The baby is sleeping, though it's hard to tell for how long. She didn't do too bad last night, though she still woke me up every 2 hours. I'm starting to have vague recollections of how this went with JD as I'm fairly certain it went about the same as with L. I put her to bed around 7:30. She screams for anywhere from 0 minutes (when I'm super lucky!) to about 30 minutes before zonking out. She usually, but not always, wakes up about 45 minutes to an hour later and cries for 2 to 30 minutes. Then she seems to be out for a few hours. I've decided not to get her up to eat if it's been less than 4 hours. When I do get her up, we both fall asleep in the bed and I put her in the crib when she, invariably, wakes me again in an hour or 2. She usually fusses briefly then falls asleep. She usually wakes up in another hour or 2, but I don't get her, so she screams for a few minutes before going back to sleep. I get her the next time she wakes, regardless of the time, and usually keep her with me until we get up for the day, usually between 7:30 and 8. This morning she was up at 6:30 because she strained to get a poop out. Time to ditch the rice cereal and move onto oatmeal or barley. =\
JD made me laugh the other day, even though the situation was annoying. I was putting L down to sleep and told JD to play quietly in his room. Instead, he stood in his doorway and called, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" He didn't need me... He just wanted my attention. I went back to his room and sternly told him to cut it out because his sister needed to go to sleep, then I went back to L. This time JD followed me into the nursery, making lots of noise in the process. I sternly told him to go back to his room, which he did. When I went back to him and asked him why he didn't listen to me, he said, "Big brothers can be obnoxious." I said, "No kidding," as I stifled a laugh.
The sermon at church last Sunday was on patience. I don't think there could have been a more appropriate sermon for me!
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Finally!
Finally, a decent night's sleep... Yet still, here I am, up before the sun is. L is still pulling the weird sleep acts. The night before last, she did another one of those "let's act tired at the normal time, but decide not to sleep once Mom gets sleepy" things. Around midnight, I handed her off to my husband so he could take her for a car ride. Sure enough, she was asleep within minutes. I am going to start a "cry-it-out" of sorts now. I hate to do it... It's pretty much against my parenting philosophy... But what we are doing now just isn't working. Again, I wish I had written more things down with JD. I know I did eventually CIO with him, but I'm not entirely sure when I started. I've got it in my head that I started it at 10 months, but my memory is incredibly faulty these days. Co-sleeping ended when he was 7 months old. I actually wrote that one down. But I don't recall him CIO. So what did I do? His baby book says he fussed about half of the time. Was it really fussing or was it screaming like a banshee? Did I nurse him to sleep, putting him in his crib when he was a limp noodle, only to pick him up again if he woke up? I don't know. All I do know is that I stopped night nursing him at 13 months because he woke up way too many times per night, and I know that I can't handle going that long this time. So, I'm starting what I think I started at 10 months with JD, only this time the baby isn't quite 6 months old. I'll nurse her to sleep... I have no issue with that, even if the "experts" do (other than Dr. Sears, who would have you nursing and co-sleeping until the kid went off to college). I nursed JD to sleep until he was 2 years old (I weaned him at 26 months). Anyway, I'll nurse her to sleep and then leave. If she wakes up, I'll let her cry, lengthening the time of the crying bouts. Yesterday, I nursed her to sleep for her 1st nap, only to have her wake up as soon as I left. She cried for less than 2 minutes and then took an hour nap. For the 2nd nap, I nursed her, but she kept popping on and popping off, so I left. I let her cry for 5 minutes, then went in and nursed her to sleep. Once she was just suckling and not swallowing, I left, but she woke right up. She SCREAMED for about 10 minutes. I was about to go back in when she stopped, but she only slept for 30 minutes. For her 3rd nap (which I am hoping to phase out soon, in the hopes that she'll go to bed earlier at night), she nursed to sleep with no issue and slept for an hour. But when bedtime came, she, as usual, wasn't interested in sleeping. Forget that she was cranky... Forget that she was rubbing her eyes... Once we got into that bed, she was awake and happy, so I got her back up for an hour and tried putting her down again. This time, she nursed for real and fell asleep, only to wake up as soon as I dislodged myself from her mouth. She screamed for about 5 minutes (I was with her the whole time), but went right to sleep once I started nursing her again. She was finally asleep by 10:45 pm and didn't wake me up again until about 3:30 am. Yay! She woke me up with her squirming around 5:30, so I nursed her, but I couldn't fall back to sleep.
So, here I am. I've been trying to spend a little time with my painfully neglected Green-Cheek Conure. That's the one really bad thing about having kids... There's just not enough time to go around for them and everyone else... At least JD is getting old enough to pay positive attention to the pets. We've got 2 bird and 2 dogs. The birds are mine from before I got married and the dogs are from after marriage, but before kids. The one bird is an 11 year old Senegal named Ozzie and is kind of insane, so I really don't want the kids going near him. I want to pay attention to him, but there is the insane thing... He's nice as can be to me at night, but these days it's hit or miss during the day (for years, he was supremely evil during the day). But when I do get him out and try to love him, all he does is masturbate on my hand the whole time. That gets tiresome about 30 seconds into it. And if I let it go on long enough, he makes a mess on me. =\ The other bird is a 12 year old Green-Cheeked Conure named Murphy. She's my baby girl and I love her to death. But again, it's hard to give her the time that she was used to before I got married. I trust her more than Ozzie, but still not completely. I mean, she will lick my eyelids and I don't worry, but I don't trust her not to try to bite the baby if I'm holding them both at the same time. Mind you, L is now old enough to grab, so I couldn't hold both of them at the same time anymore anyway. JD likes to hold Murph. She's pretty good with him, but I don't trust that he will make wise choices while holding her and if she bit him, I'm not sure what he would do (besides cry and tell me that she's bad). So he gets a couple of minutes of supervised Murphy holding and that's it. JD used to have some trouble with the dogs. Neither of them wanted anything to do with him, really. When he was smaller, he was always good to them, but they would run away as soon as he got too close. When he got a little bigger, he got too rough so I couldn't blame them for running away. Now he's pretty good again, and I guess he's big enough to not be quite as intimidating to them (sounds weird, I know, but dogs are funny that way). Gus, my Basset Hound, will play with JD a lot now, but he'll still growl if he doesn't want to play and JD tries to start up a game. I don't think he'd ever bite, at least not intentionally, but I'm still not sure. Gandalf, my husband's Newfoundland, still has zero interest in JD, which is just as well. JD seems to have zero interest in him too. It's practically like they don't know the other exists in the same house. JD really only acknowledges him when he's occupying the space that JD needs to occupy (which is fairly often... Gandalf is massive and he always seems to be laying exactly where you need to walk).
My JD is such a sensitive soul. Yesterday, we watched "UP" for the first time. About halfway through, the phone rang, so I went into the kitchen to talk while he watched alone. I had to cut my conversation short because he started crying and calling to me. When I went out, he said, "My eyes are filling up with tears because the dogs bit the bird! I'm so sad. Sad and ANGRY!" When the movie was over, I asked him if he liked the movie. He said yes. I asked if it was kind of sad. He said, "No. It was really really REALLY sad!" Poor guy. His sensitivity makes discipline a challenge. We don't hit, ever. We were both hit as kids and vowed that we wouldn't let our kids have the kinds of memories that we have about that kind of stuff. But we do send JD to his room, and when we do, you'd think we had just beaten him, the way he carries on. If we raise our voices, his eyes fill up and he tells us that we hurt his feelings. Still, discipline HAS to happen or else chaos would reign in our house. JD is very strong-willed and very smart. He will do anything to get his way. He needs to understand that he is a member of this family and not the ruler of the homestead. If he needs to spend time in his room to understand that, even if it causes some tears, so be it. Even if it means I feel like a mean Mommy. =b
So, here I am. I've been trying to spend a little time with my painfully neglected Green-Cheek Conure. That's the one really bad thing about having kids... There's just not enough time to go around for them and everyone else... At least JD is getting old enough to pay positive attention to the pets. We've got 2 bird and 2 dogs. The birds are mine from before I got married and the dogs are from after marriage, but before kids. The one bird is an 11 year old Senegal named Ozzie and is kind of insane, so I really don't want the kids going near him. I want to pay attention to him, but there is the insane thing... He's nice as can be to me at night, but these days it's hit or miss during the day (for years, he was supremely evil during the day). But