we've struggled with this since Finn was born over two and a half years ago.

Though he voiced the idea first, M. then punted and put me in charge of finding a cleaning service. I called a couple of companies I found online to get estimates, all of which were gasp-inducing. I blame the extremely vertical layout of our house. It's not just a 3-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom townhouse. Those rooms are spread out over not the typical 3 floor layout, but instead FIVE floors (you'd think, after 2 years in this house, I'd have gluts of steel, but sadly I do not), with all the accompanying carpeted stairs you might expect. Whatever formula they use to calculate cleaning costs clearly equates my little house, which only technically has two teeny exterior walls of its own, with a mini-mansion of sorts.

Enter neighbor recommendations. Apparently, to my surprise, we are the only suckers that have been cleaning (or not cleaning, as the case may be) our own house. Just about all the neighbors we are friendly with pay for a cleaning service. That's how I found Irma - she cleans at least 2 other houses in my end of the neighborhood. She started yesterday, and I must say, the house has never looked better. It's due mostly to her cleaning skills (she was a tornado of cleaning for over 5 hours), but also partially to our mad scramble to declutter/pick up so that surfaces could be exposed for cleaning. Yes the confounding but age-old "cleaning before the cleaners come" conundrum.

This couldn't have come at a better time, as my sisters (one of whom is very jealous of my new cleaning lady, I'm sure) will be arriving this weekend, and M.'s parents are coming for a visit two weeks later. They can sleep safely on the pull-out couch or futon without fear of paralyzing cobwebs or sentient hair balls.

Here We Go Again?

Desperate and at my breaking point last night, I cried to M. over the phone that I was bringing Lucy to the doctor's today, because something HAS to be wrong with her (I also went on and on about what a horrible mother I am, and how we are never, ever having another child. Ah, what sleep deprivation will do to your mental state...). My sweet baby, who had been going to sleep with relatively little assistance (though some assistance was needed, she is just a baby after all!) was now refusing to sleep AT ALL. Bedtime was a 3-hour fiasco, which was resolved only when I somehow got Lucy to fall into a tentative sleep and laid her down in bed with me so I could finally get some fitful sleep (note, co-sleeping when you are praying fervently that your baby does not wake up is not restful). Nap times yesterday were a joke, except for the one where she slept on me while I caught up on the last several Grey's Anatomy shows. When she was awake she was constantly fussing/crying and looking for SOMETHING to satisfy her. But when I offered a bottle (and even the breast, at one point, so you KNOW I was desperate since I've basically sworn off that frustration), she would eat a little and cry, then eat a little more and cry more. At the bottle, she has been making lots of sounds like she is choking and swallowing way too much air, arching her back, crying. Signs we had been seeing with her for the last few weeks during one or two bottles a day, but signs we basically ignored since she seemed otherwise content. But Lucy is content no longer, so it seemed pertinent to try and do something about it. Or maybe I just get anxious when we haven't been to the doctor in over two weeks :-). But why oh why do things like this always seem to come to a head when one parent is out of town??

And so I did bring Lucy to the doctor's office, though things always seem a little less dire by the light of day. Skipping to the end result, I just filled a prescription for Pre.vacid. Thus, it appears we are traveling down the road of Reflux once again. The way is very familiar to us, as this is something we struggled through with Finn until he was about 15 months old.

Here are the symptoms/behaviors I discussed with the pediatrician:

- at some bottles (in particular, the first one of the morning and the late afternoon/evening ones), Lucy will choke, strain, gulp air, arch her back, cry, and have a lot of gas (of the burping variety). Some bottles (like the middle of the night ones), these symptoms are not present.

- She spits up a few times a day. Not massive amounts, and not with every feeding, although this may be because we are ultra paranoid about not laying her down right after a feeding. Also, her crib mattress has been elevated at one end from Day 1.

- She is gassy (of the farting variety) and only poops every 2-3 days, and that's usually only if I "induce" the poop (ie take her temperature, give her half an ounce of water).

- Used to sleep well (at least two long naps in her crib, with a couple other shorter ones), and slept between every feeding. Went down for the night relatively easily at around 7 pm with a minimum of rocking, and we would have to wake her most nights at 10 pm for one last feeding of the "day." Now we can rock her or hold her and walk around with her for 45 minutes and she still won't go to sleep. If she does fall asleep, she stirs as soon as we lay her down, or 10 minutes later (just as we start to get comfy in our own bed...). Then we have to start the process all over again. We can start "bedtime" at 6:30 or 7:00, and she won't fall asleep until around 10 pm; this after much angst on our part, much walking around/rocking her, and several extra ounces of food to see if she's just hungry.

