Good try...

Every month since she was born, I've taken a picture of Audrey laying on her yellow and grey blanket with a piece of paper next to here stating her age and any new achievements. 

Yesterday, AJ turned 7 months old and I failed to get a good picture. Here are my attempts: 

Bulletin Boards

Now that I think about it, I think I've discovered the reason that I wanted to be a teacher. 

I remember that beautiful cart full of brightly colored rolls of paper sitting in the hallway as we walked in our line, keeping our hands to ourselves, but just wanting to reach out and pull on the end of one of those rolls until the paper ran out. Not that it would ever actually run out. Those rolls were just so enticing as a kid. Who wouldn't want to be a teacher if you got to use that!

Now I've realized that maybe I should just be a bulletin board maker instead. I'm not sure I'll be good at putting creative ideas up, but boy can I hang paper. 

What's the opposite of disappointment?

Today, John wore underwear all day (except for nap time) and he didn't wet himself once!

We got up, took off his diaper, went pee, and put on some undies. 

We ate breakfast, played, got dressed, got ready for a walk, and went pee again.

We walked/rode in the stroller, saw tractors working on the road, ate a picnic lunch at the park, watched a dog retrieve a fake goose from the lake, walked to the library, and went pee again (on the big potty at the library)!

We played in the library, read some books, walked around in the shallow part of the lake, fed crackers to ducks, saw a fire-truck, walked home, and went pee on the big toilet at our house. 

We took a nap (and John wore a pull-up during naptime). We put undies back on, built a train track, cleaned up our puzzles, made dinner, ate dinner, cleaned up dinner, and went pee one more time!

Then, we took a bath, put on a diaper, skyped with Grandma, and went to bed. 

In the world of potty training, today was the opposite of a disappointment. 

Oh... we also got to eat two Jelly Beans every time we peed in the potty today.

Sleep Training

Sleep training is a horrible idea. A hormonal, over-exausted woman should not have to listen to her child screaming the dejected and confused cries of a child without the comfort that only his mother can provide. 

However, for this over-exhausted, hormonal mama, sleep training has also been a life-saver. That might be an exaggeration - at minimum, it's been a sanity saver.  

With both kids, I start off by co-sleeping. This baby has been living inside of me for over nine months; nobody who wants to remain in my good graces should try to take her away from me. I will lie next to her and nurse her. I will let him sleep on my chest all night. I will cuddle her. I will hold him. I will comfort him in any way necessary. I am her provider, comforter, life-support, and home. He knows nothing but me and needs nothing but me. I will monitor his temperature, regulate his heart beat, and observe his breathing just by holding him against me. I will relieve her fears, calm her anxiety, and subside any lack of comfort by rocking her, singing to her, and reminding her that I am here for anything that she needs. After living in the comfort of the womb for all of his existence and then being pushed, pulled, and squeezed into this cold world, my baby needs to know that I am still there for him. There's no way that I am going to make my newborn put herself to sleep all alone. These feeling last about as long as the fourth trimester. 

Around the time that my baby turns three or four months old, I am ready to share my bed with just my husband again. We start putting the baby to sleep in the crib. I still am not ready to let her cry though, so I nurse or rock her to sleep. Sleep is such a wonderful thing, it shouldn't be scary. I want my kids to enjoy sleeping in, lounging in their beds, or relaxing by themselves, not dreading when I lay them down in their cribs. When he wakes up, fusses, and cries, I respond quickly. Occasionally I rock my boy back to sleep after his late night awakenings, but usually, I lay on the twin-sized mattress on the floor in his room and nurse him. We both fall asleep there and I get to sleep with my girl for a few hours each night until her suckling wakes me up and I sneak back to my own bed. 

Soon, he learns that when he cries at night, I come. She now knows that I love her, protect her, and provide for her needs. However, at this point, he no longer needs to nurse at night. When a noise, movement, or light wakes her up at night, she still needs comfort, but she doesn't need to eat anymore. Nursing him is the easiest way to calm him and get him back to sleep though, so I usually still do. There comes a point, however, where my baby needs to learn to put himself back to sleep. For my kids, this point comes when they are about 6 months old. AJ has been waking up every two hours. She doesn't go to sleep until about midnight and then she nurses at 2, 4, and 6 am. It is now incredibly clear that she does not need to eat that often, but is simply searching for comfort. Now is the time where my job gets hard. I have to let her learn to comfort herself. 

We start a day after she turns six months old. The first night is the worst. I nurse her to sleep and lay her down. Like clockwork, she wakes up at midnight, two hours later, crying for comfort. I go in her room, pick her up, and rock her for one minute. No nursing. Then I lay her back down, tell her I love her, and leave the room. She cries. Sad, dejected, tear-jerking sobs pour out of my baby girl for the next three minutes. I sit and listen, crying myself and fighting my maternal instinct to rush in and whip out my comfort machines. Those first three minutes seem like three hours. The seconds tick by on the clock. She cries for one hundred and eighty seconds. Finally, the timer I set buzzes, and I rush back in, pick her up, and hold my baby girl close to my heart, just like I did when she was a newborn. With forced confidence I whisper quiet shushes in her ear as I hold her near me and sway back-and-forth, up-and-down. Her sobs slow down. Her breathing steadies. She is calm. With continued comfort noises, I lay her back down, remind her that I love her, and quietly leave the room. This time, she screams. After five minutes of waiting, I repeat the process. The third time I have to wait for seven minutes. I'm not sure that I can do it, but about a minute in, her crying slows down. She is comforting herself! She does not put herself to sleep yet, but she calms herself down. There is no more screaming, but she is still whimpering. I go back in after seven minutes and pick her up again. This time, she relaxes immediately. When I tell her I love her and leave the room, she rests her head down, puts her hand to her mouth, and barely fusses as I leave the room. I set my timer for ten minutes this time and lay down with the baby monitor next to me. I wake up to my timer buzzing, but no noises from the monitor. I peek in at my baby girl. She is sound asleep. I go back to bed and fall asleep, expecting to have to repeat the whole process in another two hours, but not sure if I will be able to. It's 12:30.

