What makes me happy!

Today I really had one of the best days I've had for a long time. Sadly, it has nothing to do with the children. They were their normal selves today. It all has to do with Robert, Evan and my friends. Last night Robert and I were trying to spend some time together. When Noah wakes up out of the middle of nowhere. He hasn't woken up for weeks and last night he woke up. It took me a while to get him to sleep, but I gave him some ibuprofen and he slept long enough for Robert and I to really some great time alone. Thank God for this! Because of a great night I woke up in the morning with a smile and a great out look on the day.

I've been checking my email a bit more than I normally do. You see last week I sent out an email asking a very dear 20 something some very personal questions about his sexuality. I know it's really none of my business why Evan is gay. But because I lived with him and his family for four years and took care of him and his brother as their nanny, I really felt the need to know. Not that he needed to answer me, but I thought I'd ask. It's not even like I've seen Evan and David a lot these past years. They are grown now and in college. They are not the little boys I once took care of. There is a place in my heart for them that is hard to describe in words but when I think of them, yes they are grouped together, I think think of their trusting, tender little brown haired boys that used to run like monkeys and had the intelligence of children many years older than they were. I was checking my email to see if Evan would write me back. Like a little girl waiting for her crush to send back the note she wrote to him with the boxes "yes" and "no" written above them with the question "Do you like me enough to tell me about your sexuality" then mark yes. As you can probably guess. He wrote me back. Evan still likes me!!

Today I also talked with a new person in church Jenn and for whatever reason I get a really good feeling about her. She's newly divorced and has moved back here to start her life over again with a two year old and a newborn. She and I found out that we have something in common. Our friend Dusty. It makes me so happy to have that happen! It feels like I know her that much better now that I know she was Dusty's friend too! I love Dusty.

I got to talk to Renee today. She's been feeling very overwhelmed by her three small children and has been having a hard time with her husband because he's not feel very sympathetic towards her. Plus his dad just died and he hates his job so things aren't really going his way. But I got to talk to her anyhow!

I can see from looking at what I've just written that I really miss connecting with people. Hannah and Noah have been sick for the last two weeks so we haven't been able to have anyone over here for a while so my batteries have been running pretty low.

Seven Years? Already?

Today Robert and I have been married seven years. SEVEN YEARS! Where has all the time gone? Both Robert and I tried to remember it was our anniversary at 4:20ish today (the time that we said 'I take you Sarah..."). He at work and I at home with the kids. But neither of us remembered. He was working on a 'wisdom' (his project) issue. I was in the car with the kids driving the babysitter home. It doesn't get more romantic than that now does it? Now if you told me seven years exactly from the time I got married I'd be where I was. I don't think I would believe that I'd have this life. The life that I always dreamed of but that seemed some how so far in the future. But here I am now. A wife to my bestfriend with two adorable children. I am truly blessed.

Vacation

I remember going to California with my family when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I don't remember any of the preparation. I remember how hot it was in the car, drinking country time lemonade the my mom mixed in the trunk of our Chevy, getting stung by a bee. I don't remember all the preparation. I'm sure I just got out of bed, ate breakfast and got into the car. Let's go!

Here I am twenty-eight years later getting everything ready for our whole family to go to Spokane. Seven hours away. I'm running on very little sleep since baby Noah woke up four times last night with the last wake up happening at 5:45. I am not a morning person. I'm a little stressed but so happy that I'll be with my family tomorrow all day. I still can't believe that we have a family of four.

Change

The past months have been filled with family visits. Cousin Elijah came to stay with us for 2 months. He comes from his home in New York City and spends six weeks at summer camp during the day and all his off time with us at our house. His mom, my sister, Bekah comes the last two weeks and they hang out here and in Spokane where Missa our other sister lives. It's pretty busy the whole time he's here and I find it hard to even have a moment to myself. But it's well worth the time that we have with him. He's a really nice boy. Of course it wasn't easy because Noah was still taking upwards of three naps a day. Hannah had been laying down for a nap but not falling asleep. So I had a mere hour to myself if all the timing worked out right.

We went to Sacramento to visit Robert's mom. It was one of the worst trips. But not because of any fricition between any of us. Hannah stopped sleeping. It all started with me convincing Hannah tha she didn't want to go out to dinner with me and my good friend Bethanee Hunnicutt. She screamed the whole time we were gone and then refused to stay in her bed and sleep. She often woke up at night and just screamed and screamed. We tried to lay down with her but it didn't work she just figeted the whole time. This lasted about a month after we got home. What ended up helping Hannah was that we stopped trying to nap her during the day. We started a new routine and got a great little clock that shines different lights when it's time to wake up (yellow) and when it's time to be in bed (blue). She started to stay in be until the light shone yellow. I did offer he lots and lots of rewards. Cupcakes, educational video games, toys. What ever it took to get her to stay in bed. So rewards in combination with a new clock and we had a new routine.

During this time of no sleep I really had a hard time seeing myself staying at home with her to home school her. I started looking into schooling options. I needed to think that there was a way out of the craziness that I called a life. Robert and I talked about sending Hannah to the new public school right out side our door, the Adventist school less than two miles away, or the local waldorf school. We decided that we liked the Waldorf school. Hannah needs more specialized attention. She'll get eaten up in a public school or large classroom setting. We also don't want her to become a lazy Christian by going to our denominational schools. But the reality is that things have gotten better. Hannah hit this new stride where she is funny, silly and so sweet. Lately I've been feeling like I can totally homeschool this child. Plus if you ask her where she wants to go to school she always says "I'm going to stay home with mommy". Isn't that sweet!

7.26.09 Cain and Able?

Today was the first day that Noah crawled. Well sort of crawled. I didn't see it. Robert was up stairs with the kids while I cleaned the kitchen and he witnessed Noah moved three feet to reach Hannah's play kitchen in her room. He moved both arms together and then both legs together (hiss belly was off the ground) in an inch worm fashion. Robert was so happy to have seen it that I could hear him saying "Good job Noey!". Then he brought both children down and cleared the floor so that we could all watch Noah together. Noah then just scooted around in circles going from a sitting position to a half leaned over grabbing position as we all watched ready to cheer.

Meanwhile Hannah sat on my lap all groggy from having actually taken a nap (she's normally doesn't sleep). I asked if she wanted to eat a nectarine or a foot-arine, or a leg-arine and she just hauled off and slapped me. I sat stunned while Robert sternly said "You do NOT hit mommy!". I then sat her on the time-out stair and had to correct her a couple of times for sliding off onto the floor. Just after her time-out I sat with her on my lap and fed her a peach and a nectarine. When she wanted another one I asked Robert to take over so I could spend a little time with Noah. So then about an hour goes by Hannah is happily playing on the ground Noah is scooting around. Robert, I and Eli are all sitting on the floor next to the children when suddenly Hannah takes a car she is playing with and throws it at Noah at a point blank range. I didn't believe what I had seen and sat stunned again as both Robert and Eli tell me that Hannah hit Noah with the car in his face. I suddenly started to see red and very angerily said to Hannah "go straight to the time-out stair now or I will spank you! We do not throw cars!" Of course she wouldn't move. So I spanked her and put her on time-out. It was such a horrific scene that I had just witnessed that I immediately got a stomach ache. I just couldn't believe that my precious daughter had just hurt a little baby, our little baby boy. I have the feeling that she did this out of jealously. Robert thinks that it was just because she can do it that she did do it. She's not a great thrower any how. I'm not so sure about that. But then again I was the little sister. I never had anyone to be mean to. It was only my sisters who were mean to me, while Robert remembers doing things like that just to see what would happen... I hope it doesn't happen again, but I know it has to. I also couldn't help thinking " is this how it started with Cain and Able?".

7.22.09 Where am I?

Eli, my nephew arrived about a month ago. Since then my life has been very full. Full of children all day long. It's really nice to have Eli. It means less time to do things without children in my hair, but it's worth it.

We've had some really good days and some not so fun days. The good days are days where there isn't too much crying. Everyone's needs get met pretty well. Bad days are days when Eli doesn't eat enough, Hannah throws tantrums and Noah doesn't sleep well at night. On the third of July it was a very difficult day for me since Noah woke up over and over again. I woke up for the day needing more time to sleep. I was a wreck. We almost didn't get fireworks for the 4th because I accidentally fed Eli some bread with sesame seeds, to which he is allergic. Poor boy! He has to throw up before he feels better.

Eli goes to a day camp most days. Today he stayed home because they were going to an amusement park and he is really scared of roller coasters but he also hates to go against what others are doing. So I let him stay home. He was so happy to have the choice to stay home that he almost cried. He also found out that staying home is pretty uneventful and is happy to go to camp again tomorrow.

6.24.09 Throw out the clowns

Today we went to the library for a special program. A one woman clown act. We got there and the clown-woman was doing her clown act while we were in line. I noticed at my side that Hannah immediately tensed up. She seemed to suddenly be afraid. I can only guess that she was thinking: Why was this person talking so loud? Why was she dressed up all crazy? I hope she doesn't talk to me! We sat down in the large room with all the other children and mommies. Hannah immediately broke down and cried loudly "I want to go home!". Right then our friend Renee with he children Mason, Jake and Paige came in. I hoped they would deter her. At this point Hannah continued crying with her eyes shut and fingers in a squished up "o" sign trying to block out the clown woman who was now in the audience doing her act. Once in the hall she decided we should get some books and go home. I some how persuaded her to go into the teen room and rock on their rockers. I tried talking to her about how she felt without putting words into her mouth. It was just like when I ask her how she feels. I realized after always getting the answer "good", or the blank stare or the total ignoring of my question being asked in the first place that I needed to go about it a different way by asking "what hurts?". So I asked her how she felt. I got a blanks stare. I asked her if she didn't like the clown. Another blank stare. She really seemed to be rattled by the whole clown idea. Someone dresses up in a crazy outfit and breaks all social rules. How can that be okay? While we were in there talking a very nice red headed librarian came in and asked us what happened. I said that Hannah didn't like the clown. The librarian smiled and sweetly said "I didn't like clowns either when I was your age". Hannah seemed to perk up after that. When we got home I told Robert Hannah didn't like the clown. Hannah said "The librarian said she didn't like it either when she was my age". Hannah seemed to feel uncomfortable about my telling her clown dislike story. I asked her if she wanted me to stop telling it. She said she would like that. I said "Can I just tell Aunt Missa?" She said "no".