- Seems to be eating too much for a baby her age. I figure she's getting between 28-32 ounces a day, when she should be getting around 24. In the last 20 days, she has gained 32 ounces! She now weighs in at 10 pounds 8 ounces. Yikes! That doesn't seem healthy to me. I like a chubby baby, but not a Goliath!

- She is fussier now than she was 5 days ago (when the sleep problems began to manifest).

I am hesitant about this - to me, Lucy has not shown classic symptoms of reflux, aside from the arching at the bottle (which does not happen at every feeding). She has kind of a hodge podge of issues. Yes, she spits up, yes, she gets the hiccups, but doesn't every baby? It doesn't seem abnormally excessive to me. Also, she still doesn't poop regularly, so couldn't some of these symptoms because by other digestive discomforts? Or maybe this is related to a growth spurt (not sure about that one, though, since feeding her doesn't seem to make things better). The fussiness could be related to being extremely overtired, SINCE SHE WON'T SLEEP.

Regardless, I feel like we need to try SOMETHING to make Lucy more comfortable. With reflux meds, we can pretty quickly assess whether this is truly her problem or not, and I'm happy that the pediatrician agreed to skip over Zan.tac (worthless, in my opinion) in favor of the stronger family of PPI (proton pump inhibitor) meds. I'm just not satisfied with the approach that some doctors take, where if a baby is gaining weight well, other symptoms are ignored as developmental "issues" that need to be outgrown. While I'm sure that if Lucy does have reflux she will outgrow it, in my mind that doesn't mean she should spend the next year of her life uncomfortable just because she is still able to pack on the pounds. Doctors should strive for an acceptable quality of life for babies (and thus, their families), not just keeping them on the growth charts. I'm glad this pediatrician shares my mindset, and was even willing to let me recommend the medication I wanted. Have I mentioned before how much I love the entire practice?

We should know in the next few days whether the medicine is helping or not. The doctor also recommended that we add some oatmeal cereal to Lucy's bottles. According to her, this will do three things: 1) Help keep the food down in Lucy's stomach; 2) May cause her to eat less (she will feel fuller, thus may eat a more appropriate amount for her age); 3) May help her poop (rice cereal is constipating, but oatmeal can help bring on the poop). I'm hesitant to do this. I know babies' stomachs aren't prepared to digest cereals yet. And we tried thickening Finn's bottles with rice cereal back in the day, but it didn't stop the spit up (just made it chunkier). Also, Lucy doesn't really seem "constipated," her poop is normal looking when it eventually appears. I just need to make her go more often somehow, without the use of a thermometer! Any positive or negative experiences with thickening bottles with cereal at the tender age of 5 weeks? Also, if you did do it successfully, what nipples did you use? I remember we had a really tough time finding a happy medium of a nipple hole that was big enough to let the thickened milk/formula through but not totally choke Finn.

I Spoke Too Soon, Apparently

About Lucy being a pretty good sleeper. The last few days she has been fighting sleep like nobody's business, nap times and bed times. Not sure if it's just a product of a stage (growth spurt? becoming more aware?), discomfort from gas and/or reflux, or if it's just part of her personality and here to stay for the long haul.

To make matters worse, M. is out of town right now. Needless to say, it's not going all that well. Ugh. I just keep trying to tell myself that it does get better, Lucy will one day be able to fall asleep on her own.

Fingers crossed that I get a bit more sleep tonight than I did last night!

Searching for a Title

That appropriately conveys the massive failure of last night's sleeping experience. Perhaps:

The Words, They Were Written Too Soon

or

Jinx, Jinx, Jinx!!

or

How Life Likes to Remind You That You Still Have No Idea How to Parent

or simply

Ha Ha Ha (The Sleep Gods Laugh)

All seemed well. Finn went to sleep without any crying after I lay down with him in bed for about 10 minutes. We were anticipating a night even better than the last. We've turned a corner, he doesn't need the paci, doesn't even miss it, hurrah, we are wonderful parents!! Ha.