I wake up suddenly and listen. There is complete silence. What woke me up? I roll over to check the time and feel shooting pain in my chest. That must be what woke me up. It is 6:30am, and I haven't nursed her since about 10:00pm. This is the longest I have ever gone without nursing AJ and I feel like I am about to explode. My shirt is soaked. I lay in bed, not sure what to do, and soon hear AJ fussing over the monitor. She might put herself back to sleep if I leave her, but I am so ready to nurse her. I pick up my baby and she smiles a huge tired smile, realizes I'm ready to feed her, and latches on immediately. Her little body is completely relaxed in my arms and her eyes droop closed again as she sucks. I sit down and lean against the wall. Soon I jerk awake and realize AJ is completely asleep again, so I lay her back into her crib, She didn't empty the other side, so I pump a few ounces to relieve the pressure before going back to bed myself. Night one of sleep training was successful.  (Note: here are the increments of crying 3+5+7+a few during the 10 minute stretch = 15 to 20 minutes of crying with comfort sessions in between. 15 minutes of crying and 8 hours of sleep. That's about the same amount of crying that would occur if she had woken up every 2 hours to nurse like she had been doing).

On night two of sleep training, AJ falls asleep during the 7 minute stretch, only about 10 minutes of crying total. On night three, she doesn't wake up crying at all. I nurse her and laid her down around 8pm. She doesn't wake up until 6am. 

We started sleep training on July 27. It is now August 14. Since then, AJ has slept at least 6 hours every night and closer to 10 hours on most nights. Two evenings of misery for me and now my baby knows how to sleep. I think she enjoys it. Some say sleep training teaches your child not to trust you. I can see the validity in that. However, I think that sleep training (as long as it's not done to early) teaches a kid to trust herself enough to calm herself and trains a kid to sleep. For me, it's worth the tradeoff. Now, sleep training doesn't eliminate all problems. We're still going to have rough nights. I still nurse her to sleep most evenings. When she learns a new skill, grows a new tooth, or hits a growth spurt, I'm sure she'll be up in the middle of the night. But for now, I get to share my evenings with my husband with no kids around. Ahh...

John is two anad a half. I don't remember the exact details of his sleep training, but they were similar to AJs. Now, he goes to bed great. He sleeps from 8pm until 9 or 10am. He knows what to expect and he knows it's not a scary place. When he wakes up in the mornings, he sometimes sings to himself, plays with his stuffed animals, or puts his feet up on the wall and practices saying all of his new words. We just finished the first week of John sleeping in his toddler bed with no side instead of the enclosed crib. This is another transition, but he's doing great with it. He has been getting up around 8am, which is a bit earlier, but will go lay back down in his bed as long as his door is open and he knows no one else is up. I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure that when John was a baby, he learned how to sleep by sleeping with us. When he was half a year old, he took that knowledge and learned how to sleep by himself. Now he is learning again. 

Sleep training sucks, but I'm sure glad I did it. 

Problems

The kids were happily playing downstairs, so I put some pillows by the base of the steps to keep Audrey away and went up to clean the kitchen. 

About five minutes later, John came up and saying "Audee kiming. Audee come up stairs." 

Sure enough, this is what I saw when I looked down. 

Folks, we've got problems. 

Triple Berry Pancakes!

Yum.

Why I don't Blog...

I'm a perfectionist. I have a major in English, minor in communications, and am a certified teacher in the state of Michigan. Because of this, I often start a blog post or run an idea through my head, but never see it through to fruition because - well - it's not perfect. I get distracted by kids, needs, responsibilities, etc. and never return to my potentially perfect post. 

Recently, I decided to screw it and just write down my thoughts. No pre-formed thoughts, no proofreading, just typing. I think it is good for me to get my thoughts out and figured this was the only way that I would actually get some blog posts written. 

I did a trial run. 3 sentences. That's it. No re-reading, no editting, no perfection. And what do you know? I misspelled the title. Of course, I'm surrounded by other perfectionists. I'm not the only one who thinks it's fun to point out grammatical errors on professional publications - I come from a family of others like me. My mistake did not go unnoticed 

So here's the thing: even though I may be a disappointment (yes, the kind with one ess and two pees) to the other English majors in my family, I'm not going to stop. I am going to continue to write down my thoughts, share my pictures, tell my stories, and make grammatical errors. Why? Because it's good for me. It is my outlet, my relaxation, my baby book, and more. 

They say "practice makes perfect" which implies that perfection is not attained until the practice has ceased. I think I'll just keep practicing. Get those red pens ready ladies!

Dissapointment

Today, John wore underwear all day. 

He went pee three times. 

He only peed in the toilet once.