Happ birthday bug!

Dear Noah,

You are our little bug. I have not blogged all of your milestones, but they are seared in my memory. Even after only 12 short months in this world, you have developed a clear and strong personality. You are fiercely independent and single-minded when you want something. Even your pancreas has a mind of its own. You used to be able to command us with your eyes; now you simply point at what you want and then look at us as if to say "well, what are you waiting for?" You test your limits by touching something that you aren't supposed to and then looking back at us for a reaction. You also assert your independence with your refusal of bottles- but only at home. If Miss Marilu or Miss Iris offer you a bottle, you accept it. For family, not so much. That's why you have to have that tubey, you silly boy! If only we could explain to you that you're making your own life difficult! In spite of all the poking and prodding that's been done to you, you've been able to keep your sweet and playful nature. Your smiles are the best, hands down.

We know that you don't like doctors or fluorescent lights, but what DO you like? Books, for one. You have, for several months now, been picking out books and crawling madly across the room to us so that you can be read to. We read "Bubbles, Bubbles" over and over and over again, but we don't mind at all. You also have an appreciation for art and photography that astounds me. Wherever you go, you want to see every picture that is on the walls. You even provide commentary on ones that you particularly like. You love all things musical, especially Kindermusik. I know that I can make you smile by playing the "Our time" song, and usually you even hum along. In a few weeks, you and I will be starting a new Kindermusik class, just the two of us. I can't wait!

You have a great vocabulary for a one year old- you can (when you want to) say mama, dada, jada, nae-nae, and the best of all: "uh-oh!" I think that your comprehension far exceeds what you can communicate, so one day I expect the floodgates to open and all of your thoughts will spill out into words. 

I love the giant grin that you give me in the morning when I come get you out of your crib, and I love how you come pull on my legs to be picked up. I hate that we are having to subject you to so many tests, but we really need to figure out what's going on so that you can GROW. I would be lying if I said that the past year has been easy, but I will say that it has been a joy to be able to spend so much time with you from when you were born through May. I'm glad to see that you love your school and enjoy it, then I don't feel so bad about leaving you. Sometimes you make huge changes (grandma calls it going through a door) in just hours, and that is just awesome to watch.

I know that we will look back on this summer a year from now and it will seem like so long ago that life was so tough. I am hoping that come December we can celebrate your birthday with an actual birthday cake- I've saved your candle for you. For now, drink your milk and GROW so that we can ditch that tube and do even more fun stuff.

Love,

mom

Sitting up

Over the past few days, Noah has been working on sitting himself up from a lying down position. This morning he was doing it constantly, and just now I saw him on the baby monitor sitting up in his crib :)
He's been working on crawling but mostly prefers to sort of fish-flop around. This means he can now get into Nathan's toys, so I've had to confiscate a few. He puts EVERYTHING into his mouth, so I have to be really vigilant. Last week, I found one of Nathan's little letter stamps inside the pack-n-play, which, according to Nathan, jumped into the pack-n-play all by itself. Amazing, lol.

Noah's update

Noah is weaned. 

Let me back up. As I'd mentioned, I had been trying to get Noah to start taking bottles during the daytime in order to prepare him for day care. I had originally planned to pump bottles for him, but pumping has yielded little return, and to be honest, my time is too valuable to be spending 20 minutes hooked up to a pump to only get one ounce. For this reason, we tried formula bottles and my plan was to just nurse in the morning and at night.

I had limited success with sending him to my mom's- the first overnight he did okay taking bottles, but the most recent time he more or less went on strike, only drinking 3 oz. in a 27 hour time period. I tried giving him bottles too, but he had largely refused these and on one particular occasion vomited the entire bottle onto me immediately after drinking it. A week later, when he repeated this performance after eating some homemade yogurt/granola/banana smoothie, I began to suspect that I was seeing a pattern. I definitely wanted to get things figured out before he starts day care- I was scared that he would throw up there while he was in his crib and no one would see it happen, among other things. I called the doctor the next morning and believe it or not, they squeezed me in just an hour after my call (with my favorite doctor, too!). The doctor listened very carefully to all of the details (the vomiting had happened only three times in his life, but I just had a mother's intuition) and my strong family history of allergies. She advised me to use Nutramigen formula (free sample, thank goodness!), which is hypoallergenic, and gave me lab orders. The doctor also expressed some concern at his progress on the growth curve- he had fallen off yet again, I believe down to the 10th or 5th percentile. She said that sometimes this happens as they begin to crawl, but suggested that we cut back on solids to encourage more nursing. He LOVES solids and was readily eating 8 oz. per meal, so little wonder that he didn't do much nursing. 

It so happened that I already had a lab appointment that same day to do my drug test for school, so I just added a second appointment for Noah. Sadly, taking blood from an infant is far more difficult than when you or I get our blood drawn, as their veins are buried under a nice padding of pudge. They had to stick both arms and do a lot of digging. :( He cried so much that he broke out in hives all over his face (he does this when he cries a lot). 