It's 10:30 pm. I turned off my light a few minutes earlier, way too tired to comprehend the words of the book I am reading. Sooo ready for some sleep. Then, somehow, something woke up the sleeping beast. Who, upon awakening, apparently only remembers that he has a mother and not a father, because the mantra of "mommy, mommy, moooommmmeeeee" is chanted/cried over and over again and aired over the monitor. M. goes down to settle him down. But instead of quiet, I hear lots of crying and "Nooooo" over the monitor, so it's mommy to the rescue. But it's not that simple. Because Finn is tossing and turning, playing with the damn fire truck and Thomas the Tank Engine that he somehow conned us into letting him bring to bed. Asking for water, for a snack, to watch the movie Cars. At one point, he said to me, "Mommy, I need stuff." Hopefully you get the picture here - wide awake toddler doing his best to NOT settle down.

At different points in time, whoever was in Finn's room would get totally frustrated and leave, with the child still awake. We would huddle up in bed, until the next round of cries started over the monitor, and then it was the other parent's turn to enter the fray. I gave up for good at 12:30, turning off the monitor. But M. went back down one last time, and somehow had the patience to sit with Finn until he fell asleep. He believes that he got back to our bed at around 2:00 am.

Then, Finn was awake again at 6:00 am. I raced down to his room as soon as I heard the noise (monitor was back on) just to try and buy us more time and keep him from fully waking up. I managed to comfort him back to sleep for another 45 minutes or so. The bottom line is that no one, not even the cat, got more than 3 or 4 consecutive hours of sleep. It's going to be a fun day, eh?

M. and I are both feeling a bit guilty, because we definitely lost our tempers at different points. I was just so MAD! I had been so tired, so ready to drift off the sleep. And the crappiest part was that, even when I was back in bed and off duty, I COULDN'T fall asleep. All the fuss and frustration had completely erased my sleepiness. And my sleep is precious these days! M., I'm sure, was able to sleep solidly as soon as he got back to bed at 2:00 am, and probably during some of the little jags in between wake up calls. But not me. That is the beauty of pregnancy sleep. I can usually only count, depending on when my first wake up of the night is, on 3-5 hours of solid sleep. After the first pee trip of the night, I toss and turn from then on, stealing little snatches of sleep if I'm lucky. Lots of reasons for this, of course. Increased blood flow and congestion has screwed with my nose. Combine that with the super-dry, hot air in our chimney of a bedroom, and I'm guaranteed to have at least one crusty nostril when I wake up to pee. And then I fixate on it. Even if air flow is only blocked by about 20% in one nostril, it bugs me (usually it's more, of course). I feel like I can't take a deep breath, like I'm whistling. And because it's so dry, no amount of nose blowing really takes care of it. I can't even lie propped on my back to drain anything because lying on my back makes me REALLY uncomfortable unless I'm basically sitting up. The same thing happened with Finn, too - probably something about the way I carry my babies super high, I suppose - the position of my uterus must cut off some kind of vital blood supply while I'm even semi-reclined.

If I do manage to either ignore or fix the nose problem, I spend the rest of the night trying to manage hip pain. I'm getting to the point in pregnancy where, when I flip over to give the hip I'm lying on a break, it still continues to hurt. And no amount of "pillow between the legs" helps. And soon enough, the other hip starts hurting too. So I flip from side to side, trying to get comfortable, until it's time to pee again.

All these symptoms are held at bay until my first wake up, usually some time between 2:30 and 4:30 am, and I can get solid sleep before then. Which means last night, my best hours of sleep were completely interrupted by Finn's shenanigans, and I was left with only the crappy, tossy-turny hours. Which totally pissed me off, and I'm afraid it made me have some not so pleasant feelings toward my child. I wasn't very nice to him at various points, though I did try to maintain some level of patience.

The one silver lining is that Finn, while he asked for many things, never asked for his paci (though it was clear, from how often his fingers touched his teeth/mouth, that he was missing it). And while M. was ready to give Finn the paci at around 11:30 or so, I convinced him not to. So, while the night may have been mostly sleep-free, it was also completely paci free, for better or worse.

I don't really have any tricks or tactics up my sleeve to try to help tonight go more smoothly. I guess we'll just do what we've been doing, and hope that it gets better. And for sure, I'm not writing/talking about any successes - no need to shoot myself in the foot.

The Big Binky Bye-Bye

Ok, we don't call it a binky in this house, we call it a paci, but the aliteration just wasn't there with paci.

