Please Tell Me This Is Normal

It Sounds So Easy

So,  I have a question for you, dear internet.  HOW DO YOU GET YOUR CHILDREN TO GO TO SLEEP AT NIGHT.  And, yes, I realize this is something I should have figured out long ago, seeing as how my oldest is now, um, (gulp) six and all, but seriously?  I suck at this part of parenting.

In the old house, the kids had TVs and VCRs in the room and would just watch a movie and fall asleep.  We realized that this was setting a bad precedent and during the move, moved the TVs out of their rooms.  But now?  They will not go to sleep on their own.

It will be, like midnight, and they will still be awake.  Still coming down the stairs every two to three minutes for “just one more drink” or “I have to go potty” or “I’m scared;  I think I saw Swiper the fox.”  And it never ends.  Finally, when I’m ready to lose it, one or both of us goes up there and lays down with them and within 30 seconds they are out and you can sneak out.  But it is a horrible evening all around.

The alternative is to start off by laying down with them and then leaving, but that also kills your whole evening and before you know it its ten o clock before you get both kids finally to sleep. 

Considering I’m with them from the moment they get up in the morning until the moment they go to sleep at night that makes for a very long day and a very worn out mommy.

So, how do you do it?  How does it work in your house?  Can I copy you?  I promise, I won’t tell! 

Too Tired to Come Up With Witty Title

I know, I know, I know. Since I have been home, I am just terrible about the updating. This is because my computer time is few and far between. And the few moments I have throughout the day are sucked up by the job searching and whatnot. (I know! Priorities? Shouldn’t blogging come first? Yeesh.)

This week has also been rough as Connor has caught a cold and sleeping has been haphazard. It has been nice, though, being home full-time. No worrying about missing days of work. Being able to nap when he naps during the day, if possible. Sleeping in when he does. Makes up for the hours that I’m up during the night, patting his back, telling him that it will be okay.

I will say that I have had my fill of wiping the snotty nose. Well, more like chasing him down, holding him down with one hand, holding his face with the other, and quickly swiping as best as I can. He’s quick, even when he’s ill.

And apparantly, being sick doesn’t completely take away the urge to be naughty. One minute he’s snuggling on my lap, and the next he’s crawling into the fireplace. Tonight, we checked on him in bed and he had managed to get his pajama top half off and part of his diaper undone - underneath the pajama bottoms, even. He is nothing, if not talented.

So Tim and I have been struggling this week and are more than glad the weekend is upon us. Although, you know that you are a parent when you can clean up puke and it doesn’t even ruin your appetite. You can finish your dinner with no problems whatsoever. Even with a child in your arms, if necessary. Ah, how we have grown.

The Fast and the Furious

Boy, this weekend just FLEW by - I barely had time to relax (although we all did squeeze in a good nap on Sunday afternoon).

Saturday morning we went to church for a missions-trip fundraising breakfast where we found out the church had but one highchair and it was already occupied. So we ate in shifts and Connor was a big handful as any squirmy one-year old on your lap should be. He also discovered the joys of sliding down the plastic toddler slide that they have in the church basement. And we did that over and over and over again.

Saturday night we went over to Tim’s dad’s for some lasagna and Uno action. Connor most decidedly did not want to go to sleep in some strange house and promptly threw up all over the place. This, right here, is why we don’t travel.

Then Sunday, Connor was so thrown off course from the day before and so tired that he refused to nap. So we spent the majority of the day trying, begging, and pleading our cranky little son to go to sleep.

And then, wam, bam - the weekend’s over and here it is, Monday morning already. I feel cheated.

Bright and Early

For some ungodly reason, Connor decided to wake up at 5:00 AM this morning. At first I thought he was just hungry, gave him his bottle, and went back to sleep. And then I woke up at 5:45 and hear him playing in his crib. Finally, close to 6, he starts yelling “Mommeee!”.

I go in there, lay him back down, and give him his bottle back - hoping, beyond hope, that he falls back asleep. I jump in the shower. I get out to hear him once again playing in his crib.

Does he think its time to spring forward? What’s going on? This is so very unusual for him. And now his schedule is going to be messed up all day long. I just hope that he corrects this before tomorrow, because Saturday is the day that we SLEEP IN!!!

No Love for the Momma

We really need to put his crib bumper back up. Its currently sitting in the dryer, after the Daddy Hazing two nights ago. Connor has been sleeping sans bumper for two nights now and I’m getting a little tired or playing “Mommy to the rescue” at 3 AM. Connor is an active child, to say the least. He does not sit still, lay still, or God forbid, sleep still. That kid is all over the place. When he does not have the bumper somehow he will get his feet stuck outside of the slats. In the weirdest positions. And then when he tries to move again - AHHHHH! Something has my feet!!!!! So Mommy comes in and rescues his feet and its off to dreamland again. For him at least.

After two nights of doing this, I’m getting beyond tired and just a little punchy. And I was not amused this morning as Mr. Wiggle Worm would not just lay still for one second to enable me to fasten his diaper. And, being the mean Mommy that I am, I (gasp) made him wear clothes, shoes, AND a coat. Needless to say, Connor was a Daddy’s boy all morning long and wanted nothing to do with me. The whole time I was trying to get him ready, he’s going “Dadda, Daddy, Daddy, Dadda” and when he would get a chance he would go search for him and want to be snuggled with Daddy. I find this highly unfair since it was I who came to his rescue throughout the night while Daddy was snoring away, but I guess that’s just the way it goes sometimes. Motherhood is a thankless task.

All Boys Club

No more puking last night. Yeah!!! We must be thankful for the little things in life.