On Wednesday, we finally got the call from the nurse with the results, and my (and my mom's) feeling that he was allergic to something was confirmed. He is highly allergic to dairy, and moderately allergic to dog dander (Jason is in serious denial about this part). We could continue with the Nutramigen, but I thought since it smelled nasty, it probably tasted nasty too, so we might have better success with soy. After two days of trying to decide what would best serve our collective needs (and having a massive battle of the wills with Noah), I decided that it would be less confusing to Noah to just do bottles 100% of the time. In addition to the allergy issue, his lack of weight gain had me thinking more seriously about whether he was getting enough milk while nursing. He's so laid back that he rarely acts hungry so maybe he hasn't been getting enough all along. Going to bottles will allow me to measure his intake and maybe gradually increase it as well.

At first, he would only accept the bottle while sleeping. Oh, and let's not mention the amount of money I've spent on every. single. kind. of bottle and nipple out there. I actually ended up ordering from Amazon the nipples that look like his pacis. They arrived, and lo and behold, they are a proprietary size that didn't fit any of our other bottles. I ended up having to ask a BabiesRus employee to test a bottle (of course the most expensive bottle known to man) with water from the water fountain and the paci-nipple. 

Anyways, today was better and he took 3 solid bottle feedings plus a little more. I noticed immediately that his diapers have been WAY heavier, which may be an indication that he was indeed getting shorted at the breast. Now I have to stop eating whatever I want, since I won't have the calorie burn of breastfeeding, but I've also heard that quitting will cause your body to let go of a few "emergency storage" pounds, so we'll hope for that. 

Lucky for me (unlucky for my dad and brother), I was raised in a household with VERY allergic people, so I know the drill. Jason will learn the drill (as he started to today when I made him completely wipe his hands and the steering wheel in my car down after eating nuts). We just can't take any chances.Allergies often occur together, and the blood test can have false negatives. So it will be touch and go for a little while. His next appointment is May 8th for his 9 month visit, so hopefully we can figure out next steps and check his weight gain at that time. 

What have I done?

Well, pre-school stress has kicked in. The stress of anticipation, for me anyways, is always worse than the actual "stressful" event. This week I attended CPR class and a meet n greet with some of my cohort, and I'm a somewhat sickening combination of excited, nervous, and stressed out.

Interestingly, there's been a distinct shift in my body's ability to handle stress. When I was working, I was in a constant state of stress response/arousal- cortisol flowed through my veins as much as oxygen did. Now, when I get a jolt of stress, it feels totally overwhelming. Not in a panic attack kind of way, but in a whoa, what is this strange feeling my body is having kind of way. I would say it took a good 4-6 months for the stress-y feeling to leave my body after leaving my job, but now I'm going to have to re-acclimate to that. I almost feel as if it would have been easier had I not left work, since now I'm going to have to get used to stress and a fast paced life once again, rather than just moving from one high-stress thing to another. I can see how it would be difficult for a stay at home parent to return to work, just for this reason.

On the one hand, I'm super excited about all of the stuff I'm going to learn. I'm completely satisfied with my decision to do the accelerated BSN @ UCF, because my cohort is made up of people a lot like me- same age range, similar life experience- so I don't feel like "the old one" in my class. They also seem to be a pretty smart, reliable, and congenial bunch; people I can actually count on throughout the program (I have trust issues when it comes to study groups and group projects, because a lot of times things aren't up to my standards).

On the other hand, the thought that keeps scrolling through my head like the news ticker on CNN is What Have I DONE?!?!? I left a perfectly good, well-paying job to pursue something that I THOUGHT would be my passion. But what if it turns out not to be? What if this was all a huge mistake? The rational side of me says, well, if you don't like nursing just go back to whatever it is you were doing before. You didn't have to trade in your M.M. for this degree, and you can still use the old knowledge in your brain. The money thing will work itself out. Also, when my brain says What Have I DONE?!?!, and I really think about it, I've done a lot of good stuff:
- learned to REALLY relax
- spent more time with my family
- vastly improved my relationship with my husband
- taken advantage of an irreplaceable opportunity to spend QT at home with my boys, teaching them and watching them grow

And now it's time for the next chapter. Deep breaths.

What Nathan learned at school this week

When Nathan and I are in the car, we like to play a game we call "put on your listening ears." Basically, we just take turns making up stories. Nathan's almost always involve a dinosaur, alligators, little boys, and some kind of vehicle. On this particular day, the story ended like this: "and the car was on the sidewalk and then the dinosaur ate the cow. AND JUSTICE FOR ALL." He learned the pledge of allegiance at school this week :) I would have never known, since every time I ask him what he did at school he says "nothing." LOL

Noah's first sleepover

This weekend was my first night away from Noah- he went to my parents' house for an overnight stay along with his big brother. I was REALLY anxious, but I also knew that I had to let him go sometime, and with school starting in just over a month, I'm going to have to get used to being away from him pretty soon. Everything turned out fine ("just like I said it would," my mom would say :)). He didn't seem to have any separation anxiety, they had fun at the beach, and he even slept pretty well.

It was SO weird not to have any kids around- I'm used to Nathan being away, but Noah is a pretty constant fixture. I'd love to tell you that we went downtown and partied, went out for a fancy dinner, and then slept in, but that would be a lie. What I did do was go see a movie (so, see, at least I did one fun thing!), go to Target sans kids (an easy and pleasant experience!), and clean the blinds (I'm afraid Nathan will try to copy me if he sees me doing it).

After the big sleepover, I went to my parents' to hang out for a while and pick up Noah, while Nathan stayed there so he could have a special Busch Gardens day with them today. In the 24 hours that Noah was away, he learned how to get up on his hands and knees and rock. It's true that babies change overnight.

Speaking of overnights, I had waited to blog about this in case it was a fluke or (worse) I jinxed it by blogging about it. But, here it is: Noah is sleeping through the night! It started last week and has become pretty much regular now- I nurse him and put him down sometime between 6 and 7 and then don't feed him again until 5 or 6! There was a time when I would have thought a 6 a.m. wakeup time was totally unacceptable, but this actually works out good, because I can get up, nurse him, and ease into my day. In a few weeks, this valuable time when Nathan's still asleep will be instrumental in getting organized enough to get out of the house on time.

That's all there is to report!

Spring Cleaning

I usually don't subscribe to the concept of spring cleaning, but this year I am participating, because in a few short weeks any notion of free time will be gone. My version of spring cleaning is more like streamlining and reducing clutter before all hell breaks loose with school. So far I have:

- gone through all of my blog subscriptions on G Reader and deleted all but the best
- made sure that I've stocked up on basics like toothpaste and shampoo so that I won't have to worry about deal-hunting for the next year
- in the same vein, tossed all of my coupons and moved to a clip-as-they-arrive strategy, clipping only the ones I will definitely or probably use
- gotten rid of most of Noah's baby stuff so it's not sitting around waiting on me to deal with it
- organized the pantry (3 times, this might be a little bit of overkill)
- started waking up fully at 6 a.m. when Noah wakes up, rather than trying to go back to sleep
- used all of my groupons except for one that I will use next week
- started a pinterest board of freezer meals and started trying out some easy prep-ahead meals
- in the next few days, I will be trying one formula bottle per day with Noah to start getting him used to the idea of both a bottle and formula. I probably am not going to pump to try to cover this because it's a LOT of time and energy to produce just a few ounces, and I don't think I can manage that on top of everything else once school starts. We'll see.

OK, if I'm really being honest, I'm a little antsy and have a lot of nervous energy to burn off. I'm the kind of person that needs a goal in the future to be an anchor- whether it be planning the next vacation, working towards getting into school, moving, whatever. Right now I kind of feel like I'm in between goals. I've achieved the "getting into school" one, but am not yet in the "pass all my classes and get my BSN" one. I feel like I'm at the very top of a roller coaster, holding my breath, waiting for the drop. Here's hoping I don't go insane in the next 7 weeks! But who's counting? :)

Noah at 7 months

Noah turned 7 months as of last week, so I thought I'd post a little update on him. He just this week started sitting up independently (for the most part, I still have to stay close in case he topples over backwards). on Saturday, he started rocking from side to side on his belly as if he wants to crawl, but he is getting VERY frustrated because all he can do is spin or roll. I try to show him how to get up on his knees but he'll have none of it.

A lot of the frustration comes from his new-found sense of self-determination; he now knows EXACTLY what he wants and he gets so mad when he can't reach it. I know this because he's also very communicative about what he's trying to get. He will fuss until he gets my attention, then look directly at what he wants, and then look back at me as if to say "get that for me! I want it!" I oblige, but I'm trying to hold off a bit because if I just give him everything, he'll never learn how to go get things for himself.

What he wants most in the world, the majority of the time, are Nathan's toys. I can see that this is going to be a problem, so I'm teaching Nathan to pick up his toys that he doesn't want to share, and also to remove everything small from the family room. A couple of times, Nathan has yanked things away from Noah, though luckily didn't hurt him.

Overall though, Nathan still loves Noah dearly. Yesterday he took it a little too far- I walked out of the room for just a moment while Noah was in his bouncy seat, and returned to find Nathan lifting Noah's head. I was so shocked that I yelled at him, which I don't often do. When I got to the bottom of it, Nathan had been lifting Noah because he wanted to snuggle him. Hard to be mad at that. The adoration is mutual, too; Noah loves to just watch Nathan play and often laughs at Nathan's "funny noises" that he loves to make.

