Sleep, Baby, Sleep!

A couple months ago, I thought that perhaps I should give the parenting books a rest. Too many voices of too many experts all rattling around my head (along with the many voices already housed there) just became too much. I've made good on that decision, although I did not seem to find time to read some awesomely trashy novels instead as I had hoped. No, between teaching for six weeks this summer and the complete and utter lack of sleep still going on in our house, there has been no time for leisure reading. *Sigh*

That's right. Here's my sleep update and sadly, it's not a great one. It's not an awful one either, though, because we have made some real strides. Thanks to the brilliance of my parents (who hatched the plan), we moved Raegan out of our room and all of our bedrooms upstairs in May (where our window nook that I wanted to turn into a book nook - again, no time for books anyway! - has become our nursery). 

Although there have been a few bumps in the night, this arrangement has worked particularly well for Harrison. He still comes in our room every so often but the bizarre 4-5 trips each night that he was making to visit us across the hall when we were all downstairs have all but disappeared. I say all but because this whole venture into Potty Training Land has given him a new reason to be up roaming at night, but that's another post for another time. I think he likes that his new room upstairs is smaller and cozier. Plus, maybe he likes the fact that RL is no longer in our room, so he doesn't feel the need to be there either. Who knows! Altogether he is getting pretty decent sleep most nights and naps most days, so if you can overlook the fact that he arises at the horrific time of 5:50 every morning, things are good.

Raegan, on the other hand, has decided to continue giving us a complete run for our money. At night. Every night. Actually, I take that back. Not every night, and therein lies the real confusion, frustration, problem, etc. Some nights, she has slept and slept fine. For three nights -THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW, mind you - at the end of June, she slept from 11-6ish. Considering that she was just about to turn eight months old at that time, that may or may not strike you as great. I took it as FANflippingtastic because I hadn't seen that much sleep in solid chunks in months. Honestly, I may not have seen sleep like that since before I had her.

But then, it went away. She started waking up every 2.5-3 hours again, and since we hadn't found any better solutions, I continued to go in and nurse her back to sleep. Every 2.5-3 hours. It's no wonder why the bags under my eyes are so dark and I have so many bruises on my shins - I'm a sleep deprived clumsy zombie most days! But seriously - that is no way to exist in this world. Never getting solid sleep makes me short tempered, cranky, and downright negative. It's a battle some days just to remind myself that this won't last forever and that someday, God willing, my children will be teenagers who I can't drag from their beds. Somehow, though, that all still seems too distant to be of any comfort. In the present, my neck is a wreck from sitting/sleeping in the rocking chair too often as I nurse her, again, back to sleep, and my moods swing as often as my eyelids droop during the day.

A week ago, Thursday, we had our worst night to date where Raegan didn't sleep for more than an hour and a half until after 3 a.m. Then, the next night, for some reason unbeknownst to any mortal being, she slept from 10:30p.m.-7a.m.. Her best night ever. WTH?! Actually, I wouldn't be cursing it, but as you can imagine, it has not happened again since and last night almost rivaled last Thursday because she was up and pretty well pissed from 10:40p.m.-2:40a.m. and then up for good at 6:40. Brutal, I tell you. Just brutal.

Clearly, we need a change. So, begrudgingly, I went back to my stack of parenting books today and pulled out one that I bought when Harrison was about six months old and not sleeping so well himself. It is called Good Night, Sleep Tight and is written by Kim West, the so-called Sleep Lady.  Although I read this two-and-a-half years ago, we never went through with it because I couldn't really commit to her Sleep Shuffle of sitting next to the crying baby and gradually removing yourself from the area every few days. Instead, we opted for full on cry it out, which worked, but clearly did nothing to actually teach Harrison about sleeping, as evidenced by the full on chaos we had when he was no longer contained by his crib.

This time we wanted to avoid CIO, but instead we have been using all kinds of sleep crutches (West's term) such as nursing and rocking and singing and shushing and so on. It has been a full time job getting this little girl to sleep and what really sucks is that you just never know for how long it might last. As it is, all of our crutches have done nothing to teach her how to go back to sleep on her own, so now, at just shy of 9 months, we are still having to do it for her. Plus, a lot of the time, if she's not nursing to sleep, she's crying or screaming in our arms anyway, so we might as well have her do that in her crib next to us where hopefully she can learn to put herself to sleep without us in a few weeks time.

I don't think this will be for the faint of heart, and as tired as we are, it may be a challenge as great as enduring CIO, but my ultimate hope is that in the long run, we can all get better, more sustained sleep. So, please, say your prayers or cross your fingers or light your candles or do whatever you do in hopes that my next sleep update is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!

Pete and His Sake

It has been just over ten years since I lost my first grandparent - my mom's mom, Orpha. I was a sophomore in college when she died, and while I consider myself lucky to have had her as long as I did, there are times when she pops into my head and I wish I could see her or talk to her now. Having children, I think, has especially made this true, as I would love for her to see her greatgrandbabies and I would love to compare stories of motherhood with her. From what I hear, we may have had some commonalities to share...

According to his little sister, anyway, Cliff and Orph's first born was quite the mover and shaker as a young boy. He was always on the go and always into something. Hmmmm...sound familiar? According to that same sister (and my dear mother, herself), Cliff and Orph's second child was a little girl bound and determined to keep up with her brother (she walked at 9 1/2 months). Again, I say, Hmmmmmmm.

While we may not actually be at the 9 1/2 month mark or walking yet, Raegan is well on her way to doing whatever she can to rip and tear after Harrison. For starters, she is pulling herself up on EVERYTHING. Me, couches, tables, chairs, cupboards, toys - doesn't matter. If she thinks it will give her leverage, she uses it. She can't stand or get up unsupported yet, but I have a feeling that once she's there, she'll be, well, gone. She already crawls anywhere and everywhere at lightning speed; I can only imagine how quick she'll be to explore once she's up on two feet!

Speaking of crawling anywhere...today, Raegan tackled our basement steps and won. Now, before you freak out on me, they are carpeted and I was there with her the whole time. But yes, she crawled up all thirteen of them only pausing once or twice to glance back over her shoulder (where I was waiting with arms outstretched in case of backwards motion). The look on her face the couple of times she looked back down seemed to say, "Well, would you look at that?! I am so doing this!! COOL!"

Harrison also took to stairs at an early age and also at my own doing. Like a moth to a flame, he was all about crawling to the top of our basement steps in the old house, and quite frankly, I got sick of having a mild heart attack every time he did so. At 9 months I started working with him to teach him how to "turn and go slow" (backwards and feet first) and before long, he was a stair master (I'm tired enough that that pun is really working for me right now).

Today I decided to start that same lesson with Raeggebaby, and while she really didn't get the going backwards and down thing, she certainly (obviously) was good with the up thing. Her face when she reached the top was just priceless. She's already the happiest baby I've ever seen, but in that moment I could see not only the delight but also the pride that she was feeling from her accomplishment.

The other expression that I witnessed today on Sweet Baby Girl's face, however, has me thinking that I might soon start channeling Grandma Orph via her two most used expressions (that I can still, to this day, hear in my head in her voice): "OH, Cliff!" and "Oh, for Pete's sake." You see, Raegan has lately (OK, always) been going after things she shouldn't such as fans, cords, the gross icky metal kick plate at the base of the fridge, and - today - the leftover Angry Birds wall poster decoration thingies from Harrison's birthday party last weekend. To her credit, she's been kind of good at listening to my tone of voice when I tell her sternly to stop, or she was until today, anyway. Today, when she was going after the poster for the umpteenth time and I firmly told her to stop, she turned to look at me over one shoulder, smiled, and then laughed. Now I know she's happy, but that particular exchange came across as ornery, not happy! Well, I take that back. She was happy. What made it seem ornery was that she seemed to sense that I was not!

So, yes. As we continue down this road of chasing after Big Brother and exploring the Great Big World, I think I shall be calling upon both Cliff and Pete quite a bit. This actually makes a great deal of sense seeing as Raegan is named (in part) after me and I am named after Clifford Raymond. Can't say I'll ever be able to explain Pete logically to anybody, but whoever said parenting was going to be 100% logical? Um, clearly no one; why else would we always be asking some random dude named Pete for a little bit of sanity?!

Two Peas in a Pod of Four

There are many things to love about summer (iced coffee, swimming pools, sunshine, etc.), but probably my favorite is having my husband around 24/7. Well, mostly 24/7. He still has a few school commitments during the summer and don't even get me started on his "hobby" of keeping the lawn watered and mowed...

But, yes; for the most part, summer is fantastic because the kids get more Daddy Time and I get more Ben Time. After an especially trying and busy spring, we've needed this summer in particular to recover and reconnect. Bit by bit, we're getting there. One such bit came during a kitchen conversation before bed the other night...

Like best friends on a sleepover, Ben and I have been known to stay up way too late chatting in bed many a time. This is a wonderful thing, but a little more problematic now that we've got two littles in the house. For one, we really need every minute of sleep we can get (duh). For another, our littles sleep in rooms veryveryvery close to ours, so late night conversations in bed don't jive well with sleeping kiddos which doesn't jive well with sleeping parents and so on. So. The other night we fell into one of our talks in the kitchen before heading upstairs for the night and something rather profound came to my attention.

Thanks to my saving grace blog, Momastery (sorry if you're sick of these references, but this blog really has brought me through some rough patches if for no other reason than giving me something to laugh about til it hurts), I stumbled upon this notion that every age and every stage of children is not for every parent. This is not to say that you don't love your kids from Day One (or before) to Forever (or beyond), but just that you might hit your stride as a parent with one age range over another. For example, some parents might do really really well with the preschool set while others flourish with teenagers or even grown children. Excellent stuff, really, for those moments when you find yourself wondering Why am I not better at this? Shouldn't I be better at this? Shouldn't I be loving every minute of this?? Glennon's answer? Maybe you'll get better at it with time or maybe another time will be your time to shine. I love it. Such a good mantra for remembering that this too shall pass and that what you are doing is more than enough because you're doing the best you can.

I've shared this notion with Ben and we've both been mulling over it for some time now. See, Ben and I are planners. All those times we stayed up talking half the night? All those phone calls we had when we spent a year living in different cities? All planning sessions, I tell you. We love to talk about what's to come, how we will approach it and what will come after that. This is not to say that we don't know how to live in the moment and enjoy life, but we are both creatures who depend and thrive upon structure and order. Or at least an itinerary (and possibly a theme thrown in for me, just for kicks).

I mention this shared personality trait of ours because it has something to do with the parenting stage and struggles in which we currently find ourselves. Babies and toddlers do NOT like plans. If anything, they are anti-plans and sometimes it seems that they do anything and everything to thwart plans, no matter how well laid out or intended. Herein lies the profound discovery from our conversation the other night: I have never thought about this clash in this light before, but now it makes total sense as to why I come so close to (and sometimes do) losing my $hit. In my Type A/Perfectionist/Planner/Helicopter modes, I see how I want everything to go in this life with small children. They sleep, they play, they eat, they sleep, they play, they sleep, and then then they eat and play some more. See how lovely that is? I mean, really. Beautiful stuff. But as it is, childhood and parenting are messy jobs and while my kiddos do eat and play and sometimes even sleep (like right now, bless their little hearts), most days just don't go according to plan.

None of this is to say that I don't love what Harrison and Raegan are teaching me about what it means to be smack dab in the middle of toddler- or baby-hood. There are wonderful parts of each and every day. But there are hard parts of lots of days, too. And while I've never tried to sugar coat that reality, I've never quite understood it so well, either. I've spent a lot of time blaming myself and trying to get over myself and just plain forgive myself for all that goes wrong in our day-to-day, but I've never thought about the other side. So last night, when Ben said, "We have to forgive them over and over." it just clicked. Please don't read that as in we're now blaming our children for our problems or saying that there is something wrong or bad with either of them. We are not and there is not. But I do think there is some value in learning to forgive them for going against this vision I have in my head. Their vision of the world is beautiful, too, and I just need to see that more often.  Maybe if I can do that, I can let go of some of the pressure I feel or some of the anger I experience when things inevitably go against plan. I can't keep hanging onto those expectations; otherwise, we really are going to have some lasting problems and issues in our family.

So today I'm thankful that during this summer and in this lifetime, Ben and I have each other to help one another understand and navigate this foreign country known as parenting. I am also thankful that Harrison and Raegan, my two little active balls of super cute, have each to help one another understand and navigate this foreign country known as living with parents who are Planners.

Potty Stalling

Once again, we seem to be coining a new phrase here in the Welsch household thanks to Mr. Harrison. It would appear that we are not so much Potty Training (not really a proper noun, but perhaps it should be) as we are Potty Stalling.

Prior to a week ago, we had really done nothing with potty training. I've been meaning to read up on it for ages, but honestly, I've been in no rush to deal with it. Two in (mostly cloth) diapers isn't the end of the world, plus I've had so many friends tell me that until the kid is ready, you may as well be beating your head against the wall to try and force it. I think I do enough of that with other areas of parental expectations/pressure/whatnot, so I said a big old "NO THANKS" to the added stress of potty training. I figured that once I was done teaching for the summer, we'd deal with it. Harrison, though, decided to get an early jump on things.

It started a week ago when my family was here to visit. It was after supper and I was nursing Raegan before bed while Ben was handling nighttime duties upstairs with Harrison. All of the sudden I heard a bunch of commotion and footsteps coming down the stairs. I didn't know if Ben had fallen asleep or HD had escaped or what. Then, all of the sudden, I heard my parents, my brother and his girlfriend all cheering and clapping. HUH?!

I stood up, and with Raegan still in my arms, I headed for the hallway. I knew Ben had been trying each night to see if Harrison would go potty on the toilet upstairs, so I thought that maybe, just maybe, that was why everyone was celebrating.

What I witnessed when I stepped out in the hallway was the happiest, most naked almost three-year-old little boy. Harrison was so excited and so proud (and so without a stitch of clothing). He was literally dancing in circles and waving his arms in the air. It was fantastic. I got a big hug and the big news...he went to the bathroom in the big potty!!! (it's another euphemism, people; I know you can figure it out!). Extra fantastic!

The next night there was no potty news and then he went to stay with Grandma for a few days where he also had no major potty developments. Fast forward to Thursday night when he and Grandma came back. After he'd been upstairs for quite some time doing the nightly routine with Daddy, there were once again footsteps on the stairs and a very proud boy coming to tell us that he had pooped and peed on the potty. AND he got two Potty Stars (a drawing on his hand done by Dad as a reward)!

Last night both kids got a bath after supper and before HD and Daddy came down to say goodnight to us girls, Harrison again used the big potty. Before nap today, same thing. All good. All great. All wonderful. I mean, essentially he is doing this all by himself AND he's bypassing the little potty altogether which is fine by me; I'd rather not have another toilet to clean, no matter how tiny it may be! But here's the thing. We (and by we I totally mean Ben) can only get him to go before sleep. Now I know that's not entirely bad; it has to be helping him sleep better and it will ultimately be great for when we're trying to get him to sleep all night without a diaper, but I also sense ulterior motives.

As much as we've made progress in the sleep realm with Harrison (more on that another time, knock on wood), I can see that he's still trying to find ways to push the boundary and stall. Sometimes this means asking for another book (he'll pick the longest one he can find - just ask him!); sometimes it means a meltdown. Now it seems to mean the potty. He knows that going to sit on the potty means he can be out of bed legitimately, and so he's doing it.

In a way, I'm all for it. If it means he is ready to be done with diapers, well then, Merry Christmas to me! In another way, I wonder just how far (and how late) he might take the stalling technique. But seriously. He might very well potty train himself here, so I guess I'll just have to accept that a little later bedtime could be my greatest ally here in the next few weeks (that and Harrison's very patient and most wonderful Daddy).

First Tooth Coming

Whenever a baby is fussy or won't eat or feels a little warm or won't sleep, I blame teething first. This is funny, in part, because of just how much I blamed teething for those very happenings with Harrison when in fact he was never teething. Well, I mean, he did eventually get teeth...but not until he was two weeks shy of his first birthday and he wasn't fussy, didn't have a problem eating, ran no fevers, and slept fine with pretty much each new tooth. Go figure, eh?

What was concerning, however, about Harrison teething was the fact that we were still nursing at the time. Now I know plenty of mamas nurse through teething, in part because their kiddos teeth so much sooner, but I'm kind of wondering how. You see, although it didn't happen a lot, there were a few times during the months of post-teeth and pre-weaning that Harrison bit me. I may have been able to block from my memory a lot of the pain associated with labor, but somehow the whole getting bit while breastfeeding thing has been harder to shake.

The good thing, though, was that we were on the downhill side of nursing at that point, and I knew I wouldn't have to deal with the teeth for long. Technically we did nurse until 16 months, but at that point he was just nursing in the morning and before bed because solids were his big thing by then. Unfortunately, it would appear that I'm not going to be so lucky this time around...

Because old habits die hard, any time that Raegan has been super cranky or fussy, I have of course blamed it on teething. I know I've been doing this because I find myself sticking my finger in her mouth to feel her gums whenever she seems out of sorts. My little litmus test had been coming up negative, just like with her brother, until today. This afternoon as I was trying to get her down for a nap, I happened to run my index finger along her gums, and wouldn't you know it? I felt two sharp, little bumps. Bummer. Further investigation in broad daylight after the nap confirmed the presence of white protrusions on the front/bottom/left of her mouth. Double Bummer! 

My goal with nursing is a year; anything after that is gravy, but I really, really want to hit the 12 month mark. How am I going to do that if these teeth decide to chomp on me? Of course I have no idea if she'll do that or not, but we are nowhere near turning her over to solids if she does. Shoot - she's tried all of two veggies and some oatmeal and rice crackers so far - that's IT.

So, really, it's kind of Mama or bust (ha! that's my worst pun ever).

Suggestions? Advice? Sympathy? I'll take it all.

Play Constructure

Toddler language is amazing. Truly, I am astounded every day at the words and phrases my almost-three-year-old son not only knows but also uses correctly. He is SO verbal, and I find myself wondering, a lot, where he has picked up half of the stuff he knows and says. 

Of course I know a lot of his language comes from us. Because I know he listens to us all the time, I try to watch the words I use in front of him as best I can. Of course this mostly applies to cussing, but I’m quickly learning that what I say about common everyday things matters, too. For example, one of my stock phrases when I am frustrated and overwhelmed and by myself with the kids is, “Where is your father?” I know this because I now hear HD saying, “I don’t know where my fadder is” any time I ask about Daddy’s location in the house. Harrison never calls Ben “father” except for in these instances which are made even more amusing by the questioning hands he raises in the air and the shake of his head as he says it. What is also amusing, though, is that Harrison is still finding ways to embellish and create his own language, too. 

Last month we added another phrase to HD’s vocab creation list when we bought a used playground/ swing set/wooden structure/thingamabob for our backyard. Part of this phrase’s creation came from our very confusion; we honestly didn’t know what to call the thing because it was far more than the simple swing set we would have purchased had we ended up buying something new. It had the slide and the bridge and the tire swing and the regular swings and two play decks and a picnic bench and even more features that make it the most mammoth playset I've ever encountered. Don’t get me wrong. We LOVE the thing and Mr. Monkey is having blast playing on it. We just weren’t sure what to call it. Leave it to Harrison to give us the answer! 

 

Waiting for the playground/ swing set/wooden structure/thingamabob to find its home in our actual yard took a while. We bought it on a Monday, hauled the pieces on a Wednesday, and then had to wait a week and a half before we were able to put it all together on a Saturday with the help of Ben’s parents (Grandpa Dave to help Ben with construction and Grandma Deb to help me with running herd on the children during construction). 

During the waiting period, we had to answer a lot of questions from Harrison about when the set would go together and when he could play on it, and all that. A LOT. Apparently it was during those discussions that we used the word construction to describe what would (eventually) happen to all the pieces sitting on the patio slab next to our garage. Because we kept calling the pieces different things (playground/ swing set/wooden structure/thingamabob), Harrison decided to make the final call by introducing us to the phrase Play Constructure. Much like his creation “Campfire” (in place of Kindle Fire), it stuck. 

Now we find ourselves using the phrase all the time as if constructure is an actual word. In fact, I find myself having to explain/translate for other people (just like I have to with Campfire) what we are all talking about and if constructure really is a word. Technically, it is not, but for the life of me, I can’t come up with any better way to describe it. So, once again, Harrison’s literary skills amaze and surpass my own!