Quoting Hannah

I only wear black on holidays, Halloween and when I trick-or-treat.

Chores

To chore or not to chore? The reality is that chores are not a whole lot of fun but they are a part of everyday life. It's not something that comes easily for me. I don't love doing chores but I do like having a clean house. When Robert and I were first married and we were both working outside the home, our house was pretty messy. However, I was able to devote all my attention to cleaning when it needed to be done but on a week to week basis I only ran the dish washer once. We ate breakfast (cereal and fruit) and dinner (something mostly prepared or take-out) at home. I cooked big meals once in a while. I cleaned when we were having guests. I did the laundry as infrequently as once every two weeks. Basically there was no schedule for doing anything at all. We didn't even take care of our yard. Robert paid a guy to come and take care of the lawn.

Now that we moved into a house without a real yard. I spend at least three hours a week watering our flowers and taking care of the rose bush. And we don't even have a yard! I do six loads of laundry a week. Laundry day is on Thursdays and Sundays. I vacuum twice a week. Usually Mondays and Fridays. We run the dishwasher just about everyday. Garbage has to be taken out every other day. I still don't make my bed, but on a fairly normal night I sleep in our bedroom for the first couple of hours and then after I feed Noah I sleep in the office in hopes that Robert won't hear Noah when we wakes over and over throughout the night. So officially I should be making two beds that have no flat sheet, only a duvet cover. But I don't do either.

So back to the question. I do chore, often. Now it's up to me to have our little ones pitch in with what needs to be done around the house. So far Hannah's not exactly thrilled with making her bed. But I'm not exactly the best example. She has been really into putting away her toys before bedtime and notices when we don't make her put them away.

I believe that children are a part of the house hold. If they can make messes then they can clean them up. The hard part is making being patient and persistent enough to follow through. Everyday.

6.4.09 Answered Prayer

We've been so busy in our house lately. We found out that Robert isn't going to lose his job. We decided not to move to California (yet) or to a new house. For a couple of years we've realized that we wanted to buy additional cabinets for our kitchen and bonus room. This endeavor has taken hours and hours of time in talking, planning and communicating with each other and Parr Cabinet Outlet whom we are buying our cabinets from. We don't have a lot of extra time on our hands with two small children. Most of our time is spent trying to just keep the house up to regular standards. I have barely been able to even read more than ten minutes lately. So tonight I was laying in bed reading while Robert was frantically working to restore a wiki page that he has all of his work notes on. I had this feeling that I needed to pray for him. So I asked God to help him restore his wiki page. Not five minutes had passed when Robert walked in happy and smiling saying that he found a little share-ware program that restored his page. Thank you God!

6.3.09 Children & Chores

I talked to an old friend whom I haven't talked to in years. She is newly married. When she asked me about myself I said something like "oh you know, my life is all about babies and toddler talk". It's hard to say much of anything else. I can't talk about just myself or Robert and I without mention of Hannah and Noah. My days and nights are centered around them. It is all very intense when you've got to dress, feed bathe, shoe, groom and last but not least love and guide two human beings all day. When you're not doing it, it all sounds, well, boring and really repetitive. Oh it is at times trying and oh so repetitive doing all that I do all day. I feel as if I've lost a part of myself and at times I'm a little bit mournful about it the person I once was. But then I see what a great work it is that I am truly doing. God has allowed me to be a part of creation. I carried these babies in my body for nine months. I gave birth to them through the most immense pain to sudden joy of meeting each of the face to face. Then all the work began.

Right now we're working on getting a routine and chore system going. We've already got a good system for bedtime but we need more because Hannah can do more. So far we've moved her clothes upstairs into her room and are getting her ready there now instead of downstairs in our room or the living room. I bought a hamper for the upstairs that all who stay up there can use to put their clothes in. I'm reading a chore book called "Manager's of their Chores" by the Maxwells. It's really good biblicially based and so far sets out great reasons children should do chores. I'll write more later about that when I read more of the book.

Wedding Clothes

Today we had our friends over to play. Nickii who brought her children Tayen (3) and Crewe (11 months). Were were talking about getting family pictures (we had just gone to JC Penny's and gotten pictures of our family) and Nickii saw the smocked light blue romper that I bought and just loved it. She said she was looking for an outfit for Crewe to wear for his one year old pictures and I had decided to let her borrow the outfit. Hannah heard our conversation and suddenly got upset. She started crying loudly muffling her words as she spoke. I told held her close and asked her what was wrong. She said "Nickii can't take Noah's clothes! What will he wear to my wedding?" I had to explain that when she gets married Noah will be a big tall man like daddy and he won't fit into it anymore. I think that she got confused because the dress she wore in our family pictures was the same dress she wore as a flower girl in a friend's wedding last summer.

5.23.09 Scales, Knees & Sleep

I've been counting calories for over a week. If you can believe it the scale says that I've already lost 5 pounds! It hasn't been easy. There are days when I feel so hungry I don't know what I'll do with myself. Then I realize that I haven't drunk enough water. I had no idea how water helps with hunger but in my case if I skimp on the water I feel starved.

Today Hannah fell for the first time and skinned up her knees pretty badly. It's not that she hasn't fallen before, especially when she was learning how to walk and then running. This was the bloodiest falls she's had. She was outside in her church dress running down our lane when I realized she was wearing some dress up sandals that she always trips in. I was saying "Hannah be careful" as soon as careful came out of my mouth she tripped and fell on her knees and rolled all the way up to her face. I was sure that she would have a bloody face. But she didn't just bloody knees. She cried very hard. Robert heard her cry and came running out too. I brought her in and looked at her bloody knees. Cleaned them up and put Neosporin on each with large band aids. She felt so badly that she got a little woozy and said she had to poop. Robert helped her to the toilet. She sat in the bathroom, her little lips were pale and I could see her eyes going vacant. She was on the verge of fainting. Robert put his arms around her and I ran to get her some juice to drink. She pulled out of it pretty well after that. Poor little girl. Now she's walking funny because it hurts to stand straight.

We are allowing Noah to cry to sleep. Every time we allow for variability Noah sleeps worse and worse. Robert's been encouraging me to let him cry again at night. I hasn't stuck the last times we've tried to let him cry, but I know he's right . I just lose so much sleep over it and he's so random with his wake ups that it'll often take me by surprise when he starts to wake up after sleeping for an hour. We reviewed parts of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and I realized that on a good night he wakes up every 2 hours all night long and on a bad night every 45 minutes or less. He's not an infant and he should be going back to sleep. So we are letting him cry but this time I'll turn off the monitor between feedings so that I can sleep and wake up every 4 hours, check on him and turn on the monitor again until he wakes up. I realize it seems cruel but he can sleep and he needs to learn how to do it more consistently. He's seven months old. I love him so much. This is soooo hard to do. But I refuse to let him continue sleeping poorly. I will not drive him around in the car to sleep or cosleep or hold him all day. I don't have that luxury and or maybe the patience to wait until he's three to sleep well.

Hunger not Sleep

I could once again write about how I coslept with Noah last night from midnight on and how he woke me up from 5am on... but I'm too hungry to go on and on about that one. I'm eating only 2000 calories a day which in the days I did the Prism Diet (PD) seem like a whole lot of calories. On the PD I ate only 1200 calories and I remember being hungry most of the time, but I did lose 30 pounds in about 10 or 12 weeks.

I figured out how many calories I'm probably expending and trying to eat less that. I burn 2864 calories a day! Wow no wonder I eat all day long while I'm nursing! I get to eat an extra 600 calories because of my little night waker.

Originally I thought that eating 2000 calories would make me not so hungry, but I'm oh so wrong. You see about 2 1/2 years ago I ate only 1700 calories a day and lot 10 pounds in a month. I only quit because I was soooooooo hungry all the time. Then after I weaned Hannah I tried to lose weight by exercising for hours and hours, but it was actually harder to lose weight after I weaned her by exercising. Hence the reason I'm doing this now. I must get ride of my maternity clothes and my pot belly. I don't want to resemble a lolly pop but I'd much rather not look like a frumpy mommy for the rest of my life. Also at the same time, Noah's (my little night waker) upper front tooth has a very nice bubblely blister where it's trying to wittle it's way through and they only thing that will stop the crabbing (and the night waking) is to have my breast in his mouth. Which means he's put on the feed bag but I'm not eating any more!! So for example I normally just breastfeed him (it takes less than 5 minutes when he's not teething) bounce him on the exercise ball until his eyes get droopy and put him in bed. Tonight he was wiggeling all around like crazy so I just let him stay on and suck away.

Another strange phenomenon is when I weighed myself today I weighed 176 pounds. I don't know what happened. I just started this calorie restriction yesterday. So I'll try not to seem like I'm complaining. My goal weight is 160 but what every weight I am by July 4th I'll just be happy with. And I'll take a little break after that...