when I do get him out and try to love him, all he does is masturbate on my hand the whole time. That gets tiresome about 30 seconds into it. And if I let it go on long enough, he makes a mess on me. =\ The other bird is a 12 year old Green-Cheeked Conure named Murphy. She's my baby girl and I love her to death. But again, it's hard to give her the time that she was used to before I got married. I trust her more than Ozzie, but still not completely. I mean, she will lick my eyelids and I don't worry, but I don't trust her not to try to bite the baby if I'm holding them both at the same time. Mind you, L is now old enough to grab, so I couldn't hold both of them at the same time anymore anyway. JD likes to hold Murph. She's pretty good with him, but I don't trust that he will make wise choices while holding her and if she bit him, I'm not sure what he would do (besides cry and tell me that she's bad). So he gets a couple of minutes of supervised Murphy holding and that's it. JD used to have some trouble with the dogs. Neither of them wanted anything to do with him, really. When he was smaller, he was always good to them, but they would run away as soon as he got too close. When he got a little bigger, he got too rough so I couldn't blame them for running away. Now he's pretty good again, and I guess he's big enough to not be quite as intimidating to them (sounds weird, I know, but dogs are funny that way). Gus, my Basset Hound, will play with JD a lot now, but he'll still growl if he doesn't want to play and JD tries to start up a game. I don't think he'd ever bite, at least not intentionally, but I'm still not sure. Gandalf, my husband's Newfoundland, still has zero interest in JD, which is just as well. JD seems to have zero interest in him too. It's practically like they don't know the other exists in the same house. JD really only acknowledges him when he's occupying the space that JD needs to occupy (which is fairly often... Gandalf is massive and he always seems to be laying exactly where you need to walk).
My JD is such a sensitive soul. Yesterday, we watched "UP" for the first time. About halfway through, the phone rang, so I went into the kitchen to talk while he watched alone. I had to cut my conversation short because he started crying and calling to me. When I went out, he said, "My eyes are filling up with tears because the dogs bit the bird! I'm so sad. Sad and ANGRY!" When the movie was over, I asked him if he liked the movie. He said yes. I asked if it was kind of sad. He said, "No. It was really really REALLY sad!" Poor guy. His sensitivity makes discipline a challenge. We don't hit, ever. We were both hit as kids and vowed that we wouldn't let our kids have the kinds of memories that we have about that kind of stuff. But we do send JD to his room, and when we do, you'd think we had just beaten him, the way he carries on. If we raise our voices, his eyes fill up and he tells us that we hurt his feelings. Still, discipline HAS to happen or else chaos would reign in our house. JD is very strong-willed and very smart. He will do anything to get his way. He needs to understand that he is a member of this family and not the ruler of the homestead. If he needs to spend time in his room to understand that, even if it causes some tears, so be it. Even if it means I feel like a mean Mommy. =b
Friday, January 15, 2010
Soooo tired...
I guess I shouldn't be up typing this, but I'm realizing that it's just as difficult to type my thoughts out as to write them. L will not let me sit for any length of time, and JD either talks my ear off or begs to play computer games every time I sit down here. Now they are both sleeping, so I figured I'd take advantage of the time to myself. JD stopped taking naps shortly after L was born, so my "Me" time has ceased to exist.
JD is REALLY good with his baby sister, but I think that it's still taking its toll on him. He's always been such a Momma's boy. Though he still gets a lot of my time (either L is with us as we are doing whatever or I spend time with him while she's napping), it's still not as much as he had gotten previously. Even when I was pregnant and SO sick that I couldn't do much of anything, he tucked himself into the crook of my knees while I napped and he watch TV. I hate the Mommy guilt that I feel all of the time. I feel guilty for not being able to give JD the time that he had before L was born. I feel guilty that L does not get the level of attention that JD got as a baby. I feel guilty for be so tired and not exhibiting the level of patience that I had when I was well rested. JD does test me a lot these days and I tend to get short with him. Dr. Sears says that a child who doesn't feel right doesn't act right, so then I wonder if JD tests me so much because he doesn't feel right. Man, I wish kids came with instruction manuals!
Sleep has been rough lately. I vaguely remember through that foggy sleep deprived haze of JD's early months that right around this age was particularly tough. My husband would don his ear plugs and take JD for a car ride until he fell asleep. That's not as practical these days, seeing as it's the middle of the winter... Besides the roads potentially being icy, there's always that delightful frigid blast of air that's bound to hit her on the way from the car into the house. Anyway, a few times now, she's fallen asleep at a "normal" time (JD goes to bed at 9, so sometime before that) only to wake up after 45 minutes. Then she won't go back to sleep for hours! One night, she went to sleep at 8:30, woke up 45 minutes later, then just chatted to herself for 2.5 hours while I fitfully dozed next to her (yeah, we're still co-sleeping... I did it with JD until he was 7 months old). Once she got too squirmy, I tried to nurse her to sleep, but she wasn't interested and just kept popping off. I finally got annoyed and slid her into the crib (it's butted up to the bed as a sidecar), but she didn't want that. She screamed for about a half hour (I had in my ear plugs!), so I foolishly thought that maybe she had tired herself out enough to go to sleep. I pulled her back over to me, but no... She just wanted to chat again. I finally gave in and turned the light on. She chatted away, looking around and blowing raspberries, for at least another half hour. She finally fell asleep after 1 am, by which I was too wired to fall asleep. I got up and surprisingly enough did not write about it here, but went on Facebook instead. JD woke up at 3 am, after having a bad dream, so I went to bed after getting him all settled in again. I got about 2.5 hours of sleep total that night (though not in a row), and L was up before 7:30, so she got about 6 hours that night. I just hope that type of thing doesn't become a common trend. =(
JD is REALLY good with his baby sister, but I think that it's still taking its toll on him. He's always been such a Momma's boy. Though he still gets a lot of my time (either L is with us as we are doing whatever or I spend time with him while she's napping), it's still not as much as he had gotten previously. Even when I was pregnant and SO sick that I couldn't do much of anything, he tucked himself into the crook of my knees while I napped and he watch TV. I hate the Mommy guilt that I feel all of the time. I feel guilty for not being able to give JD the time that he had before L was born. I feel guilty that L does not get the level of attention that JD got as a baby. I feel guilty for be so tired and not exhibiting the level of patience that I had when I was well rested. JD does test me a lot these days and I tend to get short with him. Dr. Sears says that a child who doesn't feel right doesn't act right, so then I wonder if JD tests me so much because he doesn't feel right. Man, I wish kids came with instruction manuals!
Sleep has been rough lately. I vaguely remember through that foggy sleep deprived haze of JD's early months that right around this age was particularly tough. My husband would don his ear plugs and take JD for a car ride until he fell asleep. That's not as practical these days, seeing as it's the middle of the winter... Besides the roads potentially being icy, there's always that delightful frigid blast of air that's bound to hit her on the way from the car into the house. Anyway, a few times now, she's fallen asleep at a "normal" time (JD goes to bed at 9, so sometime before that) only to wake up after 45 minutes. Then she won't go back to sleep for hours! One night, she went to sleep at 8:30, woke up 45 minutes later, then just chatted to herself for 2.5 hours while I fitfully dozed next to her (yeah, we're still co-sleeping... I did it with JD until he was 7 months old). Once she got too squirmy, I tried to nurse her to sleep, but she wasn't interested and just kept popping off. I finally got annoyed and slid her into the crib (it's butted up to the bed as a sidecar), but she didn't want that. She screamed for about a half hour (I had in my ear plugs!), so I foolishly thought that maybe she had tired herself out enough to go to sleep. I pulled her back over to me, but no... She just wanted to chat again. I finally gave in and turned the light on. She chatted away, looking around and blowing raspberries, for at least another half hour. She finally fell asleep after 1 am, by which I was too wired to fall asleep. I got up and surprisingly enough did not write about it here, but went on Facebook instead. JD woke up at 3 am, after having a bad dream, so I went to bed after getting him all settled in again. I got about 2.5 hours of sleep total that night (though not in a row), and L was up before 7:30, so she got about 6 hours that night. I just hope that type of thing doesn't become a common trend. =(
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Hello! Welcome!
Hi there!
Let me start off by saying that I am new to this blogging thing. Heck, I'm pretty much new to writing down much of anything that rattles through my brain. I've attempted over the years to write a journal, but I've never really stuck with it. As a matter of fact, I am still keeping the one year diary that I started when I was 9 years old. Here is a sample entry from those days...
"I got up. I had cereal for breakfast. I went to school. I came home. I did my homework. I watched some TV. Now I am going to bed."
Creative genius! Later, I did attempt here and there to keep journals, but they always fell by the wayside after a month or two. Most of my writings went to bulletin boards, which is both good and bad. I spent many years at Nobbytalk, and it's pretty cool to go back and see what we were talking about in those days since a lot of it is saved. Later, I went to Pregnancy.org where I mostly chatted on the February '06 forum about my son. Two problems there. First, everything good that I wrote there is gone. The site itself only kept a certain number of posts. But even if it saved everything, I was banned because of something really stupid. I much prefer to get banned because I deserve it! The second problem was that what I was writing there, I SHOULD have been writing in my son's baby book. Now when I look in his book, it is woefully incomplete. Oh sure, I wrote down the cute and silly stuff that he did. But I didn't write down crucial information that I'd like to look back on now that I've got a 5 month old. Instead, I'm relying on my Mommy brain, which is about as functional as a ball of lint these days.
So enough of that inane prattle. Let me introduce myself! My name is Natalie. I am the stay-at-home mommy of a nearly 4 year old boy, hereby known as JD, and a 5 month old girl, hereby known as L. I am married, have 2 big dogs (a Basset Hound and a Newfoundland) and 2 small parrots (a Green-Cheeked Conure and a Senegal). The purpose of this blog is 2-fold. One, to share my thoughts on various things, and two, to have a more permanent baby book. I figure I'll get more written if I am typing instead of writing.
Time to head out for now. JD woke up complaining of sore big toes. I guess his 4T footie jammies will be retired today. Now he wants to do some puzzles, which I figure we'd better get to before little miss L wakes up!
Until next time... =)
Let me start off by saying that I am new to this blogging thing. Heck, I'm pretty much new to writing down much of anything that rattles through my brain. I've attempted over the years to write a journal, but I've never really stuck with it. As a matter of fact, I am still keeping the one year diary that I started when I was 9 years old. Here is a sample entry from those days...
"I got up. I had cereal for breakfast. I went to school. I came home. I did my homework. I watched some TV. Now I am going to bed."
Creative genius! Later, I did attempt here and there to keep journals, but they always fell by the wayside after a month or two. Most of my writings went to bulletin boards, which is both good and bad. I spent many years at Nobbytalk, and it's pretty cool to go back and see what we were talking about in those days since a lot of it is saved. Later, I went to Pregnancy.org where I mostly chatted on the February '06 forum about my son. Two problems there. First, everything good that I wrote there is gone. The site itself only kept a certain number of posts. But even if it saved everything, I was banned because of something really stupid. I much prefer to get banned because I deserve it! The second problem was that what I was writing there, I SHOULD have been writing in my son's baby book. Now when I look in his book, it is woefully incomplete. Oh sure, I wrote down the cute and silly stuff that he did. But I didn't write down crucial information that I'd like to look back on now that I've got a 5 month old. Instead, I'm relying on my Mommy brain, which is about as functional as a ball of lint these days.
So enough of that inane prattle. Let me introduce myself! My name is Natalie. I am the stay-at-home mommy of a nearly 4 year old boy, hereby known as JD, and a 5 month old girl, hereby known as L. I am married, have 2 big dogs (a Basset Hound and a Newfoundland) and 2 small parrots (a Green-Cheeked Conure and a Senegal). The purpose of this blog is 2-fold. One, to share my thoughts on various things, and two, to have a more permanent baby book. I figure I'll get more written if I am typing instead of writing.
Time to head out for now. JD woke up complaining of sore big toes. I guess his 4T footie jammies will be retired today. Now he wants to do some puzzles, which I figure we'd better get to before little miss L wakes up!
Until next time... =)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