He did however, keep me up ALL night long last night. Brings back memories, it does, and not pleasant ones either. Poor kid just has this hacking cough that he gets from all the allergy drainage. Do they make allergy medicine for babies? I just feel bad for him. I myself am miserable, but I can pop some Tylenol Sinus if it gets too out of control.

In other news, Connor was trying to help his Daddy out this morning by throwing and eating his shoes. I think he’s under the impression that the only person who likes shoes in this household is Mommy and she is just crazy. He even went straight to Daddy this morning after I put his shoes on, to complain. They are already conspiring against me. We need a girl in this house - stat!

Not that we want another one right now, although that does seem to be the trend. Of the five couples we know that have children right around Connor’s age, three are expecting again. Yikes! Brave, brave people, I tell ya.

Silent (Yeah Right) Night

My little son is a big stinker, let me tell ya. Last night he threw a huge temper tantrum at 11:30 and totally would not go back to sleep in his crib. I would get him back to sleep and as soon as I layed him down he would start screaming. Finally, at like midnight, I had had enough. I couldn’t take it anymore, and I had to get up early, plus I knew he’d be up a lot at night. Plus, when he’s sick like this, he doesn’t sleep well at all, which is probably why he was screaming like that in the first place. Anyways, so I take him up to bed with me. Well, Mr. Drama Queen (totally inherited this from his DAD!) just can’t get comfortable. He makes this big dramatic production about rolling all over the joint and trying to sleep on the various pillows and such. Seriously. It was hilarious. But I was so mad!!! I was like, okay kiddo. ENOUGH! You are going to sleep in your own bed! So I let him scream for a bit, then rocked him to sleep again, and luckily he stayed asleep. And (thank God!) he didn’t get up again until like 5:30 which is a first. I woke up and was like, huh? What? Oh my - he slept through the night! Yeehaw!!!

And, because Tim is home with him today, I had forever and a day to get ready this morning. No need to watch him while Tim takes his shower, no need to pack a diaper bag. No need to pack a lunch. No need to wake up a grumpy child and fight with him to 1)take off his pajamas 2)change his diaper, and 3)put on clothes. No need to take a million bags out to the car in the morning and start the car. No need to come back in the house, start to put his coat on, realize he’s pooped, and fight to change his diaper again. No need to struggle to put on his hat. No need to pick said hat off of the floor after he’s taken it off and thrown it across the room. No need to hold his arms down with one hand, put the hat on with the other, and put his jacket on before he can get the hat off. No need to struggle to button his coat as he’s trying to get down off of my lap. No need to rush out of the house, late, turn all the lights off, get the door locked and put him in the carseat. No need to turnaround at the end of the street, go back to the house, and run inside for either 1)bottles I forgot in the fridge, 2)babyfood I forgot in the cupboard, or 3)check I forgot to write for daycare lady. No need to drop him off at daycare. No need to rush to work, very late, in and out of traffic yelling at people to get out of my way. It was nice!

El Crib es Muey Yucky

The war is not yet over, but three battles have been fought. And it looks like the Union (i.e. Mommy and Daddy) is emerging victorious.

Yes, Connor has slept in his own bed, in his own room no less, three nights in a row now. This weekend was the weekend we made the move.

Boy oh boy, did he put up a good fight. Its really, really hard to listen to him scream in there - to go in every 5, 10, then 15 minutes to tell him that he’s okay. The thing is, he doesn’t need anything. He’s just plenty peeved to be in there. Because as soon as you pick him up he’s fine. Its a temper tantrum of the highest degree.

We’ve put this off far, far too long, because its just so stinking hard. We kept moving back the date. Truth is, if we had done it sooner, it wouldn’t have been that hard on him. A few weeks ago, I was thinking - well, maybe when he turns 1, then we can move him to his own room. And then I thought about how hard that is going to be then and how he’s just not going to understand. It just gets harder the older he gets. So we decided to step up, bite the bullet, and do what’s best for Connor, even though its not the easiest thing to do. Being a parent sure does suck sometimes!

I’m still feeding him during the night as he wakes up, which I know is also a bad habit that we’ve gotten into since he doesn’t need to eat now during the night anymore. But I figure babysteps - I can’t have the kid go completely cold turkey. So I’m sleeping downstairs right now in the other room so I can get him when he cries, comfort him, feed him, and then listen to him scream until he falls back asleep. The middle of the night ones don’t last that long - he usually doesn’t even make it 2 minutes before he’s fast asleep again.

Its very sad too to look at our bedroom now. We are completely Connor-free up there now. I moved the pack-n-play and stuff downstairs. Its just a sad adjustment for all of us, I think. Both Tim and I miss the little baby that slept in the bassinett next to our bed. Don’t get us wrong, we still love the big boy who screams at the top of his lungs, standing up in his crib. But we miss the baby part.

As I was dismantling the pack-n-play yesterday, I was thinking back to when we set it up. I was very, very pregnant and we had no clue what we were getting into! I remember just laying in bed at night staring at that thing and thinking - Man, there is going to be a baby in there soon! And then I was remembering laying him in there for the first time. Getting up with him during the night that first week and changing him on the changing table. How scared Tim and I were of breaking him.

All this reminiscing of course makes you so nostalgic, and you think - Man, I want another one. Which of course is what everyone asks you all the time now. It used to be “When are you going to have kids?” Then “When are you due?” Now its “When are you having another one?”, and “How many are you planning on having?” We’ve gone back and forth on this one a lot. It depends on when you ask us. If you ask us when we are looking at his little newborn sleepers or packing up his babystuff, we will tell you right away. But if you ask us at 3 AM when he’s screaming his head us we will tell you that he is all we can possibly handle, thank you very much.

I’m hoping that this war of the bed will be over soon. That he will learn to put himself to sleep in his own bed, and soothe himself back to sleep if and when he wakes up. Because I’m awfully tired!