M. and I have been talking about getting rid of the paci for a while now. Finn only uses it at night, and for naps on the weekends, but he's still quite dependent on it. He will ask for it when he's upset (though we don't give it to him), and occasionally try to sneak it out of his bedroom. With a new baby on the way that will be encouraged to use a paci at any old time (I'm all for a great nursing relationship, but have no desire to be a human pacifier), we are afraid Finn would start demanding to use it more often, or try to take the baby's paci. We just returned from a vacation (sleeping in a strange environment is not the time to take away a comfort mechanism), and we have about 4 weeks before the next huge upheaval (starting at a new daycare), so we decided to go cold turkey on the pacifier use this past Wednesday. No big lead up to it, no cutting off the tip and having Finn throw away the "broken" paci's, etc. We just told him he couldn't have it when he asked for it, and that was that.

So far, things have been going well (knock on wood). The first night, it took Finn an hour to fall asleep. He cried off and on, but when M. or I were in the room with him (we went in a couple of times to lie down with him), he was fine - just not very sleepy. He didn't have that "trigger" of sucking on the paci to tell him to be tired, so he was a little wired. He woke up early the next morning at 5:30, but M. got him back to sleep until we were ready to get him up for daycare. All in all, not a bad night of sleep for everyone.

Last night, night 2, it took only about 20 minutes to get Finn to fall asleep. M. had to go back in his room after I put him down, but the crying wasn't terrible. He slept all the way through the night, until 6:20 or so.

It's crazy how easy it has been, we have been dreading this for soooo long. Fingers are crossed and double crossed that things continue to go well. I have a feeling naptime this weekend will be a challenge!

When is a booger not a booger?

As A. has previously written, Finn has graduated from crib to Big Boy Bed. Thankfully, the transition has gone smoother than expected; no major crying fits and only one boom! (which I mostly slept through). That's what made naptime on Sunday so frustrating. After 4 nights of peaceful slumber and a 3 hour nap on Saturday, we were both expecting a nice relaxing Sunday. Coincidentally, naptime corresponds to the 1pm start time of NFL games and since all chores had been completed I was looking forward to settling into the couch to watch some football.

Finn woke up crying about 40 minutes into his nap. A. decided to work her mommy magic and sprinted up to his room (well, as much as a pregnant lady can actually sprint) to try and get him back to sleep. 15 minutes later she was back and Finn was making sleepy noises over the monitor. Given the ominous start to my naptime football break, I reassessed and decided that 2 hours would get me through at least the first half of a game. Not bad...but 20 minutes later, naptime was interrupted again by more crying. Clearly A. didn't have the touch today, so I rushed up the 3 flights of stairs to Finn's room.

As I opened his door, I saw Finn sitting cross legged on his pillow holding his right index finger in the air, his pacifier lying next to him on the bed. "Booger", he said, waving his finger at me, "booger." OK. While not the most glamorous job, wiping boogers is certainly something that I have extensive experience in. I went over to his changing table and grabbed a diaper wipe to aide my booger-ectomy. As I reached for his finger, I realized that this was a strange looking booger. First, it was bigger than usual. Second, instead of the usual booger hues, this was much darker. Third... At this point, time slowed as my mind began furiously putting together all of the clues. It was just like the end of "The Usual Suspects" as Kevin Spacey limps, then walks away from the police station. Except instead of realizing that Verbal Kint is Keyser Soze, I became fully aware that the booger was in fact not a booger at all. It was poop. Lots of poop. And it wasn't just contained on a little boys finger. No. There was a sizeable glob on his pacifier, smears on his shirt, and little dabs on his blanket. Aaaaaarrgggh!!!

My calls for immediate back-up were answered by A., and a thorough poop cleaning ensued. All things considered, it could have been worse. No walls were smeared and his face and hair were poop-free. Plus, I now have an answer for the philosophical riddle of "when is a booger not a booger."

Boom!

That's the sound that echoes over the monitor at 5 am when your 2-year old falls out of his new big boy bed. Then hysterical crying follows. I haven't shot out of bed that fast since Finn was a newborn. M., of course, had no idea what was going on - his senses aren't very keen when he's extremely sleep addled.

I thought we would make it longer than 4 nights before Finn fell out of bed. Luckily, he barely remembers it. I asked him once we were up for the day if he bumped his head last night, and he talked about how he bumped his head on the car cart at the grocery store yesterday. When he was trying to escape and run around the store like a maniac, thwarted by the belt that strapped him in. Later on at breakfast, we asked again, and he said something about bumping his adorable nose, but he didn't seem too upset about it.