One more thing: Noah is still not sleeping through the night. On the better nights, I only have to get up to feed him once, but on other nights he might be up 3 or 4 times. My goal has been to have him sleeping through the nigh by May, which is rapidly approaching, so it's looking more and more like I will have to figure out some sort of strategic plan to systematically work towards this. His number of feedings per day has really dipped, so I'm kind of thinking it's a matter of recalibrating him to eat more during the daytime hours. He has plenty of days where he goes 8 hours without milk, it's just unfortunately during the nighttime.

Nathanism of the week

At my parents' house this past weekend, after Nathan insisted on wearing his socks outside:
N: my socks are dirty!
Me: Yup, because you wanted to wear them outside. That's the trade-off.
N: No, mommy, that's the consequence.

He had my whole family cracking up :)

Cruise, Part 2

 Tuesday (San Juan, PR): Our camera sucks. As I'm looking at our pictures, they just don't do justice to the real thing. The colors are all off and they aren't crisp at all. Sorry about that :( We spent the morning sailing and then arrived midday into the port of San Juan. The port itself is guarded by two very old forts, so it's a scenic ride in. They open up the front bow of the ship so that you can enjoy the view. We tried to watch it from the forward observation lounge, where there was a narrator explaining the sights, but SOMEONE (no names) wouldn't stay quiet. Oh well.

view of one of the forts (don't ask which one) from the ship

watching the sail-in

 When we arrived onshore, we decided to walk up to the first fort. With both strollers. It's uphill. On 400 year old cobblestones. We deserve a medal. :) We were duly rewarded, however, by the views both on the way up and at the top. The cobblestones are actually made from ballast stones from the first ships that sailed over to colonize PR, and they are a beautiful blue. Also the architecture is really neat and there are plazas dotted throughout. At the top, up one more steep hill, was the entrance to fort San Cristobal, which is actually a National Park. We paid $3 per adult and were granted access to the huge complex.

atop the first fort, San Cristobal

in the dungeon

 We explored the fort, which also has period clothing, informational displays, and more. Very cool stuff. The weather was nice in the open areas and absolutely stifling in the places with sun and no breeze. I could only imagine what it had been like hundreds of years ago for the people who lived and worked there, with all of their clothes, wigs, and no indoor plumbing. No thank you.

We walked across the wall which extends along the tip of the island from one fort to the other, and then headed downhill back to the ship.

our ship from atop the fort

La Perla, for Stephanie

 The ship was docked until 10:30 p.m., but when you travel with kids you really need to go by that schedule rather than your port times. So we went back onboard, showered, rested, and found another towel animal!

Wednesday (St. Thomas): I had done a bit of research on this port and decided that the safest thing to do was to take an excursion. The taxis are open air (read: big pickup trucks with benches in the back) and the island has mixed reviews as far as tourist safety goes. Jason disagreed with me and refused to look at excursion, so we ended up doing nothing. The island of St. Thomas is very steep and rocky, which I was surprised by even though I read about it, because I'm used to the pancake flatness of the Bahamas and Florida. It really wouldn't have been navigable with the strollers. So, we hung around onboard, Nathan went to the kids' club for a bit.

remembering how to swim

towel animals in the cabana, too!

one of our many diversions

refusing to take his eyes off the "chocolate pirate money"

Thursday (sea day again): Let me be honest for a moment. At this point in the vacation, I was seriously 50/50 as to whether I'd rather be on land or on a cruise. The boys had been rather "trying" and I was tired. I knew I had signed up for a different vacation that just the two of us going, but we were still at times pulling our hair out. I was getting, quite literally, cabin fever.

Since getting off the ship and going home was not an option, we soldiered on. :)
And were thusly rewarded with another towel animal.

On this night (I think), we actually made it to a restaurant that's on the buffet level, so it's more casual, but still has table service. We had dropped Nathan off at the club. Noah was awake but happy. Until we sat down. He wasn't crying, just fussing, but we were getting LOOKS from people. So back into the stroller he went, as I proceeded to do laps around the buffet for thirty minutes, stopping to whisper to Jason through the partition each time I would pass by: "I think he's about to fall asleep! One more lap and I'll come sit down. Go ahead and order for me." It was so bad that the head of the lido area told me that he'd make a special accommodation and have the food sent to my room if needed. LOL. Noah finally dozed off and we had a hurried meal together.

Friday (Half Moon Cay): HMC is supposedly the highest rated private island of all the cruise lines. We've been to Coco Cay, Castaway Cay, and have seen Great Stirrup Cay from the ship, so we are no stranger to private islands. I have to agree with the experts that this is the nicest island. It's spacious, with tons of infrastructure and a beach that is just breathtaking. It's the kind of beach that sears its beauty on your memory forever. Lucky for us, since it looks like any old regular beach on our crappy camera. Ugh.

We had to tender to the island (for you non-cruisers, this means you take a boat rather than have the ship dock at the pier). I successfully managed to get ashore WITHOUT having a heart attack- for some reason having the boys, especially Noah, on a small boat makes me nervous.

The plaza at the entrance

 We did a bit of everything- explored, ate at the BBQ, sat on the beach, and went in the crystal clear ocean. I have a thing about going in the water when I can't see the bottom, so this was the perfect beach for me. Surprisingly, the water was really chilly. The sand was like sugar- hard to walk in but super soft and fine. Great for sandcastles :)

ready for beach day!

great playground on the island

a bar that's in the shape of a shipwrecked boat

the beach- imagine it bluer, clearer, and brighter

going back to the ship on the tender- do I have a death grip on the stroller???

happy boy

Back aboard the ship, I packed up our stuff and we settled in for our final night of cruising for many years to come. Even though it was fun (and not fun, in alternating spurts), we've decided that until the boys are older we are hanging up our lifejackets and sticking to land vacations. 

Cruise

We're back, and I'm here with the post-cruise update!
Friday: We pack up and leave for South Florida. Noah begins to cough, a fake sounding little cough. By the time we arrive in SFL I am debating whether I should take him to a walk-in clinic, but worry that he'll be exposed to even more germs at the clinic. For those who remember, the last time we cruised, Nathan got sick the day before we left, we took him to the doctor the morning we were to board the ship, she cleared him, and then he proceeded to spike a 105.1 fever at 2 a.m. onboard the ship, which resulted in a panicked trip to the ship's medical facilities. So we might be a little paranoid in this area. I called our ped and they recommended taking him in just to have his lungs listened to. My mom found us a walk-in clinic and they determined that he had bronchiolitis, but no way to tell whether it was viral or bacterial. Either way, the PA said that it was mild, prescribed antibiotics just in case it was bacterial, and sent us on our way.

Saturday (boarding day): Noah is coughing more, and I'm seriously questioning whether we should go. He spits up his entire breakfast, which doesn't make me feel any better. Nevertheless, we decide that if the doctor said it was okay, we can go safely.

We arrived at the pier around noon and were able to board pretty quickly. On Holland America, you can go directly to your stateroom, so we went there first to drop off the big box of diapers and wipes, Noah's medicine, toys, etc. I had meticulously researched cabins and had secured one of the largest available, but I was still skeptical of how big it would actually be. As it turned out, the cabin was super roomy, probably over 200 sf, with a sizable bathroom/shower and plenty of room for the pack n play. I was happy.

Next we went upstairs, where under the guise of "checking out the pool," I had a surprise waiting. The ship we were on (Eurodam) has private "cabanas" poolside that can be rented by the week. They include lots of amenities as well as a shady, private, and secure space. I thought that this would be a nice way to have an outdoor space for the boys to lounge so that we weren't stuck in our room as much. I think I succeeded in surprising Jason- he must have been happy, because he immediately took a picture and emailed it to all of his friends :).

the cabana

The outfit matching the pillows was totally coincidental :)

We hung out in the cabana until well after sailaway and enjoyed our champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. Unfortunately, by this time it was too late for naps for the boys, so we ended up in the room, ordering room service for dinner. Somehow it got screwed up and we waited nearly two hours, so the first night was basically a wash. Oh well.

Sunday (sea day): Noah was still coughing, but was his usual happy self more or less, so I was happy about that. Honestly I don't remember too much of what we did this day. I think we hung out in the cabana, mostly.

sea day

they deliver ice cream to the cabanas

Unfortunately, we couldn't get the boys to nap in there, so we had to take a several hour time out in our room.

naptime

We did tag team that so that I got my gym time and Jason had some time to explore. The one particularly memorable thing that happened is that when Jason left the cabana to get some lunch, Nathan had to go pee. Of course, for some reason neither stroller was in the cabana, so I couldn't take him to one of the public restrooms (he needed to be lifted and I couldn't do that and hold Noah at the same time. So we rode the elevator nine flights down to our room with him holding himself, because he thinks that's what I mean when I tell him to "hold your peepee." We got a lot of comments in the elevator (none mean, just amused). That night, we went to the buffet and then explored the ship in search of live music.

buffet dinner

relaxing

raptly watching a string quartet

what cruise is complete without towel animals??

Monday (Grand Turk): All of the ports of call during this cruise were new to us, and we were not disappointed. We were greeted in the morning by an unbelievable turquoise sea, sparkling white beaches, clear blue sky, and a cool light breeze. This turned out to be a great port because you can just walk off the pier into an open air shopping plaza that leads right onto the beach. We secured a spot on the beach (they have free lounge chairs out there too) and hung out there for a while.

Jason says I look like a bag lady

classic Noah pose

As J was taking Nathan to the bathroom, he discovered "Margaritaville" just 100 yards or so from where we were. Margaritaville is kind of a resort area minus the hotel part- pool, chairs, shade, swim-up bar, music, etc. All free. So we stayed there for the rest of our time on the island.

We didn't want to keep Noah outside for too long, so we went back onboard for a late lunch/nap. I believe this is the first day we dropped Nathan off at the kids club,just to see if he would like it. He didn't like it. He LOVED it. They did art, went on pirate treasure hunts, ate snacks, and generally just goofed off. I think he might have enjoyed his time there more than his time on the ship with us, which is okay because honestly we needed a little break.

I had been concerned about how Nathan would respond to the lack of structure and our inability to deliver real consequences, and sure enough I was right. He just couldn't quite handle it all, which is totally understandable for a three year old. Even though he is smiling in all of the pictures, I can assure you that there were numerous tantrums and power struggles each day. We didn't eat in the dining room once because we couldn't get him to behave well enough to risk it. Luckily for us, the buffet was fantastic, so we never were underfed, but still, we'd have liked to go the dining room. We did in fact try to go on Grand Turk day, just with Noah after dropping Nathan off at the club. But the only table available was up two stairs in a back corner where we'd barely be able to squeeze the stroller. Neither of us felt comfortable risking a meltdown, so we left and went up to the buffet.

To be continued...

You are getting sleepy...

I decided to do a post on our new naptime routine in case there's anyone else out there reading this blog who might benefit. Over the past 9 months or so, naptime had been hit or miss with Nathan. On some days, he'd be out like a light, while on other days it was constant requests to get up to pee, poop, get a drink, snuggle, etc. It was quite maddening. Of course, with no nap he would be exhausted, wild, and basically unruly the rest of the day. Then I started using a timer (I have a "timer" sound on my phone and would just make it go off when I thought he'd rested long enough. This worked until he starting asking every 2 minutes if the timer was going to go off. Then we instituted no talking while resting, and it would go something like this:
Nathan: Mommy, I'm sleeping, see my eyes are closed?
Me: No, you are not sleeping, because you're talking.
N: No talking?
Me: That's right, no talking, just resting.
N: Oh. *pause 30 seconds*
N: Mommy?
Me: Yes?
N: I all done talking, okay? I not talk anymore.
Me: Sigh :)


THEN I had a wild idea to try some progressive relaxation and visualization in bed right at the beginning of naptime. Overnight, I reached a nap success rate of about 90%! I assumed the two were related (because correlation doesn't equal causation, people!), but yesterday when I picked him up from school, he told me something really interesting. I asked if he napped, because he often doesn't at school, and he told me "yes I did my squeezing and rainbow exercises and then I took my nap." Here is our routine for those who are interested in trying:


- Of course darken the room and have your kid lie down in their bed comfortably. I ask Nathan to close his eyes, but I don't force it if he opens them. Sometimes he even laughs, but it doesn't seem to affect the outcome.
- We start with a progressive relaxation where I have him tighten and release his muscle groups from bottom to top, ending with his face. He's supposed to squeeze "tight, tight, tight" and then release with an "ahhhhhh." 
- Next we imagine a beautiful rainbow. I tell him to imagine that he's reaching out to touch it (he usually actually does reach his arm out) and first I describe the red, yellow, and orange feeling warm and the warmth spreading through his body like the warm sunshine. Then we do cool colors and I tell him to imagine the feeling washing over him like the ocean.
- Lastly, I count backwards from 10 slowly and attempting to get him to take one deep breath in and out on each number. The last breath is supposed to be the biggest and deepest. 
- After that, he doesn't just magically drop off to sleep. He still usually asks for a hug, or where his stegosaurus is, etc. And he usually takes a little while after that to continue winding down, but he does usually fall asleep after a  while. If you're having trouble getting your kids to nap, I strongly encourage you to try this! It's about a five minute investment of your time, and worst case scenario, it doesn't work but maybe YOU feel a bit more relaxed :)

Noah @ 6 months

Noah had his 6 month checkup last week and everything looked great! He weighed in at 15 lbs. 14 oz., which is 25th (!!!) percentile for weight and 26 inches which is 50th percentile for height. His head circumference is 10th percentile :) He got his shots and in typical Noah fashion cried for exactly four seconds, then got on with his life. We had been doing well with sleep until two days ago when, like clockwork, he hit his 6 month growth spurt and started up with the nighttime fussiness and waking every two hours. Last time this lasted about a week, so I am hoping he will be past it by the time we leave for our cruise one week from today. I'm ESPECIALLY hoping (I hope this every time there's a growth spurt) that when he comes out on the other side of the growth spurt, he'll sleep through the night. Crossing my fingers on that one.

I've been feeding him lunch and dinner daily, and just today started with breakfast. I had been holding off on breakfast because it will be tough to manage giving him breakfast on Nathan's school days, but he was putting his fist in his mouth this morning (which is what he does when he's hungry for a "meal" as opposed to hungry for milk). He is actually a pretty picky eater, so I have not invested the time in making food for him. Also, lots of the organics I would want to make (peaches, squash, etc.) are not in season so I think it would probably be more expensive to make food at this point. 

Developmentally I think he's right on track. Nathan, in his typical type A way, did everything early so it's not fair to compare the two. Noah has not gotten up on his hands and knees, and can't go from lying down to sitting up on his own, but he can stay in a seated position for a little while. He has just this past week started to reach out into his world to engage with things. As a newborn, there was no interaction. Then from 4-6 months, he would interact with things only when they were put into his "bubble." Now, he seeks out things that he wants and actively goes after them. I had hoped that this would encourage him to crawl after things, but he seems to just get frustrated instead. Oh well, in time, right?

Here's a 6 month picture:

Happy 3rd birthday, Nathan

Dear Nathan,

Happy 3rd birthday! Another year has flown by and you have blossomed from a toddler into a little boy. How can I begin to describe you?

You are very sensitive and cry easily. That can make disciplining you difficult, since you are unreachable with reason when you begin to cry. Sometimes, you have epic crying jags that can last an hour or more if we can't somehow cajole you out of them. 

You are sentimental- you remember who gave you every single thing that you own (and when/why they gave it to you). This includes toys, food, clothing, you name it. You also want to know "who made this?" about everything. You ask who made your house, the car, the shopping cart at Publix, and even who made you. You ask many incisive and inquisitive questions. That, combined with eyes like a hawk and a memory like an elephant means that nothing gets by you. Ever.

You ask "what" and "huh" a whole lot. It drives daddy and me nuts. You hear what we say, but you don't pay attention a lot of the time. We hope you will grow out of this soon. 

You love your little brother dearly; I sure hope it stays that way! You are always singing to him, bringing him toys, or telling me something funny that Noah did. You delight in watching him smile and in making him laugh. You tell me all the time the things you plan to do with him ("when Noah gets bigger THEN he can play blocks with me"). 

Your imagination is unmatched, so you find joy in playing with just about any toy. You love school and music class and the zoo. School is new, you just started at the beginning of January, and I already can tell that you've learned a ton. You have been talking about continents and tell us all the time that you want to take an airplane to South America to see volcanoes.  Oh yeah, you love volcanoes and tornadoes. And Angry Birds. And dinosaurs.

You love books of all kinds, but especially the pop-up ones from Uncle Jesse and anything by Dr. Seuss. You can recite by heart The Very Hungry Caterpillar (you've known this one for a while) and almost all of Fox in Socks. 

We look forward to watching you grow and learn even more this year. Happy birthday, baby, we love you so very much.

the System

Since we have been having multiple defcon 4 nuclear meltdowns on a daily basis, we decided that it was time for a System. Yes, with a capital S. At first, I thought that I would buy a reward chart at the dollar store. Then, I started looking at printables. Finally, I realized that it would be easiest to just design my own and then laminate it using our handy-dandy home laminator. Yes, the one that Jason bought and I said we'd never use.

Basically, Nathan will start the day with 10 dinosaurs. If there's a problem, we will X out one of the dinosaurs. At the bottom, the rewards are shown. I decided to do it this way (lose dinosaurs rather than earn one) because he is still a little too young for the concept of "DON'T have a tantrum and you will GET something." Better to say "hold it together, or you will lose a dinosaur for today!"

Depending on how many dinos he ends up with, he can earn videos (watching a youtube video of crocodiles, volcanoes, whatever) and he can earn tokens, which we will probably have to use pirate money for. From there, it's a straightforward token economy system. Once a week, he will get to go shopping in our "store" for prizes. I like that it also teaches the value of money and saving vs. spending. Also, using the token system will allow us to throw in unexpected "bonus tokens" when he's having a really good day.

Somehow, in researching reward systems I ended up down the Pinterest rabbit hole and so also found and then made a few cool daily schedule placemats. I'm hoping that these reminders will keep both Nathan in some sense of structure and me on top of my mental "to-do" list for us for the day. I EVEN thought (yes, I know this is possibly a bit over the top) that I could eventually, once I start school, prewrite the placemats to make each day's routine ready to go in front of us. 

Lastly, I thought I would make one of these seemingly handy gadgets. 

So here's what I ended up with:

Reward Chart:

Placemats:

Prizes: 

A lot of these are things I'd already planned to give him, but was just saving for a rainy day. Is that wrong, do you think? A few, admittedly, are Christmas presents that I had saved because we were just on present overload. 

Report coming next week on whether this System works...

Noah says: just kidding!

He really didn't get the memo after all. The past two nights have been B-A-D. He has been waking up at least every three hours and refuses to go back to sleep unless I feed him. I tried feeding him just a little bit in case it was just out of habit, but then he wakes up just 30-45 minutes later to eat again. I really am at a loss now. I'm exhausted.

Yesterday was one of those days where I would have been happy for school to start immediately. Noah was fine (he always is, during the daytime), but the lingering effects of sleeplessness don't help my patience level with Nathan. Yesterday was just a whole collection of things. He woke up at 6:30 (he knows he's not allowed up until 7) and came into our bed; Jason told him he could stay if he was quiet. He wasn't quiet, but didn't want to go back to his own bed. Then he wanted a toy, I told him okay but pick a quiet one, so what did he choose? His "clacker" and his riding motorcycle. Really?? Up next is his maddening habit of saying "huh," "what," or "what'd you say" to EVERYTHING. It's so frustrating because I know he hears us, he just isn't listening. But if I refuse to repeat what I just said, he just looks at me blankly. If I tell him it's not funny, he says "I'm a clownfish!" Sigh. Then there were the multiple nuclear meltdowns over absolutely nothing that prevented us from doing pretty much anything constructive (I did, as I mentioned on Facebook, manage to vacuum the floors to a spotless condition). After 90 minutes of fighting him on naptime, he FINALLY went to sleep, right before Jason got home.

Despite all this, I really tried to close my eyes, breathe deeply, and be thankful for the time at home with the boys.

Here's to a better day today.

he got the memo

Noah apparently got the memo, because last night he at at 10 and then held out till 4 and 7 a.m. (I had to give him his paci at 2 and 3, but not feed him). I feel fantastic and well-rested today, and am holding out hope that somehow my rant and putting my feelings out there caused a shift in the universe and now Noah will sleep through the night!

My kid eats like clockwork

Which would be great, and actually pretty convenient, if "clockwork" didn't mean every 3 hours at night. ARGH. Of course, before having a newborn again, I knew there would be some rough times ahead. I knew there would be several months of getting up every few hours. And I was okay with it. When Noah arrived, it turned out that he slept great for a newborn, up to 5 hours at a stretch sometimes. No more.

Most of the time, he is up at 12, 3, and 6, or some variation on that theme. We have tried several different things:
- "dreamfeed" him at 11 p.m. to try to catch a 5-6 hour stretch, doesn't work
- formula feed for last feed of night, doesn't work
- cry it out when we wakes up, doesn't work (more like I can't take it after 10 minutes or so, so I feed him)

Today, I started working on better sleep hygiene in general, and also started keeping track of naps and meals. By sleep hygiene, I mean that he took all of his naps in his crib rather than the swing, and I put him down awake but tired. The average for today (daytime) was 2.5 hrs between feeds and 2 hrs between naps. WTH, I have a 5 month old, not a newborn! Every 2.5 hrs during the day and every 3 at night, no wonder I'm exhausted! So, as you can you tell, I'm a little frustrated and out of ideas. I'm not asking for him to sleep 12 hours straight, just maybe a 5 or 6 hour stretch. On the *few* nights that he's only gotten up at 4 a.m., I feel fabulous the next day. My ultimate goal is to have him sleeping through the night before school starts in May, but I REALLY would love to see some progress by then.

OK, /end rant.

January update

Well, we might just be a tad overdue for a post, do you think?

With the holidays behind us, things are finally starting to settle down. Here's a rundown of what's been going on:

Christmas/Hanukkah- lots of family time, lots and lots of presents, lots of reading the Grinch book. The holiday season culminated in the great meltdown of 2011, in which Nathan became hysterical because santa brought him a new couch and put his old one away. Go figure.

Noah- we have just in the past week started giving him solids (cereal and sweet potato) and, drumroll, he FINALLY rolled over, 1 day before his 5 month birthday. He's starting to be able to sit up on his own for a few seconds unassisted, and has taken to trying to sit up in his swing, which may mean his swinging days are numbered. No, he's not sleeping through the night. Boo. He sometimes sleeps until 4 a.m., which is tolerable, but most nights he's up at 1 a.m. and again at 4 a.m.

Nathan's school- Nathan just finished his second week of school and is loving it. He does lots of "lessons" which include puzzles, artwork, and more. Unfortunately he has a bully in his class, I am waiting to see if things improve before interfering. Also, Nathan tends to be oversensitive and I don't want to encourage that by being hyper-responsive. 

As for me, I'm somehow 1 pound away from my pre-pregnancy weight, despite many holiday transgressions. I managed to fit into most of my old jeans just in time for the recent cold weather. I don't know how either of these things are possible, since my body doesn't look ANYTHING like it did before. Lots of work still to be done, hopefully with time there will be improvement. No, you don't get a picture for this paragraph :)

That's about it, I'm counting the days to our cruise (41!!!) and hoping that Nathan naps just a little bit longer today so that I can relax for a minute :)