Weighty Issues

Oh! I don't really want to write any of this down but I feel if I do it'll keep me in line a bit better. No!I don't want to write about sleep, which I never get enough of. I am feeling frumpy. I weight 180 right now which is a lot better than weighing 190. That's where I was stuck for many many months after Hannah was born. You see I normally gain about 40 lbs when I'm pregnant. I gain five the first trimester- even though I have a really tough time eating (especially with Hannah). I gain maybe five-ish pounds the second trimester and then the last couple of months it's as if my metabolism crashes and I gain all the rest then. With Hannah's pregnancy I was 214 at my highest weight. With Noah I was just about 220. I started out five pounds heavier at the beginning of Noah's pregnancy. Right after I gave birth to Hannah I weighed 190 and stayed there for over a year. Right after Noah's birth I weighed 204. I had only lost 16 pounds. However I wasn't in labor for four days with him. It took less than 4 hours (really two if you're counting). In being totally transparent I must say that I'm a foodie. I run to food for comfort. I'm lucky I don't weigh a lot more than I do. I don't like the feeling of hunger because that means that I'm a half hour away from feeling like I could crumble to pieces if I don't eat. I must eat to feel good. I've always liked food but food became more of a comfort for me when my parents divorced when I was 12. I over eat. I don't binge (not that I havent eaten a lot of a junky food before) and I could never throw up on purpose. If there is something wrong at all, especially emotionally, I start to think about eating so that I don't have to think about what's wrong. The silly part about that is that it's not as if I'm not emotionally healthy. I am. I deal with my issues but I delay dealing with issues by thinking about food. I call this my root beer float rut. About 11 years ago I was very unhappy with my life. I was living int he Bay Aread working as a nanny and eventhough I had a very sweet, nice roommate, I was lonely. I needed to have a bigger circle of friends to hang out with and someone I could shoot the breeze with someone I really connected with. I didn't have it at the time so I just thought about what would taste good on my tongue. One day I was driving over the San Rafael/Richmond bridge and I was thinking about eating a root beer float like I had been for days, when it dawned on me. Hey I'm trying to avoid all this pain and insecurity I feel inside by thinking about food. Now it's not as if I suddenly was able to think about something else, hence the reason I call it a 'rut', but I realized I was using my foodie thoughts to buffer the pain I felt inside. Something I had done for years and years by this point. Well, back to weight gain and pregnancy, I counted calories for one month and lost ten pounds. I didn't exercise a smidgen but I was breast feeding and the pounds flew off. It was one of the most difficult times of my life. As I said before I HATE being hungry. So now my plan is to count calories for six weeks. What's so magical about six weeks. Well, not much but I think that I need to work at eating less for at least six weeks. The nice part is that since I'm breastfeeding I actually don't gain weight easily so what ever weight I end up at by the 4th of July I'll be able to maintain with ease since I've still feeding Noah.

These are my goals in the next 6 weeks:
-eat under 2000 calories a day
-plan my food daily
-prepare as much food as I can the night before and the morning of
-be mindful of what I'm eating
-keep track of every calorie no matter how much I've eaten

In doing the above I hope to attain the following:
-my old wordrobe back
-more self confidence
-NO MORE WEARING MATERNITY CLOTHING
-LOSE THE BELLY

5.9.09 Sleep and More Sleep

I'm humbled everyday as a mother. I think that I know how things should go but they don't go the way I planned them or even the way I think I need them. Once again I am talking about sleep. Oh wonderfully precious sleep. In the last ten days both kids and I were sick. Again. Noah was sleeping very poorly so we decided to let him cry. Again. It worked for a while but I think it was only because Noah was sick. I tried letting him cry during nap time. He normally sleeps forty minutes at nap time so I was trying to lengthen them by leaving him up there until his total in bed time was one hour. All he did was cry and a cry. I didn't accomplish anything except for having a very up set baby. I felt terrible but I allowed the crying to continue for three days. Then he was getting so hoarse from all the screaming it was obviously not working. It turns out that he was getting sick. The day after I stopped leaving him in his crib for one hour he started to sleep double naps once a day. I really didn't believe it was because of anything that I had done. I was right. He slept better because he was sick. Now he's well and sleeping very very badly. He is getting an upper front tooth and with out ibuprofen he is a wretched wreck. Biting and crying and crabbing all the time until a half hour after I give him the medicine and then he's just biting and crabbing and not usually crying.

Last night was terrible. I put him down to sleep like I always do. He immediately popped his head up and started complaining. He was so very much on his way to dreamland that I was totally taken off guard by his waking. I let him cry for about twenty minutes and then went in to check on him to see if he had flipped himself over and couldn't get comfy. No he was on his tummy just screaming. I put in his pacifier and shushed and patted him until he was asleep. He woke up as soon as I stopped patting. I did it again. He woke up again. So I let him cry himself to sleep. He slept until 11:30. Pretty good. Then woke again at 1am. Not so good. I let him cry and turned off the monitor. I could still hear him, as I was sleeping in the guest bedroom. I slept on and off. I then went into him around 2:30am. I nursed him and rocked him and put him back down. He fussed for a while and I finally picked him up gave him some ibuprofen messaged his legs and tummy. He fell asleep so I laid him in his crib and continued to message him. He slept until 4am. I was totally done. So I laid down with him on the double bed in his room and gave him more milk then held him close. He slept until 6:20. Poor baby. He is in so much pain. What else can I do. I know this.
Crying it out helps Noah to sleep longer.
His weight has nothing to do with how long he will sleep
Teething does interfere with his sleep.
He doesn't know how to self soothe.
Sleeping with Noah doesn't help him or I to sleep any longer. It only works for a day or two and then he wakes every hour or 15 minutes as it gets closer to morning.
Solid food doesn't help him sleep more
Sleeping on his tummy doesn't help him sleep more.

Which is the Lesser Evil?

Sleep is a problem in this house. It's always been a very tricky to get everyone sleeping enough so that they're not crabby but not too much so that they'll fall asleep at night.

Hannah is great at laying down in her bed. Most of the time she doesn't fall asleep unless she's laying down for more than two hours. When she falls asleep she, it's hard to wake her. She wakes up crabby and then she doesn't fall asleep at night for however long as she napped in the afternoon. So it's really not a winning situation.

Noah has been sleeping on me because he really needs to nap more. The better his naps are the better he sleeps at night. Now this is where the problem is. If he's napping on me then it's hard to get Hannah up from her bed without waking Noah. So I have to decide who will be less crabby if I wake them up.

Do I wish Noah would sleep in his crib. Yes! But we're taking it one step at a time. We need Noah to sleep consistently and well at night before I'm willing to tackle the day time sleep problem. Right now we're patting Noah every 15 minutes at night until he falls asleep. It's worked out alright the past two nights. I was even able to get him back to sleep at 2:30 without picking him up because he had just nursed at midnight. I knew that he wasn't hungry. He's just used to waking up about that time every night. He ended up sleeping until 4 a.m. Yipee! Not that I slept well. But I'm happy to see some change.

4.25.09 Parenting

My friend Renee came up with her own Things about Parenting. I think we'll make this a running list.
1. There's nothing like a second child to make you furious with your first.
2. If you have a baby that doesn't sleep well, hang on till he or she
is a toddler. Toddler sleep is different.
3. What worked today, probably won't work tomorrow.
4. Whatever your baby is doing, good or bad, it probably has nothing
to do with what you are doing. They would be doing that anyway.

Robert added this one:
5. You'll often be ready to eat two hours before food actually touches your lips.

Here's a great comparison of Hannah and Noah at just about the same age.

4.25.09 Teething, Sleeping & Eating

Where to go from here? It's not as if I know exactly what I am doing as a parent. Sometimes I think I've got it down but most of the time I'm not so sure. I mostly try to gauge every situation when I come to it. I try to be fair and consistent. It works a lot of the time but lately I feel like I'm just flailing my arms around in circle but not getting anywhere. You'd call that 'almost drowning' if you were in the water. Good thing I'm not.

Right now the issues are teething and sleep for Noah and eating and obeying for Hannah. Yeah I know that I wrote just a few posts ago how Hannah is doing well eating. Apparently I wrote that too soon. Lately she's been holding out for junky or low to no calorie, zero nutrition food. Like, lettuce, Cliff bar kid's bars, maraschino cherries and apple sauce. We don't force her to eat with us on our schedule because that would truly be torture to eat with her complaining or crying the whole time. It's really nice to eat a meal and be able to digest it as it's going down the pie hole. However we'd like her to eat what we are eating and so far we can barely get her to taste what we are eating and it's fairly kid friendly food. She almost refuses to eat it. I'd like to give a little genetic hisitory here and say that as a child I was a good eater. It was Robert who was picky. Today Robert will eat anything as long it's not meat and doesn't smell like barf (parmesean cheese). While I would just like to eat popcorn and chips if I could get away with it.

As for Noah, our baby Noah. He's almost six months old and sleeping like an infant again. He's getting his upper front teeth. It's not been easy on him or I. He's fussy, biting everything. He often grabs me by my hair and tries to shove my chin in his mouth so he can chew on it. Ouch! This also means he's not sleeping well at all and neither am I as a result of his night wakings. Last night I felt like he was just not doing well in all that pain and I tried and tried again to get him to sleep. He did sleep for boughts of 40 minutes. It was really ugly. I slept in our bed downstairs with him while Robert slept upstairs in the office/guest room. He woke up every two hours and then around 3 a.m. he woke up for an hour. I changed his diaper, tried patting him and eventually nursed him and patted him some more with my body wrapped around his. He still woke up and stirred every twenty minutes or so until 7 a.m. Suprisingly I felt pretty normal the rest of the day. I think because I don't get a lot of hours of sleep in a row normally.

I remember this behavior from Hannah and had to look in her baby book to be sure. Lo and behold I was right. Hannah slept just like this when she was teething her upper front teeth too. But she was nine months old. He's just about six month old. With Hannah I endured it through her first upper front tooth but with the second I was just beside myself with exhaustion that we ended up letting her cry to sleep in her crib. It was terrible and tourturous but the worst of it only lasted about ten days. After that she cried when she went to sleep but only for a minute or two.

Our problem with Noah is that he can turn over from front to back but can't get back to front. He takes a pacifier but when it falls from his mouth he can't find it and put it back in yet. So after much thought I decided that we should let Noah cry, but do a modified Ferber method. We go in after an alotted time (15 minutes in our case) and pat and give back the pacifier for two minutes and let him cry again. That way we give him time to fall asleep on his own, but we're also checking on him to make sure that he's okay. We're also going to start by doing his bedtime routine down stairs and switching off Robert and I putting him to bed awake. I'd been taking the easy way out and nursing and bouncing him to sleep but that worked for only 3 weeks until he decided he'd rather look around the room then relax and sleep. This way when we put him down to sleep he does the bulk of the crying right away instead of a sleep cycle or two later (sleep cycles are about 40 minutes). Now we just have to stick to this and hope and pray that he'll get the hang of this sleep thing.

4.22.09 Ten things about parenting

1. It's a good day when I go to bed and the house isn't messier than when I woke up.
2. An often thwarted child will retaliate.
3. Cleaning, cooking, organizing, talking on the phone, have no relevance in a child's mind. They just don't understand why you won't play with them.
4. A baby who eats everything can become a picky three year old eater.
5. I cannot begin pretend to do everything with out help. A willing, helping partner is the best blessing one could have. No matter what the circumstances you know that you're not alone and therefore can do anything.
6. Watching your children enjoy each other is the best compliment a parent could ever receive.
7. Just because you've already raised one baby doesn't mean that you know what you are doing with the second one.
8. Having an infant and toddler is very taxing (really having children in general is taxing) but when you look back at the photos it all looks so easy.
9. Poor me syndrome is easy to get when you are always giving.
10. It's hard to see the growth in your children when you're with them from day to day.

The Great Day That Wasn't

It should have been a great day. I got a lot of sleep. I felt like I could do anything, but Hannah had other ideas. She woke up today and seemed to have decided that she'd like to eat only enough to satisfy her hunger for ten minutes. I tried my best to encourage her to eat with no avail. Because of this she stuck to my side like glue! Like glue. Normally it wouldn't have been a big deal but today is the day that I was going to try to get everything prepared for my dad and step-mom's visit. Everything pretty much went out the window. If it could be spilled it was. If there could be whining there was. If there could be a skipped nap. It happened. I realize that I can't blame it all on my little three year old. I may have been too ambitious.

4. 15.09 It's My Birthday and I'll Sleep If I Want Too

Miracle of all miracles the baby slept. He cried ten minutes at bedtime and then woke around nine and cried ten minute and then slept until 1:30pm!!! That is seven, yes SEVEN hours in a row with out nursing. I then nursed him and we woke up at a quarter to five. You can't beat that!! Now I just need to sleep. I need to go to bed early so that I can get a good four hour stretch. It's been soooo long since I've slept four whole hours in a row.

It's also my 35th birthday today. Robert took the day off. It was so nice to laze around the house go out to good Lebanese food and just be with my family. I received all the calls from family and a few dear friends and tons of great birthday messages from friends on Face Book.

I wasn't looking forward to turning 35. Here I am with my frumpy post pregnancy body, not getting enough sleep and feeling like I don't have a good routine down with both kids, but because Noah is sleeping better these past couple of days I feel hopeful and it reminds me that things will become more routine with time.

4.14.74 Sleep and More Sleep

We let Noah Cry last night. He didn't really cry much. He had woken for the fifth time last night and I had had it. I felt terrible but I let him scream. I sat in my bed beating myself up for letting my precious boy scream. Robert was suggesting that I pump milk and let him take a night shift in order that we both get some sleep but I really couldn't stand for that. All we are doing is avoiding the inevitable- Noah has to learn to sleep by himself. It worked when he was four months- he still cried but he slept much better all night long. Now he's almost six months old. So Noah then woke again at 2:30 am. So I fed him. When he woke at 5:40. I fed him and he was up for the day. However I still am all guilty feeling that I can't do more the help him sleep because my sleep is more important. I also don't want to loose sleep more than I have to. Because I am a better parent when I get sleep. For example, last night I had two blocks of three hours of uninterrupted sleep. I feel so much better than I normally do. In my prebaby life I felt less than okay with six hours. Now it's like I'm a new woman and it wasn't even six full hours in a row!

Sleep Again

Oh to write about sleep or to not. I think I will. My life is consumed with thoughts of sleep. And to think some people have children who sleep from the time they are born and it's never an issue. I'm envious of them but not as jealous as I used to be. I keep thinking that maybe since my children don't sleep so well that they'll have some other area that they'll be super at. Potty training? Eating? Spelling? Really. You have to think that there is going to be a consolation prize for all the time you spending soothing your babies to sleep. Maybe that is the consolation prize-- more time with your baby. But when the baby is crabbing all over you because he didn't get enough sleep it feels more like a booby prize for being the only idiot parent who can't seem to get their child into a crib and on to a sleep schedule.

Noah is teething again. I think his upper front teeth are coming in. Of course last time I was sure he couldn't be teething because he was too young. He was. And now he's teething again. After this pair only 16 more teeth to go!

Although some sleep books claim that teething really doesn't affect sleep. They are all wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. Even the on-call nurse at Noah's pediatrician's office read to me from her cue card that "teething hurts the mother more than it hurts the baby". That's a sack of horse manure. Noah is in pain. He can't relax and instead of taking a minute to work up to screaming, he does it now in seconds. That means ahhh ahhh turns into AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH! Poor little fella.

Noah continues to sleep like and infant. He wakes up every two hours and then somewhere around two are three in the morning he starts waking up every hour until he wakes up fully at 5 or 6 am. It's just killing me. I need more uninterrupted sleep. I think he does too. He sleeps in only 40 minute increments during the day and now needs to nap every 1 1/2 or 2 hours a day. By the end of the day he is very very crabby. We tried to let him cry to sleep. He cried every night for 40 minutes. And it wasn't just a little whimpering but all out 'save me I'm going to die' crying that lasted over a month. So now we're doing the gentler way. I nurse and bounce and then pat him to sleep. We go in every time he wakes up and pat him to sleep until he's it's been a couple of hours and then I nurse him.

I am comforted only by the fact that I know this won't last forever. Eventually he'll learn to put himself back to sleep and then we'll all be getting more sleep around here. He is a much better sleeper than Hannah ever was. I have to remember that she now sleeps very well and putting her to bed is a joy. Once she is asleep she sleeps all night.

Cutting Corners

Since I've become a mom there have been some corners. It all started with the need to sleep more hours-- even just a few more minutes. Both of my babies have needed to sleep with me when they were young. Like I said I'll do anything to catch a few more minutes of sleep even if it seems short sighted, in the middle of the night that is all you want. SLEEP! This means that when I go to bed at night I wear my day clothes, my all day clothes, some of them used to be pregnancy clothes. My uniform consists of: a night nursing bra, a long tank top with a shirt over the top and yoga pants. I wear them when I wake up and then all day too! It's both good and bad. It's good to save time. It's bad because it's hard to tell when you're loosing or gaining weight. Those yoga pants just stretch with you. I also take showers at night. Change my underwear at night. I try to clean the house at night and prepare for the next day so that I don't have stress out about having a messy house when I wake up. In fact going off on a tangent...my house is cleaner now than it ever was pre-children. I know it's because I just need to have more order here. I live here.

Luxuries

I find that as a parent to small children things that were everyday 'normal' have now become a luxury:
-eating slowly
-finishing a conversation
-watching T.V
-spontaneous intimacy with Robert
-going to the bathroom alone
-sleep! Right now more than 2 hours in a row
-grocery shopping without rushing
-grooming
-watching movies in a movie theater

The truth is that everything on this list is possible but everything must be well planned- except sleep. I don't sleep a whole lot of hours in a row now. Even though we tried to let Noah figure out how to fall asleep on his own. He didn't figure it out so even the amount he sleeps must be well planned for.

Eating and Sleeping

I think I feel the best when I can meet my children's needs. There are so many things I have to do in a day and the most important one is that I care for and love my children. It doesn't always mean that I'll be able to please them but I do my best to help them be the best person they can be. From the time Hannah was born I always thought about eating and sleeping because Hannah wasn't the best sleeper but she loved to exist on the breast which caused me great pain the entire time she breastfed. Once Hannah was sleep trained, it still took time to get her where she is today. Today sleep is really not an issue Hannah now looks forward to going to sleep and will often ask to go to sleep when she needs time by herself or when she is sleepy. However eating can and is still and issue. Hannah doesn't do well when she is hungry. But in the last month we've really not had too many problems. She has wanted to eat and hasn't gotten to the I'm too hungry to eat stage much at all. Since I weaned her from breastfeeding I always had to be prepared with adequate snacks because the milk was all gone. In the beginning she would eat anything. And she still does a good job at trying everything but as she got closer to three years old she stopped loving all food and started only liking kid food. It's been tough to get a vegetable into her. I try not to worry too much about how she eats and just encourage her to try everything. I guess feel encouraged about Hannah regulating her own needs better. It has been a long long road for us.

How to get your three year old to blow her nose

Hannah is sick again with a cold again. This one is much more mild than the last. However her nose is very runny again. Her cheek is getting red from rubbing 'blowing' her own nose. I was trying to get her to actually blow her nose. But once it feels even slightly plugged she refuses to blow and gets so stuffed and she has me wipe her nose upwards of 10 times an hour.

We went over Renee's house today. Hannah cried over three different times and each time her nose ran and ran. All the snot came running out! I'm glad. I hate for her to get a sinus infection because she let all the snot pool in her sinuses.

Going to Renee's house

I'm getting ready to go to my friend Renee's house tomorrow. It's like seeing a long lost boyfriend. I'm so excited to go and see her. We've all been sick. First it was us and then we had runny noses and now it's them and they are just about over their runny noses. Yipee! I hope I'm not jumping the gun and getting all of us sick over here from by going over there to get what they've got because that just means that I have to deal with sick children and more crying.

It's crazy what it means to leave our house for more than one hour. I have to pack lunches (Grapes, carrot sticks, burritos, yogurt covered raisins, chips and cheddar bunnies). We might be there for five hours so I have to have at least three diapers for Noah and a change of clothing (I have 6 diapers in my purse). I have to make sure that there are enough wipes in case Noah has a blowout poopy diaper. I must not forget to bring the Ergo baby carrier so that I can strap Noah to me for his naps. Pacifiers (at least two so that if I miss place one I can give him another one). A blanket or two. They are very multipurpose. I can change him on it. Wipe Hannah's nose with it. Use it to sheild his eyes while he naps. Wipe his drool off his face with it or cover him up with a blanket in the car. Then I have to remember to bring socks or slippers because Renee's floors are really cold and you can't wear shoes in their house. I also have to bring Hannah's boots if she wants to splash in the mud and maybe a change of clothing incase she gets wet. Just so much to do!

Numbers and Verses

Hannah has a new favorite number. I'm sure if I asked her she would say that three is her favorite number, since she is three years old, but that's not the number that she's always talking about. Today she's taking about five. Saying things like "Mommy I'll be there in five minutes." Or "There are only five cars left." And "Can I have five of them mommy?" It really is so cute.

She's obsessed with having me sound out words for her in books and pretending that she is sounding them out too. I'm amazed at how smart she is. She really is like a sponge in many ways. Robert and have been saying her memory verse with her from Sabbath school but after just a couple of times she has it memorized. We realize that now is the time to help her memorize Bible scripture since it's almost effortless and after some discussion we decided that the Lord's Prayer would be where we would start. So every time we put her to bed she says her memory verse and we say the Lord's prayer to her as she climbs in. Just the other day I noticed that she was saying the words along with me. So I started to pause and let her finished some of the verses. She did almost perfectly. It's really quite remarkable.

Ney

I feel like I really can't do this post justice. I've wanted to write about my best friend Renee because I have to remember how much she means to me. I feel like her friendship is a gift from God. I had been living in Hillsboro for almost a year. I was having difficulties with breastfeeding. And had gone to the breastfeeding group at Tuality for a couple of weeks when Renee came in with her head held low. Her little Mason was hanging off her with his beautiful curly blond hair and bright blue eyes. Renee was a wreck. Her mother had just died the month before and she clearly stated that she wasn't in a good place. When she shared how she was feeling it was so honest and heartfelt. I think it made everyone in the room want to go over and wrap our arms around her. So many people have pain that they just shove down inside them and here Renee was sharing with us where she was in dealing with her mom's death. I immideatly liked her.

As time went on we'd talk after our group for as long as our babies would allow. Eventually we started to hang out a little more here and there and call eachother on the phone. Now almost three years later we are as close as sisters. We are also busier than ever. With her three children and my two we are lucky to get in a conversation on the phone from day to day.

I haven't said what it is that makes her so special. She is really one of the kindest people I know. She is wonderfully friendly. I never have to worry if she'll be feel out of place because she can make friends anywhere with anyone. She is a wonderful mom and is a great example to me of how I should parent. She allows you to be your self and tries to understand others point of view. She is very accepting and so hard working. I can't even count how many meals she has made for our family since I've known her. She is also very dependable. If she says she's going to do something she does it. All these things are great and make a great friend but I still don't think that really describes how great she is. I think it's her emotional honesty. She is so honest emotionally that it's a breath of fresh air. Thank you God for Ney Ney.

Humbled

Really? Must we continue down this road! I am in a constant reminder of what it is like to have a child who doesn't sleep through the night. Sadly Noah sleeps much better than Hannah did but that's not saying much. I can put him in his crib to sleep during the day for naps he does sleep a good portion of the night in his crib. He was sleeping all night long in there until I he got sick and I got paranoid that he wasn't breathing well so I started pulling him into bed with me. I've heard you've got to sleep train all over again after they are sick or you go on vacation. It really is all just pure torture. Torture for the baby because he' just wants to be with you all day and night. Torture for me because I just need a break and some uninterrupted sleep. I have none of it at the moment.

Noah started taking a pacifier about two weeks ago. Yipee! But he's too young to remember where it is to put it back in his mouth or really to even find it. He is just getting the hang of this grabbing thing. So I've been putting him down with the pacifier at night and for naps and it seemed to work well. But as with everything that seems to work well it all fades away with time. After having four or five nights in a row of now crying (but lots of night waking after midnight) Noah finally had decided that he couldn't stay asleep. I nurse, I bounce I pat and then I leave. Usually Noah sleeps. Not today. He just started screaming. I'm so tired. I just can't go in again and again to put a pacifier back into his mouth. I just have to leave and let him work it out. Sounds easy right? No. It's not easy at all. He screamed as if he were dying. I just let him scream. I felt bad but the alternative is to spend all night with him trying to get him to sleep and getting no sleep myself. I just can't do it. I start to go a bit crazy. I can't think or function or get anything I need to get done. I know I've been to this same spot with Hannah and I really have to fight off the depression that is setting in. The jealousy that is taking over. It's really not a great place for me to be. I am only here when the babies are young and waking me up more than 2 times a night. My babies don't grow out of this in a timely manner in say a couple of months like other babies do. That is where the jealously sets in for me. I see these moms that have babies that sleep well from a couple months on and mine are sleeping like newborns. It's so hard. I am humbled by this experience.

Odds and Ends

I found a house I like. It has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a larger garage, family, living and dining room. The kitchen has more storage than ours and the doors from the kitchen go directly our to the back yard! The yard is large (for Oregon) and has enough space for a garden and play structure. It's over forty years old in an established neighborhood. It's for sale as a short sale meaning the owners sold it back to the bank for a loss and a hit on their credit score. And the bank is dying to get their money out of it. The only thing is that I'm not sure that I want to move. I want to and I don't. I really like our neighborhood. We can walk to all kinds of places. A couple of parks, the grocery store, drug store. Joanne Fabrics and during the summer we always walk to the farmer's market which is held on Sunday here. And though I don't walk to New Season's much lately it's also within walking distance. But you see our house is great! It has so much sunshine coming through the nicely placed windows. It's new. We have a green space behind us and an office building in front of us (but far enough away that they can't see in our windows). We don't have to deal with mowing the lawn because there is barely any lawn to mow. All the exterior work for our house is covered by the HOA. What it really boils down to is that I don't want us to make a bad decision and move to a place we don't really like and for what? A yard that we can use %30 of the year.

For three nights in a row I've spent about a half hour putting Noah to sleep. Nursing bouncing pacifier in mouth and patting. And we've had three nights of him going to sleep without screaming. I'm so glad! I really couldn't take the screaming anymore. Hannah screamed when we cried it out but not that much.

I think I am the clothes Nazi to Robert. I was rubbing his shoulder the other day and noticed his favorite 'blanket' or button up shirt had a hole in it. He acted paranoid (jokingly) and said it was fine because he knows that I'll throw the shirt away and look for a new one. He hates getting new clothes.

We went to church today again! It's a wonder what a pacifier will do for our kids. Noah can sleep on me if I need him to and really doesn't make much of a fuss with a pacifier in his mouth. We were asked to help out in Sabbath School but declined because it's so hard to tell if we'll be able to make it there regularly. I really hesitate doing anything before Noah turns 1 and we know he has a regular schedule. I feel a bit misunderstood lately by women who have lots of children and didn't seem to have any problems taking them everywhere or getting them to sleep. I'm just not willing to go through the stress of taking my kids somewhere that takes a long time to get to and having Hannah just stick by my side because she feel uncomfortable and also have Noah freak out crying or more likely decline to nurse because he's overstimulated and then have to drive over 15 minutes to get home. No thanks.

Hannah's been begging to wear underwear to bed. I've been putting it off because I'm afraid she'll wake up crying from wetting the bed. I also need to buy a mattress cover so it's not ruined by pee. Most days Hannah wakes up with a dry diaper. She's doing such a great job.

Growing up

Some big changes are happening over here. Things that I wouldn't really think about twice except it the last of it's kind from each child. Hannah is on the brink of being potty trained. She really wants to wear underwear to bed. She's been wearing underwear to nap in and has only had an accident once. Now she's rallying for bedtime too. She's also starting to use the potty all by herself which is a good sign for night time readiness along with the fact that most days she wakes up in the morning she is dry. The only problem is that I'm not sure that I'm ready.

Noah is starting to gain more control over his body and in doing so he and I don't really need to use the *boppy pillows to breastfeed. There was a time when I couldn't live without the boppy. Now I can't remember the last time I used it for breast feeding. I did use it as a pillow for my head. Noah is also starting to sit up with help. Today when I sort of layed him in the crook of the couch between the arm and back he just sat up with out support of the couch. Of course I made a mental note the fact that I can't assume he'll lay there anymore and that he'll probably launch himself off the couch. All this change, what's a mom to do? Relish it.

*boppy is a 'c' shaped pillow used to help support babies while breast feeding

Change

My room mate from college visited. We had a great visit. She is one of those friends who is faithful and dependable. We once taught at the same school. It was a charter school in Vallejo. I only lasted on year. It was one of the hardest years of my life (and one of the best). Had I not been dating my husband at the time I would have been severely depressed by the circumstances I had to teach in. For example: going from room to room having all my stuff on a cart that I couldn't barely push from the main building to the portables because of the thick gravel between the buildings. Not having my own room. Teaching kids whose lives were in constant chaos who brought their chaos with them to school. A lazy administration. A board school board member who thought I was chicken for walking away from totally irate parent who thought that if she yelled louder I'd understand her better. Threats from a parent for treating her gay son like he was worth something. Not having enough books or resources to teach my subject properly. It is this environment that my room mate has been teaching in for nine years and counting. She finally decided to make a change but the economy tanked so she stuck right where she is right now. Not wanting to teach but having to stay where she is at so that she can pay all her school loans off. I now understand why teachers stop caring about their quality of work. It's hard to care when you're in a situation like this charter school provides. Obviously the challenges change from year to year but they are still there and they are numerous.

Scullery Maid

I was in the kitchen yesterday getting ready for my old college room mate's arrival. I look over at the stove and there is the nastiest looking dirty pan sitting there screaming for me to clean it. One that would take no less than twenty minutes to scrub clean with a brillo pad. That's when I said out loud "I need a scullery maid!" Hannah promptly stood up in the living room with both arms and said "here I am!". I love three year olds.

In case you're wondering what a scullery maid does here's the link in wikipedia

Hannah is Back! And Noah's not sleeping...

It's so nice to have Hannah back after having been sick for so long. We've been having a really nice time together the last couple of days. I really needed to see her good side for a while. Unfortunately our friends the Ramey's are all sick now so we won't see them this week. I miss them so much.

On a sleep note, Noah is feeling better but sleeping worse than ever. He must cry to go to sleep every night. I hate it and try to block it out the best I can but it's getting hard. I think this is why sleep training is not recommended for children under a certain age. I thought Hannah was hard to sleep train. Noah is so much harder. But I do sleep more than I ever did when Hannah was this age. Right before Noah got sick he was sleeping for 7-9 hours in a row. That was so nice. His naps were still short and many but he slept for a long time at night.

I know I'll sleep again. I just wonder when things will get to be more predictable.

Move? What!

Robert and I were talking and he mentioned that he was open to the idea of moving. I was really surprised. You see we really like our house. We are not super fond of our neighbors. We would like to have a yard. We really hate having an HOA. We never wanted to move into one in the first place but everything we looked at when we flew up here to look at houses was really not so great. Most of the houses were dumpy. This house had the great room and three bedrooms plus a bonus room and a hall bathroom with a bathroom for the kids and one for our master bedroom. It is a great house! Then the whole HOA thing when crazy! We pay 50% more for our HOA from when we moved in. They don't even take care of our back yard area? Why do we pay so much? We don't even have any real common areas to take care of? It really doesn't make sense. Anyway, our neighbors who live in the very last house. Well they have a daughter too! And though I was excited to have them move in but when the 'wife' of the house wouldn't look me in the eye or speak to me I realized that they may not be the best neighbors. The reality is that they are fine neighbors. I just wouldn't be friends with them.

Who knows where this 'moving' thing will go but we'll see!

He's So Beautiful

Noah has the sweetest smile. It's been a while since I've bounced him to sleep on the exercise ball. I've been trying to bounce him until his eyes get heavy in hopes of avoiding his screams when I put him down.

Yesterday I took Hannah to her Music Together class at 5:30pm. I for some reason thought I would be home in time to try and top Noah off with some milk but he was going to bed at 6pm and we weren't going to be back until 6:30 at the earliest. Robert met us at the garage door, which means that things didn't go so well. I could hear Noah screaming through the monitor. My heart just sunk. Robert told me he went in every five minutes to pat him out of his angry crying but nothing was working. Either he was over tired or just plain angry because Robert took the pacifier out of his mouth before he put Noah down to sleep- not knowing that I had let Noah sleep with a pacifier for two of his naps because I was hoping he'd sleep more after having only slept two short naps in the morning because of he would start coughing and wake himself up! I marched upstairs and took an angry Noah out of his crib and stroked his head and held his hands while he was nursing. I could feel the anxiousness subside and the sleep set in. He started to cough again around 10pm that night so I put the humidifier on in his room and slept in the double bed next to his crib waiting until the next nursing to pull him into bed with me. He woke up a lot. Not to nurse every time but because he was coughing. I was very happy to be sleeping with him just to know that he was okay. He woke up this morning a bit congested but seems to be doing better now. Which leads me to his beautiful smile. When Noah drifts off to sleep he often smiles. It just sends waves of pure love through me. It's the most adorable, beautiful thing I get to experience being his mom. I'm so glad he's ours! What a sweet joy!!

One More Down

We thought that Robert had given us this terrible sickness but it looks like we may have gotten it somewhere else. Robert came home feeling cold with a sore throat. I'm so sorry he has to go through this too. The best part of him getting sick now is that he prayed that he could make it through today before he got sick and he did! Thank you God!

Reality

Before Robert and I ever had children we both had ideas about how we would act as parents. Robert thought that he would be the pushover, while I thought that I would be very much the opposite. The reality is that since I birthed our two babies and became their source sustenance nurturing and nursing them both. I also became much more of a pushover than I ever thought that I would be. I have lots of excuses for my pushover behavior but I really think my best excuse is that I'm so much easier to wear down because I am with our babies/kids day and night and I need a break sometimes. This means that I allow Hannah to eat protein bars for dinner. I take a certain amount of abuse before I start to set better boundaries. I allow Hannah to change her clothes as many times a day as she wants to in hope that she'll tire of it as I do.

Today it meant that when Hannah did her swiping motion at me today because she was angry that her dolly wouldn't sit up straight in the shopping cart. I told her to sit on the 'naughty stair'. When refused, I spanked her. She continued to refuse so I changed my tactics. I tried to give her hugs while I told her it's okay to frustrated. It's okay to jump up and down really fast or go to her room for a break or even play with another doll but it's not okay to hit me. I then took her upstairs for her nap. Of course later today she did more 'swiping' at me and I just ignored it. I just don't want the confrontation at every swipe or scream. I'll try ignoring it for a while and maybe it'll go away. I also took the floppy dolly, Jessica is her name, and put her away for a while. I'll take her out again when the hitting stops.

The reality for me is that if spanking doesn't get me what I need then I need to change tactics. It doesn't mean that I won't spank again it just means it wasn't working this time. Isn't that what parenting is all about?

The Day Nobody Wants to Trade

There have been days that Robert has said he'd really like to stay home. I remember the first time that he told me that. Hannah and I had been at a friend's house all day and we came in all happy and sun kissed. I had to remind him that it took a long time to get to this point. I had months of no sleep and lots of crabbiness from Hannah. I always felt like I'd like a day away too but it's virtually impossible when you are nursing a little one. Yeah sure you can pump milk and make arrangements to have a babysitter come, but the reality is that there are not guarantees that the baby is going to drink the milk or that the baby won't scream in the babysitter's face the whole time. Plus I just can't deal with the guilt of having someone else be screamed at by my baby. She's my baby.

Well today is a day that no one would ever want to trade with me. Hannah has been sick for a week now. I had hoped that Hannah would be feeling better. It appeared that she was--initially. For a good couple hours today she screamed at me about how she wanted to go to sleep or go outside with out shoes or that she wanted me to wipe her nose with a tissue that I had just thrown in the garbage. There was really no pleasing her. I even lost my head for a while there trying to buffer all her requests with reasoning. You can't reason with a crabby three year old! At one point I was screaming "If you would just stop screaming you and I could do something fun while Noah was sleeping but instead you chose to SCREAM the whole time!" It wasn't my proudest moment.

Looking back at the day Robert noticed that Hannah's bad behavior began when I forced her to let me put some salve on her chapped face. Tomorrow I'll try to talk her into letting me put it on or maybe I'll just let it go entirely and just see if we can start the day off better. I would rather a red ruddy face than a screaming toddler.

I Hate Sunday Night

I've got this creeping feeling tonight. I used to feel this way when I would have to go to school as a student and as a teacher. It's like I have to stop the vacation and get to work, only now it means that Robert has to go into work tomorrow and I have to deal with both sick children alone. I have all these questions swirling around inside me: Can I do it? Will Hannah eat? What if Noah is sicker tomorrow than today? Will there be a lot more screaming? If everyone wasn't sick we'd spend time with friends playing, eating, hanging out. Normally that friend would be Renee and her three kids Mason, Jakey and Paige. We always have a nice time. This makes me sad. My mood reflects the weather, sunny then cloudy and hey it's sunny again. Oh now it's going to rain and rain hard.

It doesn't help that as I write this the baby is screaming his head off upstairs. Yes he's sick. Yes we do let him cry and fuss to sleep normally and we're doing it now. I feel like I want to cut off my right arm right now to make the baby stop crying and go to sleep. Robert just went up to pat his little bum to let him know that it's okay to go to sleep. It's not working. I think I'd just like to hold him all night and day if I could. But the reality is that both of us would get better sleep if we don't sleep together.

What To Do With a Sick Noah?

I knew something was up with Noah when he woke up more than normal last night. I went in to feed him at 6:50am and instead of him waking up with smiles he cried and fell back to sleep. I was happy to lay with him for a while longer because I had such a terrible night of sleep myself. All the coughing was keeping me in a light sleep. Noah has had a fever on and off this week but been pretty normal. Today he woke up with a fever of 100. The highest it's been so far. He wasn't as wormy and squirmy as he normally is. We put him down at noon and he woke up 30 minutes later. Usually you can set a clock to him. He sleeps exactly 40 minutes. So I went upstairs and tried to pat him back to sleep. He fell asleep until a little after 1pm. I took him out of the crib and nursed him. He fell back to sleep. I laid with him dozing until he woke me up again. I then gave him his pacifier. He continued sto wake and sleep until 3:15 when he seemed to be awake enough that I got him up. I held him most of the evening. He slept on me a while until I put Hannah down at 7pm. I was hoping he'd continue to sleep so I could just peacefully lay him down in his crib. He didn't. He woke right up again. He was so cute and sweet. Robert had to remind me that I needed to put him down inorder for everyone to get some rest tonight. I just didn't want to hear the crying and was afraid that it would be worse than normal. I couldn't do it. I nursed and changed and kissed Noah, then handed him over to Robert. I felt like I was being really cold. Should I hold him to sleep? He's sick. Robert put him down and Noah fussed on and off for a half an hour and then fell asleep. Sleep well my baby Mommy misses you.

Depression and Window Panes

I realized today after five days of being stuck in the house with the kids, all of us being sick, I have been counting a lot of window panes. I remember doing this when Hannah was a baby. I would count when I was nursing her, count when I was laying down with her to get her to sleep, count them when I was depressed. I believe I'm a bit depressed. I would like to feel better. I'd like to get out of the house. I'd like my children to feel better. It feels like I'm Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill, only to see it roll down once more as I get to the top. It's so much harder to be sick when you have two children to care for who are also sick. Robert's been helping out a lot. He's getting some work done and he's pitching in when ever he can. I didn't realize how much energy it takes to take care of children all day long. The silver lining in all this is that Hannah seems to have turned a corner. Today was the first day in three days that she played! Next I hope she'll eat something. I took her to the doctor today to make sure her illness was turning into something worse. Doctor Dalquist looked her over and said it was viral but everything looked okay. No crackling lungs or ear infections. She gave us a cream for her cracked and bleeding face. Of course it was nothing but a fight to put the stuff on. And as soon as I put on the salve Hannah wiped it off. What's a mom to do? Doctor Dalquist, who is also a lactation consultant, asked about Noah and if I'm still nursing him. She assured me that he'll be over this much quicker since I'm giving him antibodies in my milk. I'm so glad to be nursing. Hannah got over everything on two or three days when I was nursing her. I've thought about pumping some milk and giving it to her like it was silk milk but haven't got the energy to do that yet.

Can You Wipe Your Nose Too Much?

The answer is YES! Hannah's nose has been running like a fountain for the last two days. I finally gave her a cloth diaper to use all day. She doesn't blow her nose into the diaper she just sat wiped her nose and cheek over and over until she was raw. Today she started to bleed from all the wiping. So I tried to teach her to dab her nose. It really didn't work. So I took the bloody cloth diaper away and gave her tissues. I really didn't want to harp on her about how she should use a tissue more than once. The poor thing was miserable and barely speaking. I just let it go. After two hours she had gone through a box of tissues.

Tonight we are trying out giving her a very soft washcloth to use to wipe her nose. I just want my baby to feel better.

Sick Little Girl

Today Hannah was so sick that she barely talked all day. When she did talk her voice was croaky like a frog. She ate a little here and there. I tried to offer her has much fluids as I could. She drank and her little nose continued to run and run. So much so that when I put her down for a nap I gave her a burp cloth to wipe her face on until she fell asleep. She never fell asleep. She, I believe, just laid there for two hours wiping her nose. When I got her up her nose was so red and chapped I felt terrible for her. All she wanted to do was sit on my lap all day. I put chapstick on all the red hurty parts. Hannah mostly stared off into space. Robert gave her a bath and she just sat there soaking in the warmth. She didn't play. I gave her a little ibuprofen before bed in hopes that her fever (99.7) would break and she would want to eat. She didn't want to leave my side as evening approached. She sat on the potty, put on her jammies and let me brush her teeth and apply more salve. She even wanted to skip reading books. I hope she sleeps well tonight and wakes up feeling better. The only good part about Hannah being sick is that she wasn't crying all day. I'm not sure that's so good.

When Mommy is Sick

I woke up today and I felt really badly. My body ached and I was feeling exhausted. Robert offered to stay home. At first I didn't even have the energy to say or think about the logistics of how Robert could help me out, but that didn't matter since I couldn't even get off the floor.

Hannah is very clingy. She has a hard time letting anyone take care of her but me. So I knew that there was going to be some bulking from her about having daddy take care of her. I fed Noah, handed him over to Robert. After Hannah cried for a bit I was able to lay down and sleep for a couple of hours. I didn't feel very good when I woke up, however, after I took some ibuprofen and it had little time to sink in I felt so much better.

It's so hard to be sick when you have children. Noah and Hannah need me so much and I love taking care of them. I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful husband who knows when and how to step in for me. He had to force me to go onto the bedroom to lay down. He knew that Hannah wouldn't leave me alone if she could see me.

Hannah has been running a fever all weak and has asked to go to bed two times well before her bedtime. Poor thing. She hasn't been eating a lot either. I've been a real push-over with her lately. I seems I get this way at times. I just get so sick of all the crying and crying and more crying that I let Hannah have her way more than I should. I feel pretty worn down from allowing Noah to cry to sleep, starting my period after a whole year and being sick. But isn't there always an excuse?

Everyone Is Sick Over Here

Everyone in our house is sick. Baby Noah seems to be doing alright. He's a bit stuffed up and has a runny nose but it isn't interfering with his breathing or sleeping so far. Hannah has had a fever since last night. She requested to go to sleep early because she wasn't feeling well. Robert has been sick the longest out of all of us. He thought that he had allergies but when I came down with his allergies and a body aches we realized it wasn't what he thought it was!

And today I did a couple of errands with the kids and lost my credit card. I think I put it in the mail slot with a package I was mailing. Robert went back to look for it but didn't find it. They'll call us if they find it at the post office. What a mood squelcher.

Hold You Me

When Hannah wasn't as proficient at speaking she would ask us to hold her by saying "hold you me". Today Robert and I just realized that she now says "hold me" which I heard a lot today. I try my best to always drop what I'm doing to hold her when she says this. I want her to know that she is very important to me, more important than whatever task is at hand.

There once was a time when I could never put her down. She was the baby who never did tummy time. She was much too cranky and sleep deprived. Even now she stays very close to me--even closer when she's sick.

Today she asked to got to bed right after her bath. And because of the time change, springing forward one hour, it was only 5:30 old time. So we put her to bed. Robert took her temperature and she had a temp of 101.5. Poor thing. I'm glad I took the time to hold you me.

So Sorry

I've been feeling jealous and envy a lot since I became a mom. Most of my jealously and envy was aimed at parents who had babies who were born good sleepers or babies that had no problems with babysitters or other 'strangers'.

Hannah was born anxious. She's got a couple of anxious ticks you might say. When she's really excited she moves her arms in and then out from her body in a way that looks like she trying to tighten large invisible bolts. She also used to cross her fingers very tightly and digs her thumb nails into her index finger. She's had a dig mark on her index finger for years. I've only seen her do it a couple of times. She was never a good sleeper and has always very over stimulated by everything around her so much so that we still have blackout shades and a white noise machine in her room so that she can sleep in the same 'conditions' every night. We've also never really been able to use a babysitter. I was able to drop her off at the babysitter's house two times before she refused to go again.

But there are other things that she does that are really quit nice. She never ever leaves my side or runs away. She won't go near strangers. If she feels uneasy about anything she comes right to me for shelter. She never gets out of her bed when she wakes up in the morning or from a nap. She waits for us to come and get her. She follows rules. She thrives on consistency. She is not rebellious. She was easy to potty train.

I am sorry for being jealous of all those people who have it easy with sleep. The reality is that it is not easy to raise children no matter how easy it may look for the outside. It's hard work to be consistent and to always be the adult taking care of everything. All the work is worth it when you think of what you get out of it. Just today Hannah gave me a hug when she saw that I was crying. She didn't understand it was all the onions that were making me weapy. So sweet!

Feeling Kinda Weird

I've been feeling weird and wasn't sure why. I had had this feeling before after Hannah was born and thought that it was just the process of my body healing its self after a long and hard labor compounded by the fact that I wasn't getting a lot of sleep. The best way to describe this feeling is that my uterus is going to fall out. It's tender to the touch and doesn't feel good when I jostle it around by jumping or bouncing Noah on the exercise ball.

This time around the feeling came about two weeks ago. I thought it may have something to do with the spermicide we've been using. Maybe it was irritating my uterus? Just a couple of days ago I noticed that I hadn't notice my uterus aching. Now I know what it was all about.

I started my period again today after a whole year. It came this time four months postpartum whereas last time, with Hannah, it started up just two months postpartum. It seems my body was made to have babies back to back. I'm still nursing Noah. Many women I know don't have a period until their child starts eating solids or even still until their baby is fully weaned. I'm a bit frustrated by how well my body works. I was hoping this time around I would have the full benefits of breastfeeding induced ammenorrhea and super-fast weight loss. No such luck here.

Tomorningday

There are some cute little words that Hannah has made up that are uniquely expressive. When I got her up this morning it was about 6:30am (she goes to bed at 6:30pm) and she said, "It's tomorningday". When she was really little, about one, she started calling her pacifiers machs (pronounced Mah'ks). During Noah's first week with us we were trying to think of a nickname for him and she said "Noey-kins". It came from one of her books where a character is named baby-kins.

It's so lovely having a little child in the house. Oh the joy they bring to us!

Small Steps Forward

So yesterday as I was making lunch I was wearing Noah in the Ergo and bouncing him because he was fussy. He started to fall asleep so instead of waking him up by swaddling him I just put him in his crib on his tummy. He slept for an hour and a half! The afternoon naps didn't go so well. He cried a lot partly because we decided to try and put him down on his tummy for the rest of the naps. He really takes too many short naps during the day and wakes up crabby.

We decided to put him down on his tummy for bed to just to see if he would sleep better. He complained a lot and woke up after an hour of sleeping. I fed him at 10ish and he woke up at 3:30 to feed but then by the time I got there he had found his thumb! So I just went back to bed. He woke again at 4:30. I fed him and he didn't wake up again until 7:30 am!!! I haven't gotten that much sleep in a row in forever! It really seems like one small step forward each day. The hardest part is that I don't have a real schedule. But If I look back a week to where we were there has been a lot of improvements. He's not in his swing anymore. He doesn't have to sleep on my chest and he's not in our bed! That's pretty big!

I Thought I knew

The theme for this year should be sleep. When I don't have enough of it I cannot function well and feel mildly depressed. I knew that having children means that you get less sleep. I had no idea how little sleep it could be until the children arrived. Hannah slept poorly until we sleep trained her when she was over nine months old. It was terrible. I couldn't sleep or eat or barely keep anything in me during the worst two weeks of my life. Now we are sleep training Noah. He is much, much younger. Four months old. Our pediatrician said we could do it when he was two months old, but I didn't feel comfortable with it because I felt like I couldn't read Noah's cues. Is he crying because he has to poop? Is he tired or hungry? I have no idea. Well now he is more regular with his poops. I can tell when He's tired and he started to sleep really terribly. So instead of letting bad sleep habits arise I convinced Robert that we needed to sleep train him now and not when he's six months old like we had originally talked about.

There has been lots and lots of crying. The worst of it was two hours the first day. The least of it has been one minute. There has been in instance with no crying. I was wearing him in his baby Ergo and he was getting cranky, so as I was preparing lunch, I bounced him. He got all sleepy so I put him down in his crib on his tummy (no time to swaddle) and he slept for forty-five minutes! No crying! I thought that was great. It didn't last.

I don't like swaddling him I feel that she should be able to move freely if he'd like to. If we swaddle him while he's sleeping, he's swaddled for more than 15 hours a day. I just don't think it's good for his joints and limbs. We were going to continue it, but then he fell asleep unexpectedly on me so instead of waking him up and swaddling him, I just put him down on his tummy. And he slept! Am I worried about SIDS. Yes I am. Any mom who doesn't worry is a fool! But I'm not so sure that SIDS doesn't correspond with vaccinating your children or with the baby's mattress off-gassing chemicals. We invested in a mattress cover from New Zeland to contain any gasses and have a monitor with a special plate that goes under the mattress and ticks to let us know that the baby is breathing/moving and sounds and alarm to indicate movement has stopped for over 15 seconds. The alarm has only gone off once when we used this monitor with Hannah. It happend only when she would ball up in the corner of the crib. So we know it works!

Crying is terrible. Crying and silence and then crying again is torture! Purt torture. I really thought this time would be easier after the first couple of days. But it's not easy at all. I just want Noah to learn to sleep on his own and go back to sleep when he's still tired. That's all I ask. That's all I want. No more crying please.

It's My Birthday Too!

Hannah turns three today. It really feels like my birthday not hers. It is the day that I gave birth to her after many days of labor. It could be considered a nightmarish birth if you count every minute but not to me. It was a wonderfully uncomplicated birth. All natural no drugs, just plenty of time.

From the moment she came out was was with me and has never left my side since. I don't know that things will always be this way. Hannah being at my side and all. And I'm not sure that I'd want it that way either. But I am glad that she was the first to make Robert and I a family.

On this day three years ago I became a mother.

I'm Mommy!

When Hannah was little we used to always ask her what her name is. So that she would know what to say when people asked her that question. Now she asks "What's your name Mommy?" And I say "I'm Mommy". I always get the same response from her. She'll sort of shout "I'm Mommy!" Then I ask her who am I. She says with a smile " You're Hannah".

Today when she was laying in bed during nap time I heard her exclaim "I'm Mommy!"

Sisters

My sister's Missa (middle), Bekah (right) and I

I have two older sisters who each have one son. When Austin (my oldest nephew) was born my sister Missa was just about twenty-two years old. She read some parenting books. She let my nephew cry for ten minutes each night and went in and checked on him and put him back. By the time he was four months old he was almost sleeping through the night. When my nephew Elijah was born my sister Bekah didn't read any parenting books. She co-slept with Eli until she got married when Eli was five. Eli never slept through the night until she weaned him from nursing at two years old. When Hannah was born. I read some pregnancy books and two sleep books the first was The Baby Whisperer, the second was No Cry Sleep Solution. In the end Hannh co-slept with us for over nine months. None of the suggestions in either books helped Hannah sleep throught the night until I read and followed Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.

I'm not suggesting that The Baby Whisperer and No Cry Sleep Solution books are a crock. I think that they just don't work for every baby. I cannot tell you how many times I put Hannah in her crib and picked her up again when she cried and then put her back down. I do know that that would work for some babies. It just didn't work for our babies.

My Obsession

Since before Noah was born I have been obsessed with sleep. I don't sleep well when I'm pregnant. Having a newborn doesn't make sleep come any easier. After parenting Hannah I had no illusions that I wouldn't be co-sleeping with this baby in order to gain a couple of extra winks of sleep.

Noah had completely different sleep issues than Hannah, but sleep issues all the same. He had reflux so badly he couldn't sleep laying down he had to be vertical. He slept on my chest for the first 7 weeks of his life. I could put him down occasionally to sleep but at night we slept on the couch or recliner. His reflux disappeared after I cut dairy and eggs out of my diet completely. The only problem was that he was accustomed to sleeping on me. Ever so slowly we trained him to sleep in the swing during the day then at night he would sleep with us in our bed. Thus my obsession grew. I started reading every book about sleep I could get my hands on: No Cry Sleep Solution, Baby Whisperer, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, and Sleeping Through the Night. I devised a plan that we would follow to help our child sleep through the night. I talked and talked and talked about what we should do and when we should do it with my husband Robert. And then after having a couple of weeks of poor sleep and seeing Noah progressively become a worse sleeper I decided I'd had enough the time had come to allow Noah to learn to fall asleep on his own so that he could soothe himself back to sleep instead of waking me up every other hour to do it for him.

After Noah's first Nap when he showed signs of tiredness I did our normal sleep routine: swaddle, bounce on exercise ball until eyes droop and then put him down awake in his crib. He cried. I wanted to cry too but I couldn't allow myself to cry since I was caring for Hannah. I tried not to watch the clock too much and only looked at it every five minutes instead of every minute. I prayed. I ran my fingers through my hair. My stomach was in knots. Two hours after his first yelps he fell asleep. He only slept 45 minutes. I then scrapped the cry it out during naps plan and reread all the pertinent parts of the cry-it-out books. And decided to do what they suggested to do and cry it out at bed time. The next night Noah only cried for an hour and ten minutes. Night two he cried for one hour. Night three he cried for twenty minutes. And I truly believe that he'd cry less if he were getting better naps during the day but we didn't want to cry it out all at once for every sleep period. So now the plan is to wait three more nights (after Hannah's birthday) and then start putting him in the crib for every nap.

We waited much longer to allow Hannah to learn to sleep on her own and it was much more traumatic with her. However we know that once they can fall asleep on their own everyone sleep much better.

This is a journal entry from December 29, 2006. Hannah had just been sleep trained and I was recounting what it had been like to put her to sleep. This is where Noah was heading and where I didn't want to end up.

I laid in our bed for countless hours trying to lull her to sleep. It became evident that I was becoming the human punching, pinching, scratching, kicking bag for our daughter. I started to not be able to sleep. Here's an example of a typical 24 hour period trying to get Hannah to sleep:
7:30am wakeup and breast feed
11:30am lay with Hannah for 15 min to sleep
11:45- 1pm Hannah sleeps
4pm lay with Hannah while rolls, scratches, kicks, and talks
4:30-5:10pm Hannah sleeps. I cannot move or she'll wake up
8:30pm Hannah obviously tired, breast feeds looks sleepy but then as soon as she is done she gets a burst of energy and thus commences the kicking, squealing, pinching, clawing of Mommy
9:15pm Hannah finally asleep. Mommy sneaks away from the bed. Hannah grabs for Mommy. Mommy stays in bed wide awake
9:35pm Mommy finally sneaks away to spend time with Daddy
10pm Hannah wakes and cries for Mommy. Mommy comes back in and breast feeds Hannah until she is asleep and decides to stay and sleep herself. But she can't So Mommy lies awake until Hannah wakes up again at 11:30pm to feed. Then Mommy finally drifts to sleep somewhere around midnight.
1am Hannah wakes to breast feed
2:30am Hannah wakes to breast feed
3:30am Hannah wakes. Mommy tries to breast feed her to sleep. Hannah wants to play. Mommy tries to sleep while Hannah kicks her.
4:15am Hannah falls asleeps.
5am Hannah wakes to breast feed
7am Hannah wakes for the day full of milk and not wanting to breast feed. Mommy is exhausted.