Tuesday, July 3, 2012

nap time

It's the time of the day again - nap time.  I love nap time. 

Little Lando is seriously the best baby I could have ever asked for.  He's making the top of my list today because it wasn't really even nap time for him but I put K in her room for a nap and sat him down on my lap while I went over bills with him at the desk.  Soon I realized that he was pretty limp and he had fallen asleep.  So K fell asleep quickly, luckily, so I got to put L down too and get things done so much quicker!  He's seriously amazing.

He also sat in the stroller like a big kid today - no car seat!  It was awesome.  I wanted all my neighbors to see but unfortunately, only one neighbor was outside that I could show him off to.  We walked over to Harmon's since we left the house so late today for a walk and Lando just sat like a big kid, looking at whatever he can see, and sat really contently.  On the way home he fell asleep even. 

K has been great this morning too.  I seriously could not get myself to wake up this morning.  She finally came over to me and said, "Mama?  Pray.  Pray."  I opened my eyes just enough to look at her and she was smiling, nodding her head, and folding her arms.  So I rolled off the bed, knelt down next to her, and she immediately said a prayer.  Once she was done, I stayed there and fell back asleep but for only a minute because she ended up coming back to me and handed me my glasses.  It's my cue that I can't lay there any longer and that I need to get up.  So I did.

She ended up vacuuming for about 15-20 minutes with her new vacuum she got from her grandparents, and then she swept for a while.  When she was done with our kitchen, she said, "Gramma.  Sweep?"  So she got to go upstairs and ask if she needed any sweeping done.  She did.  So she finished and went back downstairs to continue to sweep.

She loves helping with diaper changes, especially anyone else's but her own, and she's fantastic.  I sure do love that little girl!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

baby monitor

We never bought a baby monitor for Katie. It just wasn't worth it to me when she was basically in our room and although her bedroom was at one side of the house/apartment, we could hear her very well on the other side since there was only a hallway separating us ... her room was at the end of the hallway and the hallway began in the kitchen and had an opening into the living room. It was a very open floor plan.

Anyway, now with K and L in the same room, I've been pretty nervous about how much K likes to "take care" of L and have been extremely worried about how "helpful" she may be. Also, I've been trying really hard with L to make sure I get him up and feed him way before he cries so he doesn't learn that awful behavior. I accidentally taught K to cry before eating and goodness, she still cries before eating. Okay, she doesn't really cry usually. She just gets grumpy ... just like me!

So we ordered a monitor off of Amazon and it arrived a couple of days later, yesterday. Last night was the first night we put L in his crib in the room with K and it went pretty well. It wasn't a miracle worker by any means, but I slept a million times better when I actually was asleep. I wasn't constantly being partially awakened by grunting and snorting ... other than from Mike. So it was a good night.

Right now, I'm just biding my time in the kitchen with the monitor as I await to see if K can fall asleep in the room with L in his crib. L has been out for about 30 minutes now but K is struggling. But I don't think it has anything to do with L being in the room as much as she just hates taking naps some days.

Plus this is great because now I can finally go outside during nap time or even just with K and still hear what is going on inside. The last time we had family here, we watched a movie upstairs and every 10-15 minutes, I had to run down the stairs to see if L was awake yet. The best part about that story is that I did that for about an hour and a half and was so exhausted that I ended up falling asleep on my bed. L didn't end up waking for probably an hour later, or so.

So far, I'm loving having a monitor. In fact, all night when I was awake and this morning I've been wondering why I didn't get one sooner. Not only can I hear baby L when he's awake, but I also get all the latest and greatest hits from Katie while she's refusing to go to sleep.

Ah. I love her singing.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

another lazy day

K woke up grumpy and L has been grumpy when he's not asleep so I decided to take this day as a lazy day.  While they're both sleeping, instead of doing the dishes and prepping lunch like I should be, I've decided to take some time for myself - a long, relaxing shower, some television time, and some blogging.

I think I really lucked out with having good kids.  I went to the doctor's for the first time with just them and no Mike and everything went fine even though I was pretty nervous.  But in general, grocery store trips are always fine to go to with me and just the kiddos so I don't know why I was so worried.  

The kids will be waking up at any moment now so my alone time is coming to an end.  I hope 6 pm comes soon!

Friday, June 1, 2012

full-time mom

It's just been one of those days ... you know the type. Where nothing really goes wrong but to you, everything is wrong. And that's how I feel today.

I don't feel like I slept last night. I can't remember what time I went to bed but it was before Mike. Lately he's usually up after me anyway. But I woke up at 1:45 am (funny how I can't remember when I went to bed but I remember seeing the clock at 1:45) to feed little Lando. I woke up again around 5:30 am. I don't know if it was the articles I read about what it's like to be in a polygamist family or the articles about the one guy who ate a homeless man's face and the articles about the guy who ate some person's brain and heart that caused me not to sleep well or what, but I woke up feeling dead.

The day went on - K woke up saying "mama," we ate breakfast, K had a play group, I made lunch for K, K and L both took naps, I made lunch and ate it, I showered, we ran a couple of errands, I did some light cleaning, I read with K, I made dinner, K and I ate dinner, K took a bath, and K went to bed. And every three hours I fed L. See? Not a bad day, right?

Unfortunately I spent most of the day feeling sorry for myself and the last few hours, have kept back as many tears as possible. This is what my day is now. Any free time I have from the kids goes to making food, cleaning, and a quick shower. If I'm lucky, I can do my hair before a kiddo is crying again. My only "fun time" to surf the web is when I'm feeding L or when they're both asleep and I should be sleeping too.

And I'm so jealous of Mike. He works 20 hours a week and has the rest of the week to do whatever floats his boat. Today? All film stuff. He played with his new audio toy, he did research on whatever film stuff he was looking at, he got together with a friend and made part of a movie ... I made him food and kept him company on his errand.

See? Doesn't his life sound so much more relaxing than mine? Jealous.

And with that, I'm going to bed before I have to wake up for another feeding.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

1 month

Baby L is definitely proving to be different than K in so many ways. One difference is definitely their eating habits and how my body has reacted.

With K, my milk came in at about 5 days, whereas with L, it was coming in while I was still at the hospital! The first night home was miserable as my milk officially made its appearance but I was glad for L - it would help him get over his baby jaundice ... if that was what he had. Unfortunately it was breast milk jaundice so it was actually making his jaundice worse. A bit ironic, if you ask me.

L has been gaining weight like crazy (compared to K, at least). I can tell because my arms get sore and tired while I feed him. He's no light 7 pounder anymore. In fact, when I weighed him last on the scales with me, he was over 9 pounds! K was 9 pounds 15 ounces at 2 months - I think L will surpass that for sure. He definitely likes to eat.

I've really been pushing what the Baby Wise book suggests - sleep, eat, awake, repeat. It worked wonders for K - she slept about 7-8 hours at 5 1/2 weeks. I liked that. And I would love to sleep more than 2 1/2 hours at a time real soon but I'm not sure if that will happen with L. Even in the Baby Wise book, it says that boys are a little slower to comply to the Baby Wise method and start sleeping through the night.

So I google searched it a couple of nights ago and what I found was astounding! I was a little worried that L was being a little slow about increasing his time between feedings at night with only one stretch of 4 hours at 3 weeks. But apparently, there are a lot of parents out there who are still feeding their kids in the middle of the night at 6 months, 9 months ... there was even a lady who said that her 17-month old wakes up in the middle of the night for a bottle of milk. Are you kidding me? If I was still getting up with K to make sure she ate/drank in the middle of the night, I would for sure be feeling insane from the lack of continuous sleep I'd be getting! In fact, at 6 months and still giving the baby 1 or 2 feedings in the middle of the night would do me in for sure. I'd probably never have another baby again. My sleep is too important to my normal functioning.

And it should be to other mothers out there too. But let me give you a hint - if you are a mom and you are waking up your baby in the middle of the night to feed him and they are over 6 months, I can guarantee you that your baby can sleep through the night if you train him to. A lot of parents (that I read about) thought that it was cruel that mothers wouldn't feed their children in the middle of the night at 2 months, 3 months, 9 months, etc. but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that K was just fine at these ages without middle of the night feedings. If she wasn't, she would have woken up to let me know. Babies can do it. Sure, they're small, but they need their sleep too.

So I tried to tank him up during the day. I've heard that giving an extra feeding during the day can help so they don't eat as much at night. Well, I only tried it once and it didn't work at all.

Last night, however, he went 4 hours and 3 1/2 hours between feedings which was awesome!

I'm no longer trying to shoot for 7-8 hours of straight sleep at 5 1/2 weeks but if it does happen to work out that way, I won't be disappointed.