Needless to say, we will be placing some pillows around the perimeter of the bottom of his bed where the bed rail doesn't have coverage. And beyond that, we'll just cross our fingers and hope that one of these days he'll learn not to migrate around the bed quite so much while he's sleeping.

Other than that, the big boy bed has been a success. Finn still hasn't realized he can get off the bed by himself - he waits there for us to get him when he wakes up. We've had some excellent nights of sleep and naps over this holiday weekend. Me included - I've napped every day except Thanksgiving day. How will I handle a full, exhausting day of work tomorrow?!

Speaking of tomorrow, M. and I are headed first thing in the morning for our "big" ultrasound. It will be nice to see the baby again, and get some reassurance that all is OK. The list of ways that I have been an irresponsible pregnant woman has grown, along with my guilt. Things I have done this time around that I avoided with Finn are many. The "What to Expect When You're Expecting" authors would not be happy with me. Now added to the list - in decorating and hanging the garland that now adorns the front of our house, I apparently exposed myself to lead. Just when I receive a "Your Pregnancy, Week 19" newsletter that tells me that brain development is really ramping up this week. Yikes. So, yeah, looking forward to tomorrow, even though we won't be finding out the gender. Just hoping I can maintain my resolve to have a "delivery surprise" and that the ultrasound tech doesn't accidentally reveal the "he/she" mystery to us.

The next day, I have my regular prenatal visit. Which I am dreading a bit. Weigh-ins should be skipped during the holiday season, in my opinion. Blargh.

Big Boy Bed

Another big transition for Finn was implemented last night. To make lodging at my parents' house over the Christmas holiday easier, we decided to move Finn out of his crib now, even though the new baby won't be using it for a good 5 months or so. Two weeks ago, we bought a twin-sized mattress and box spring and had it delivered last week. Anticipating some sleepless nights, we decided to wait for this long weekend to make the leap so we wouldn't have to go to work incredibly sleep deprived.

Operation Big Boy Bed was initiated last night, at around 6 pm. We all marched upstairs to struggle with furniture rearrangement and bed-making. Finn's bedroom is tiny, so there was no way to have the bed and crib in there at the same time to ease the transition. The crib was moved out - in pieces (disassembling it was remarkably easy, but we will definitely need to dig out those instructions before reassembling it!). Also to go was Finn's "rocking chair" (the IKEA Poang chair that has been standing in as our all purpose bedtime story and middle of the night rocking-to-sleep venue), and the stereo system that has been hiding in his closet unused. Without the chair and the tall crib, the room definitely looks bigger and FAR less like a nursery. Which of course gives me lots of little "oh my god, my baby is growing up!" pangs.

We set up the bed (minus the frame to make it a little lower to the ground), and struggled with the necessary but evil bed rail. I put the sports themed sheets on the bed that Finn picked out himself, including his very first pillow. Macy (our cat) set up shop immediately, and made herself right at home.

After all the excitement, we gave Finn a bath to calm him down. Then it was time to attempt our bedtime routine in the new environment. Finn did OK until it was time to turn off his light and sing our bedtime song. Normally he drapes himself on one of us in the rocking chair for this part - not such an easy task in a bed where I was trying not to lie down myself. There was much moving around to get comfortable, and some tears from Finn. More tears, many more tears, came when it was time for me to say goodnight. I tried calming him down, but he kept crying and trying to stand up in the bed. Eventually, I just left and shut the door, hovering outside to monitor whether or not he got out of the bed. Luckily, he seemed to think that he could not get out of the bed himself, and after about 2 minutes of intense crying, all was quiet in his room. We peeked in about an hour later, and found him lying on his blankie near the foot of his bed (essentially outside the range of the bed rail and in serious "fall off the bed" territory). Not under the covers, not lying on the pillow. Oh well, one thing at a time, right?

We moved Finn a little more in range of the bed rail and put up a gate outside his bedroom door just to make sure he couldn't wake up and wander the house at midnight. He didn't stir until about 5:30 am! I went and laid down with him, got him back to sleep, and he managed to sleep until 7:00 am. Overall, a very good first night with the bed. I am not so hopeful that our first nap will go as well today, but I'm grateful that M. and I are not walking zombies as we prepare our Thanksgiving Feast today. Hopefully tonight will go as well, as we will need our strength to tackle Black Friday shopping.

We of course forgot to take "before" pictures, but here are a couple of shots of Finn's new big boy room:







Bonus pic - a Happy Thanksgiving picture of our adorable but not-so-politically-correct toddler: