Believe/Be

I pin a lot of crap on Pinterest. It's true. I love the website and all the pretty things. I want to pin all the pretty things and then learn all the pretty things, make all the pretty things (even though I haven't touched a sewing machine in years) and eat all. the. pretty. things. Such eye/mind candy Pinterest is! But I'm a realist and Pinterest just isn't real. I mean, again, it is pretty and there are lots of pretty ideas floating around on it, but for Pete's sake, there is no way I am ever going to learn, make, or eat all of the pretties I pin. Absolutely won't happen.

And even though Pinterest does its best to guilt me with its food and workout routines and Best Parent Ever techniques, I don't buy it. I know there is no such thing as a perfect person or parent (there might be a perfect pastry, but the chances of me making it these days are slim - who has the time?!). And I won't let a website fool me into feeling bad about myself because I can't actually do or make or be all the things I pin. I am good with that. And because I am good with that, I get to do a celebratory dance any time I actually do accomplish something I found on Pinterest (which means I've only done this dance a few handfuls of times, but hey, that is realistic when I consider the three real-life pretties I must attend to day in and day out).

So, Pinterest rant aside, I am so stoked that one of my happy dances got to be in honor of this:

I actually managed (with many helpers) to make a "Believe there is good in the world/Be the good" sign! And the way it all unfolded was pretty cool. 

First there were the barn boards that my in-laws so kindly brought for me. Their old barn fell victim to a tornado before I ever met the Welsch family, but they've kept some of its pieces, using them for various projects, and fortunately some were still available for my little art scheme. My FIL cut them for me and Ben trimmed the edges and this is where we started: 

From there I enlisted the help of my mom who is far more artistic than I am but who still didn't want to just free-hand the lettering. Instead we searched Word for a good font, played with the sizes of various words and came up with this ("GOOD" is actually the biggest word on the board):

My mama is also a smart lady and it was her idea to use carbon paper (did you know such a thing still exists? Well, thankfully it does at Eakes Office Plus in Hastings, anyway!) to trace the letters on the boards. This was great until we realized how rough/weathered some of our boards were. Let's just say we had an awful time seeing the word "World"!

From there it was paint time. Buttercup on the "Be the Good" and cream on everything else. Even though I can't wear it, I love me some good yellow!

 Between nursing sessions, I helped paint. :)

Three boards in:

A few days later, it was time for our lovely work to go up on the wall. My dear math teacher hubby devised a pretty awesome way of making this happen. 1x4 boards with eye hooks and some heavy duty wire to hang from screws in the wall and we were in business.

Brass screws attached the boards to the boards (huh?) so that our creation will be fairly easy to relocate should we ever choose to relocate.

 Almost there!

Getting the sign up on the wall was actually a little scary (to me). The steps in our front entryway are STEEP and Ben had to be up on an extension ladder to get the screws in that would align the sign with our front door since there is no actual floor right in front of where it now sits.

 See? STEEP!

With my help, we got it balanced and on the screws and, viola - sign!

Totally worth it, eh? The final product is amazing (and pretty!) and it just so happens that when I sit in the living room's rocking chair, I am directly diagonal from this great message. This wasn't why I chose this location, but it is a happy coincidence. I actually chose this spot in our house because everything else is covered in pictures and it was the only place that could house a 4'x4' sign. That and I wanted it to be a saying that our guests, family, and friends would see whenever they left our house...something to take with them to believe and be in a world/society that tends to sensationalize and exploit the bad.

It wasn't until my dad made the comment "Words to live by" on a Facebook picture of the work in progress that I truly realized my other desire to have this in our house. I really do want my family to embody these words. We don't have a list of family rules posted anywhere in our home but now that we have this, we may not need one. When life boils down its most simple and most pure, what more is there than believing in and being good to others? Yes, there will always be the bad (moments, days, acts, people, etc.). But when we focus our attention on the other, the good, we build kind hearts and caring homes. And if we can carry that good, that love, with us, then we have the ability to help others do the same. By no means do I think one little pretty from Pinterest is going to change the world, but if it helps me and mine remember what really matters in life, than I'd say it was well worth the pin, the planning, and the finished product.

A Pirate Says, "ARRRRRRGH"

I wish BabbaCo was sponsoring me to write this, but even though they aren't, I've got to sing the praises of their monthly subscription service for kiddos age 3-7, the BabbaBox. Holy Moly Cow. COOL thing!

Earlier this summer, my parents offered to get Harrison, my little preschool stud, a subscription service for his birthday present. So I did some asking and some looking online to compare different ones (like the KiwiCrate, Citrus Lane, etc.) and decided that the activities (arts, games, books) with the BabbaBox looked like the best fit for us. My mom did the ordering and then, viola, the goods started showing up at our house the end of July.

Truth? We still haven't done a thing with the first month's offering (Sorry, Mom!). We were traveling the day after it came and life was crazy and I wanted to save that stuff for when Ben went back to school, so I put it up on a shelf for a later date. Then, this week, another one arrived. Again, I wanted to wait until I was ready desperate, so I left it on the kitchen counter, unopened - that is, until this afternoon...HD had already had his share of PBS and the Kindle, and the other two were still napping, so I decided to pretend like the package had just arrived in the mail today. HD is pretty observant, so it could have been totally possible for him to call my bluff and say, "No, Mom. That's been in the kitchen for days", but he's also 4 - it worked like a charm! I had him all excited about the package with his name on it and we tore into it on the couch.

Much to our delight, we found the coolest activity cards and supplies to get going right away with our "Pirate Treasure" box (although they have yet to show up in a box...always an envelope. Mom, I've been meaning to ask you about that. We don't care that it's not in a box, but is that some sort of green shipping option? If not, it's funny that their name and packaging aren't one and the same).

HD, not a costume wearer, got really excited about his pirate eye patch and wanted to get to the treasure chest decorating and gold coin hunting, straight away. So here is what we did:

Tacky glue and awesome plastic gems made Harrison's treasure chest truly one of a kind (all supplies included in the kit, even the glue). I glued, he stuck, and then we played hide-and-seek with the coins in the next room while we waited for everything to dry. 

Of course, I had to have a pirate costume for hiding the coins, too, so I grabbed the bow from the original packaging and stuck it on my head. Perhaps a bit more fu-fu and sparkly than your average pirate, but hey, whatever works.

Our coin hunt (complete with verbal clues from me to him to find all 10) was very entertaining and lasted just long enough for the box to dry so we could add it to our fun and games.

It was Harrison's idea, not mine or BabbaCo's, to put the coins in two columns of perfectly matched patterned rows. "Look, Mama! A pattern!" Love this kid! Love him so much that we even went hunting for more pieces of our pirate costumes later when the littlest Littles were awake. I didn't get a pic of HD w/ his bandana, but he did share the eye patch and treasure chest when he took this photo of me:

Eventually, Ben got in the fun, too, adding a treasure map of sorts to the treasure hunt. Making a map is one of the additional online activities, but rather than printing that off, Ben just made up his own version with torn up pieces of paper and quick sketches of items in our living room. From there, he would give Harrison the first drawing which would lead to the next item/clue and so on and so on until all the clues were found and he ended up at the treasure chest containing the coins. After 30 minutes of this (no, really, he played this for a solid 30 minutes, after 45 minutes of treasure chest decorating/coin hunting earlier in the day with me!), they switched it up and began placing the last clue in the chest and the coins in a final location. Harrison Ate. It. Up! For another 30 minutes!
                                      
And this is only one (and a half) of the ideas from this month's box! What an awesome afternoon it provided for us. I can't wait to see what else we discover, both with the box and with our own creativity. And the coolest part? Another one comes the next month and you get to have all new adventures. Of course, this would be totally possible with a little bit of effort planning on my part. Any small box or bag could be a treasure chest and the map/coins could be duplicated, too, but my brain is stretched too thin on sleep these days, so this subscription thing is currently a lifesaver. And don't be surprised if you swing by our place and hear us saying, "ARRRRRRRRGH, Maties!" and "Shimber Me Timbers (HD's version)!" in the coming days/weeks!

Another Round

Amazing what a difference a year makes. For me and for my Little (Big?) Man, Harrison. Last night we had Open House at preschool. The time was different (it started at what is normally his bedtime! those of you who know my Sleep Nazi ways can imagine what I thought about that!) and over half the kids were different, but it was all still pretty darn cool. And, can you believe it? No tears from this tired, postpartum-hormonal mama!

I guess part of it is having comfort in the familiar. Harrison knows his classroom and his teachers and the space at the Y so well after attending preschool there last year. This year, doing the classroom scavenger hunt to start the evening was a breeze (he was even helping his friends find pictures from their own clipboards after we finished his). There was no sudden moment of (mild) panic (on his part and mine) when Miss Rita said the kids would stay with the teachers and the parents would go with her to do paperwork. Instead, he ran right to the center of the circle carpet and plopped down, ready to go for whatever. And when we finished said mountain of paperwork (just kidding - not that bad) and he finished his way-super-awesome-especially-an-hour-after-bedtime snack of a sugar cookie with a chocolate Kiss in the center, he was cool, ready to collect his prize from the mailbox, and head out the door. No, literally. He nabbed his treat (see below) and ran straight for the door. "I got this, Mama. I totally got this!" is how I would caption the picture of that moment, if I had remembered to take my camera.

Of course, it's true - he's totally got this. For an already (and always) verbal kid, his language has grown so much this summer and so has he (4' and 5 lbs. in the last year - or was it 5" and 4 lbs.? - either way - SO big!). He cares more about relationships with others and is memorizing whole stanzas from (rhyming) books. He is so ready for school to start in two weeks! And even though it will be different because Dad will be taking him in the mornings before he goes to school, I know Harrison will settle right in to the routine and we'll all find the way to our new normal. It probably goes without saying, but the summer was a big transition for all of us and with Ben back to work, things have been a little nutty around here lately. I think we're all hopeful that once preschool starts again, we can figure out a schedule that works for all of us, as a family and as individuals, too.

I can't wait to see what the new year brings for Mr. HD. I think he's going to have a blast and learn a ton (which should maybe terrify me because he's already pretty darn quick). I mean, what could be better in a 4-yr-old's world than a great place to go play and explore and grow three times a week, and one that also gives you occasional prizes like suckers from the Prize Mailbox (that your mom and dad tell you can be eaten the next day as "breakfast dessert" because Dear Me, you should have been in bed over an hour ago and don't need any more sugar just this second!)?!

Hard to Share?

As you may know if you've ever once read this blog previously in the last two years, we don't always get the best sleep in our house. (Ha! Reading over that sentence just now made me snort. OK, it made me smirk, but I'm tired, so my sense of humor is functioning on a sliding scale on which a smirk equals a snort - trust me). I mean, someone in our house usually gets some good sleep but it never seems to happen at the same time or to the same someone for very long and therefore there is also always someone who is a little bit sleepy and little bit cranky among us. And yes, by someone I often mean me! But, as always, I keep trying to not let my sleep acquisition (or lack thereof) determine my mood/behavior, while constantly and forever searching for ways to get more sleep (for all of us). In fact, I believe that More Sleep has become the greatest quest and confusion in my life as a mama.

Luckily, as you may also remember, our newest sleeper Lincoln is actually doing pretty well. Much better than his older brother or sister ever did at this age, I believe. And yet, he is a noisy little guy, especially when he sleeps; and since he's in our room, those noises have bothered me and my sleep/mood/behavior quite a bit. So after my last post about all this, several of you asked about moving him out of our room or at least not having him quite so close at night. And trust me, I heard you. I agreed with you! I just didn't know how to follow through with what you said.

Part of my reservation for moving Lincoln is that it requires moving the other two, too. Actually, that is my only reservation. I would be totally cool with Lincoln having his own little space where he can be Mr. Night Noise all he wants and all I'll hear is when he's actually awake enough/wanting milk. That would be lovely. What I'm less than convinced on, though, is how it will be to have Harrison and Raegan in the same room as that is our only solution given the bedroom arrangement in our house.

We are in love with many elements of our house. Moving last year was total chaos but totally worth it, especially now that we've had have our third Little join us. But what is less than ideal is that our house has two bedrooms on the main floor and two (plus a window nook) on the half-story upstairs. Our kids are just young enough and still potentially needing us during the night enough that I hate to split up with anyone on a different level than the others. As a result, we are cozy and close at night and the only way to get Lincoln out of our room is to put Raegan in with Harrison.

Thanks to all of our hard work last summer with the Sleep Shuffle, I don't think the going to bed part would be too hard. I'm sure there would be shenanigans at first but our trip to South Dakota showed us (and by us I totally mean Ben because he is the rock star who puts the older two to bed every night) that HD & RL can actually go to sleep pretty easily in the same space. They did it well at both my parent's and the hotel, so certainly they could manage it in their own house, right?

What concerns me is the potential for early morning wakings. Although he occasionally sleeps all the way through to Good Mornings, Harrison often comes in our room sometime after 5 to go to the bathroom. Why he feels the need to come through our room instead of just through the hallway is beyond me, but so it goes. We can often send him right back to bed until it is actually time to get up and a lot of the time, he actually stays. The problem we had at my folks' house, though, was that when he got up at 4:30 to pee, he woke up his sweet sleeping sister roommate (not to mention, the rest of us!) and that was it. There was no going back to bed for either of them (not to mention, the rest of us!). And that, my friends, was awful. I don't want to go back to the land of pre-5 wake ups. I am tired and cranky enough as it is and I don't think my psyche can handle starting our days any earlier than we already do.

So what do we do? Our current solution is to have Lincoln's sleep spot in the corner of our room, as far from our bed as he can be, and a pillow on my head. Yes, you read that right. A pillow on my head. I discovered this trick last weekend when a big thunder storm rolled through just as I was trying to go to sleep. It was soft rolling thunder which I would normally find pretty but at that point was just annoying, so I grabbed a small pillow, plopped it over my ear and feel asleep. And wouldn't you know it? I didn't hear Lincoln until after 6 the next morning! I'm sure he made noise, of course, but he was fine without nursing the whole night. It was wonderful and thanks to the same pillow-on-the-head routine, we've actually had a few nights in the last week of the same big stretch of sleep.

Somehow, though, I don't think I'm going to be able to keep sleeping with a pillow balanced on my head for the next three-four months, which is when we thought we'd move the kids around, so really, how do we do this? Do you have experience with kiddos sharing the same bedroom? How did you make it happen? What did you learn from the transition? Any advice you have to share would be greatly appreciated. We are a busy bunch these days, so we'll take any and all help we can get!

Why Write?

I can see a little bit how things are going to be for me in the days and weeks to come: BUSY! This was Ben's first full week of back-to-school life (started with students on Thursday but meetings all the days prior to that) and even with full-time help from Grandma (my mom), the week was a bit of a whirlwind. And who has time to write when your whirling?

Normally I sneak in posts during nap time or in the early evenings and of course, like today, on the weekends. But even then it can be tricky and can easily get pushed to the back burner. This week we focused instead on some house projects including an awesome sign for our front entryway, planning a fence project, and hanging up some beautiful family photos we had taken last month. Just adding those three little activities to our nights, which tend to be Lincoln-centered with lots of little nursing and holding sessions, made the week fly right on by. As a side note...I've said it a lot to Ben lately, but more and more I realize just how happy I am with my decision to take this semester off from teaching. I know I've only done one to two classes/nights per week in the past, so it may not seem like such a big deal to get that time back, but knowing that I don't have to figure out how to get myself ready and out to campus each week (not to mention finding time to grade all those papers!) is a huge relief right now.

Instead I can focus on figuring out what our weeks are going to look like now that Ben's back to work. We have just a couple weeks left in August and then preschool will begin again for Harrison, so that will be the start of our real routine. Until then we're just trying to get from breakfast to supper in one piece. The good news is that, for the most part, we've been highly successful thus far in these attempts and I can only hope that with the practice of each new day, we'll get better and better. (I say for the most part because, well, poor Lincoln - his big sister loves him SO and is SO proud of herself for learning the names for various body parts...I have to keep a very close watch on her to make sure she doesn't pull off a toe or poke out an eye as she identifies them on him.)

Obviously life with three is a bit of a juggling act. Just trying to get through breakfast takes a lot of patience, not to mention time thanks to Miss Raegan's big appetite. I tell you, the girl eats like a 15-yr-old boy some days! Lately she's been eating 10-12 (or more) bowls of cereal in the morning. Now, those are toddler-sized bowls, but I am not exaggerating on the number. I dump some of whatever kind she points to and declares "MORE!" for in the bowl, add some milk and then wait while she downs it, just to start the whole cycle over again (and again and again). Did I mention she totally feeds herself? That's Ben's doing from the summer and it is messy but also kind of brilliant because my hands are full of a million other little chores, so I don't mind that the 21-mo-old is driving her own spoon and drinking her own milk from the bowl. But it is also pure craziness, I assure you. Also crazy? She totally said, "More lellow!" the other day while pointing to the Cherrios box. This girl may end up keeping us on our toes even more than her older brother!

The rest of the day continues in much the same fashion with various children pointing at various activities and requesting "MORE!" MORE Angry Birds (both on the Kindle and off), MORE books (Dear Me, I think I spent an hour or more of combined time yesterday reading Berenstain Bear books out loud to the kiddos), MORE checking on Baby Linky (yep - that nickname is definitely here to stay), MORE cheese (why do they love cheese so much?), and so on and so on. I also have to squeeze in regular meal/nursing times and nap times for RL and LT and diaper changes and yeah....a whirlwind it is, especially if we add in any extras like appointments or visits with friends, etc. Of course the only way I will survive this fall is with the help of friends and family, so I don't really care how crazy that makes the day - it will keep me from going crazy!

The other sanity saver will be my writing. This is how I sort and process and remember, so whirling or not, I've got to do my best to stick with it. I hope you'll stick with us, too. I love to hear back from you all when you read these little stories; it helps me feel connected as a parent and a person, too. And goodness knows, life is all about connection.

The Language of Raegan Leigh

Raegan is on the verge of exploding with language. First of all, she understands everything. It really doesn't matter what command we give her or statement we make in front of her, she gets it and gives indications that she gets it. In typical toddler fashion, though, many of these indications are looks that she throws our way as she does the exact opposite of what we asked but her eyes say it all - she's not confused, she's testing (which is perhaps another post for another time). We've been noticing this level of comprehension for some time now, but it seems that lately she's all over all of it. Pretty cool.

The words Raegan actually uses are increasing all the time, too. Of course her favorites ("Daddy!!" and "NO!" and "Uh-oh!" and "Cup!") are still in constant rotation, but she's starting to pick up on more and more words (unfortunately "Cookie" or, in her terms "Cook! Cook!", is one of them) as well as more names. On our recent trip to South Dakota, she picked up "Grandpa", "Grandma" and even "Ozzie" (who is one of our former pups who now lives with Gpa and Gma). Now, two weeks later, I am still hearing about "Gamppa" and "Gamma" and, of course, always "Ozzie! Ozzie!" all the time. She identifies these individuals in photos she sees around our house but also in conversation. If she hears any mention of Grandpa, or Grandma, she will look at me, grin, and start chanting Ozzie's name. The girl's got some mad association skills!

She's also picking up on names for her brothers. While RL is the one who first coined "Linc" as a nickname for the new baby, it is HD's nickname (that I so desperately wanted to avoid, even more so than "Linc"!), "Linky", that seems to be sticking. She asks about Linky (somehow spelling that with a "c" looks very strange) all the time, especially if she hears him cry or I enter the room holding him. Clearly I am still not a huge fan of this name for my newest babe, but I do at least understand it now. When you have more than one child and the older child(ren) is trying to learn the younger one's name, it is just way too easy for them to shorten it and add a "y" to the end. When I think back about how Raegan became Raegge, it all makes perfect sense; the only difference is that I thought that nickname was cute from the get-go, so I didn't mind Harrison calling his sister by it. Raegan also became Raegs, and I have heard HD refer to LT as "Lincs" occasionally which I think I could get behind easier than Linky, but we'll see. Obviously the children are driving the bus on this one. The irony of all this name testing and changing is that "Harrison" is the one name we were OK with, prior to his birth, of shortening with a "y". We had no qualms with Harry as a nickname but then there was no one around who needed to shorten his name when he was a baby and so Harrison he remains. I suppose it could still happen via Raegan, but she's taken to referring to him as a garbly version of "Brudder", so unless we introduce "Harry" for her, I'm not sure she'll get there.

Speaking of garbles, when I say that RL is SO close to being full of words, I should clarify that most of them don't sound like proper members of the English language. Much of what comes out her mouth is garbly gook that even Ben and I can't understand and we're the ones around her all the time, so I certainly don't expect others to know what she's saying. Granted, some of it is decipherable. For instance, when she says, "I sheck" I know she means "I'll check" because she's off to go see what Daddy or HD are doing. Or when she says "Shews" or "Poddy", it is pretty easy to translate. But while she can usually get her point across with her crazy and emphatic pointing skills, there are plenty of times I'm left at a lost. Today she went running for the sun porch saying something that sounded like "Eat Apple!" but there were no apples on the porch and therefore I have no idea what that was all about.

I should also mention Raegan's constant use of the words "Sit" and "Seat" where she definitely adds an "H" after the each "S"....it often sounds like she is cussing with both an American and British accent in the same "sentence" and Ben and I have a hard time not losing it when she does. It's way too funny because she has no idea what she's actually saying.

Confusion and misplaced letters aside, it is pretty awesome having a front row seat to Raegan's language acquisition. Harrison was so entertaining at this age, too, so I can only imagine what Little Girl will add to our Toddler Lexicon. I will do my best to keep you posted on some of the gems!

Novice

In some ways I am more confident as a mother now that I have three reasons to call myself such. In (many) others, I still have no freaking clue as to what I am doing.

I seem to remember this same feeling shortly after Raegan was born - didn't I already know how to do this whole mothering thing before this new baby arrived? And didn't I do it better before? Except maybe those aren't fair questions because there is no way to compare this time to last time because each time our family is different, so obviously our experiences are different, too. But here's the deal. Lincoln has me feeling, at times, like I am a complete newbie to this whole parenting gig, and so those questions start to creep in occasionally.

I attribute some of my confusion to the fact that Lincoln is just so different from my first two. Again - how can you really compare? Of course he is different - he is his own person for Pete's sake! And his pregnancy (that sounds funny - my pregnancy with him? That sounds too wordy...I'm at a loss) was SO different from the first two, why would I even be surprised that his personality now is unique? To be fair, let me clarify that unique does not equate bad or strange or weird - just, unique.

For one, LT's a sleepy guy. He has been from Day One and we're at Five Weeks now, so I guess we're just going to go with it - he snoozes a lot. During the day he pretty much sleeps all the time and even at night, he hasn't been doing too bad (until he got RL's head cold, which is a whole different story). But it's crazy to me because I still have to wake him up every three hours during the day, most days, to make him nurse. I mean, I know he'll Wake Up for good at some point and then I'll probably long for the days when he just napped and napped, but the whole thing leaves me wondering, some days, if I'm doing enough with him.

This leads me to my second confusion. I suddenly don't really know what to do with a baby. I mean, I do, but I don't. Beyond feed, change, and hold, what is there? He's obviously too little to play and while I have him around the other kids quite a bit, we're more in protect than play mode during those interactions. HD & RL love him to pieces, but they do not understand their size/strength compared to LT's tiny persona, so keeping him in a safe place is more so on my mind than waking him up for full-on play sessions, you know? But because Lincoln is becoming ever so slightly more alert after feedings, I feel like I should be doing more. But more what? Again - why is this so foreign?!

I might be a bit confused about activities for Mr. Lincoln because during those semi-awake/semi-alert periods, he's not always the happiest guy. I know I said he's a chill baby and I stand by that to a certain degree, but the fact remains that he is also pretty darn cranky when he's awake if he's not in someone's arms. Even then he can be hard to hang on to and doesn't always seem content (unless, of course, he's drifting off back to sleep). So I find myself wondering what on Earth can I do to make him happy during those awake times. What is it that he wants? And why is it that babies don't come with a manual or being able to speak, huh? I don't always get it right with my ones that can talk, but at least I can usually get enough of the need de-coded to also get it met for them. With Sweet Baby Boy, I just don't know yet.

[Slightly random mama soapbox moment: why is that people always say that babies have different cries for different needs? Am I really the only one who just doesn't understand this? I have never been able to distinguish a diaper cry from a hungry cry and the notion that these books and blogs keep telling me that I should be able to makes me feel like a parenting failure. Kudos to you if you can decipher your babe's wails in such a way, but seriously, I cannot.]

The nice thing is, Lincoln doesn't seem to hold any of my confusions against me. What matters to him is that I feed him and change him and hold him and above all, love him. And seeing as he still nestles into my shoulder and likes snoozing on me after he nurses, I think he knows I care (even if I am running a pretty bad case of Mama Brain these days). And really, what more can a mama ask for beyond sweet newborn snuggles? [More sleep and free coffee and babysitters to name a few things, but I digress....]

Mid-night Insomnia

Ever since we brought Lincoln home from the hospital, he has slept three-four (and sometimes five or even six) hours at a stretch during the night. We go to bed around 10 or 10:30 and then he typically has me up once between 2 and 3 and not again until the big kids are getting up for the day at 6 or 6:30.  I've had babies that have done far less sleeping, so really, I've been OK with LT's self-proscribed sleep schedule.

Lately it is my own sleep that has been causing me fits, and not just fits, but Royal Hissy Fits which is another expression from my dear father. I'm not struggling so much to start the night...usually I fall asleep with no problems after Lincoln's final feeding for the day. What's been getting me, however, is the going back to bed after the middle of the night nursing session. I am sucking at that. It seems like some cruel ironic twist that someone as tired as myself could ever have problems sleeping, but really, the last several nights have had me up from 2-4 or even 5 a.m. because I just can't shut it off and go back to bed once I get Little Dude back in his cosleeper.

Perhaps part of the problem is that I have never, for the life of me and my sweet babes, been able to nurse in bed. I physically have to drag my bum to the rocking chair because I just can't get comfortable when I try to nurse horizontally (which might explain why I am such a nutter for collector of rocking chairs). Maybe the whole getting up is really just too much of actual getting up and therefore makes it hard to go back down?

Perhaps another part is that Lincoln is not a quiet sleeper. We've always had our babies in our room for their first five-six months and I remember all of them making noise, but LT seems to be an especially loud roommate. He grunts and shuffles and grunts and wiggles and grunts some more, all without ever really squawking. Actually, it is just these movements that eventually wake me up and get me to nurse him at all during the night; he has yet to start crying enough to get me up and in the chair for him, but he doesn't need to because the rest of it is plenty loud. So last night, for example, each time I was about to fall back asleep, Lincoln would make one of his many sounds and I'd be wide awake once again.

Or perhaps the real problem is that my mind spins in the middle of the night and keeps me up because I know that all too soon, I will be doing this day-in-day-out with three little Littles all on my own. Ben starts back to school at the end of this week and I'll be honest - I'm quaking in my boots. When I think about the daunting task of aligning all of their schedules and meeting all of their needs not to mention functioning as capable adult human myself, I get a wee bit overwhelmed. I know I've got family and friends that will lend helping hands when they can, but still...my life as a mama of three is about to get Real. So it is unfortunate that I feel like I'm about to enter the dark and scary way-too-tired place because this is the time when I need to be rested and ready to face each day with enthusiasm, not dread and dragging feet. And since I'm still avoiding caffeine and would like to continue to do so, I'm really going to have to dig deep to get the energy and motivation I need to get from getting through to actually living the days and weeks to come.

So how do I do it? How do I shut off my head and get back to bed so I can get the rest I very much need to be the mama I very much want to be?  

On Loving Lincoln (and literary comparisons)

Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting in one of my many rocking chairs, holding Lincoln and thinking, "I wish I could just stay like this forever." But then I thought of the 1,000,001 things I'd like to organize or clean in my house and I thought, "I'd love to split myself in two and be able to do both at the same time. That would be perfect." Of course, right after that I remembered that I have two older, totally adorable and worthy-of-spending-time-and-snuggles-with children AND a kind husband and thought, "Crap. More splits." And then I remembered what it was like BC (before children) when I had Saturdays to do whatever I darn well pleased and thought, "Yep, I'm pretty cool, too. It'd be nice to have a self just for myself." All of this, added to the fact, which you already know, that I'm an English major and bookworm of course had me thinking next that I needed horcruxes. If you don't know HP, I'm sorry for the strange reference, and if you do know HP, I'm sorry for the strange reference because I'm sure you are thinking it odd that I am comparing motherhood to soul splitting. I sure thought it was odd, and what I realized about ten seconds after the horcrux line of thought was that what I really need is probably just more sleep, but the more I think about it, splitting oneself and being a mama aren't really that different. Just hear me out...

In the last month, my heart and my body have been put to the test as we've welcomed our newest little person to our family. For the vast majority of that month, we've been great. My body aches some days because we've been sleep-deprived at times, you bet, but overall it's been a pretty smooth transition. I attribute much of that to summer vacation and the fact that Ben and I make one heck of a team. We have taken this family growth business on as a united front and what a difference that makes, even when you go in knowing you are out-numbered by the littles all driving their own buses (an expression my dad has always used - accurately! - to describe the reality of life with small children). Even on the days after nights when I don't sleep well (like the last few nights - oof.), I know I'll be OK because I have Ben's help to get through all the nursing sessions and meals and play time and chores each new day brings.

But change is hard, maybe even impossible, I think, without some growing pains, so of course there have been tears (both mine and the children's) and tantrums (both mine and the children's!) along the way. It takes time to get to know each other again after you add a new person to your family, so as a result, my heart has been growing and stretching like crazy since 6:45 p.m. on July 4th. At times it aches for the reasons mentioned above - so many different desires and people needing attention, all pulling me at once. And at other times, my heart has been fit to burst with joy because I stop to think about how we have been so blessed by the care (and food! and time!) of friends and family, not to mention just how amazing it is to have three healthy and (relatively) happy little babies in our house.

I'm still not sure that The Reality of Three has sunk in yet, but here's what I have learned about Mr. Lincoln: he is a love. SUCH a love. He's been my smushy face, sweet boy, curled up in a ball on my chest or in my arms little snuggler from day one and if I could, I probably would hold him all day. As noted by others who have held him, he's also a strong little wiggler who will do a back dive off your shoulder if you don't use two hands to hold him up there. He's a handsy guy which he can get away with because he's a month old, but even (especially!) his Mama is looking forward to correcting such behavior because, quite honestly, it is hard to nurse the Little Dude when his hands are constantly flying in the way! He gets away with this, however, because, again, he is so darn sweet. "SO sweet!" is what we hear from others, including strangers, whenever they see him.

And it's true. He may have been born on the Fourth of July, but Lincoln is no firecracker. He's actually pretty chill and seems to be ready to just roll with it, which is great (and which also makes him a good listener because that is exactly what I lectured him about when he was in my belly!). Even when you think he's going to wind up and squawk like a banshee, he calms down just as quickly and drifts back to dreamland (knock on wood that this continues!). Perhaps, when you are the third baby in a house full of busy babies, you need to let out the occasional squawk just to remind everyone you're there?? But really. Just look at those beautiful dark blue eyes. How could we ever forget he is a part of us?

Which brings be me back to splitting. All of these people, these pieces, are me. I've already been split by the arrival of each of them, including Ben, but not one has been a split that divides. What's that quote about true love only multiplies, not divides? What a Truth that is. My body, my heart, my soul, and my life have all expanded with each new addition, for which I'll be forever grateful. [Granted, I may lose my dang mind in the weeks to come when Ben goes back to school, but at the center of it all, the blessings and gratitude will remain, as I know my friends and family will help me remember!] So perhaps the literary comparison I need to make here is not to HP but the Grinch instead. One month ago, today, my heart grew ten sizes, all thanks to Lincoln, and what a gift he has continued to be ever since.

The others seem to agree: