Sleep...How I Miss Thee

Baby Boy's sleep is bad.  I don't even know how to explain it besides to say that it's really, really bad.

Last night, for instance, looked like this:

6:50: Nurse in his bedroom
7:05: I start walking, singing, shh-ing, bouncing, and swaying
7:20: He falls asleep.  This is a good bedtime.
7:45: He wakes up screaming.  I go to him and am able to get him back to sleep in about 5 minutes.
9:30: I go to bed.
9:35: Baby is awake.  The Hubby goes to him and tries to get him to go back to sleep, but he just turns and points to the door, which he knows leads him out of his bedroom and to ours.
9:40: I nurse Baby Boy.
9:42: He's asleep.  The Hubby and I watch him sleep laying in our bed.  He's restless.
9:50: The Hubby takes the baby back to his room and we both fall asleep.

The rest of the night was a blur, as they typically are.  I'm so exhausted that I don't know what time we're waking or what's happening.  I do know, however, that we were up at least four more times and that Baby Boy stayed in our bed for quite a bit of the night.

I honestly don't know what to do with him.  He won't stay laying in his bed for us to pat/shh him.  He screams loudly enough to wake his sister.  I'm NOT comfortable with letting him cry. We did it once and when he woke up 45 minutes later, he screamed like I'd never heard him scream, terrified.

I'm not necessarily looking for solutions--just to document this part of our life.  If not for sleep troubles, Baby Boy is a sweet, happy little man.  The problem is, during those same waking hours, his father am I are a mess.  We're short-tempered, drowsy, and can't focus on anything.  We have another child to care for and I'm starting to realize that we aren't being the best parents we can be for either of our children.  Once Baby Boy is one, I'll feel a little more ready to start being more forceful with night weaning.  I will be okay if he still wakes once (or even twice!) per night to eat, but four to five times per night is really getting old.  Until then, we roll with it...

Thank You, God

Every night The Hubby, Baby Girl, and I say a prayer before Baby Girl goes to bed.  It's pretty informal and we all trade off thanking God for things or asking for help or we even ask God for forgiveness.  Baby Girl typically says that she can't think of anything, which leads to a bit of a lecture from us about how important it is to be grateful for the things that make us happy.  We make her come up with at least one thing to thank God for and after much prodding from us, she'll say something (usually something that we've prompted her with, like, "Did it make you happy to make cookies with mommy today?").  I'm hoping someday this will all click and she will start to come up with things on her own.

This morning I realized that the things we've been saying have actually sunken in, at least a little.

We were in the car on the way to the sitter in driving, freezing rain.  I was having a hard time seeing and the car was fairly quiet.  Baby Girl had been complaining that she couldn't see out her window because it was foggy, when she realized that she could just rub the window with her hand and be able to see out of it.  She enjoyed doing that each time it would fog up.

A few minutes later, I heard her little voice: "Thank you God, for making it rain today so that I can wipe off the fog."

Such a sweet, little thing for her to say thank you for, but I love that she felt driven to say something right then, without any prompting from us.

Update on Baby Girl

Baby Girl is back at the sitter today.  I'm not exhaling yet because I have no idea what sort of incubation period we're looking at, so I don't know that it won't hit the rest of our family.  But at least she's back to (almost) normal.  She was acting out a bit yesterday, so we're going to get back to being more strict with her once she's feeling better.

Man, that was scary.  She just kept vomiting everything she took in.  I'm really lucky that she was such a trooper.  She was pretty happy for most of the time and she was such a big girl, doing most of her getting sick in the actual toilet.  I know she was tired of getting sick by the last day of it, but I can't say that I blame her.

Words can't express how happy I am that she's feeling better.  What an awful, yucky sickness.

And now I resume crossing my fingers that The Hubby, Baby Boy, and I don't get it.  If we don't, then this weekend will be consumed with a DEEP cleaning of our house.  I've already gone through and done a lot of cleaning and The Hubby has done A LOT of laundry, but I'm going to throw all linens, towels, and blankets into the washing machine, wipe down everything, clean all dishes and silverware that are sitting around....our house will be cleaner by Sunday than it has been in the 3.5 years since Baby Girl was born!

And it starts...

All winter long I've been reading on Facebook, message boards, and email about friends and their kids who have been stricken by stomach bugs.  Most of the kids at the sitter have gone down with a stomach bug of some kind.  I've said prayers.  I've been anxious, which is a major understatement.  I've gotten nauseous myself.  And we've made it most of the winter.

Baby Boy had a small stomach bug on Christmas Day--he got sick a few times within a couple of hours and then that was it.  He also had a bug almost 3 weeks ago--again, he got sick some overnight, but was fine the next day.  He continued with some diarrhea, but I think (thought?) that it was caused by the antibiotic he was on for his double ear infection.  It really wasn't a huge deal with him...in hindsight, of course.  In the moment, it felt like the end of the world.

(If you don't want a play-by-play of sickness, just skip the rest of this post.  I would if I weren't the one writing it because just reading posts by other people about stomach bugs makes me anxious and feel like I'm going to catch it via the interwebs.  You've been warned.)

However.  Now Baby Girl is sick.  She woke up vomiting overnight Friday night and came into our room.  The Hubby took her to the living room where they hung out and she threw up the rest of the night.  She tried eating some applesauce and it came right back up, which was the last time she got sick on Saturday morning at 8 a.m.  She was low-energy for the rest of the day while I entertained Baby Boy in the basement and running errands, then she ate some macaroni and cheese for dinner Saturday night and seemed to feel better....at which time, The Hubby noticed that she had a fever.

Her temperature stayed around 102 for the rest of Sunday, but besides a two-and-a-half hour nap on the couch 10:30-1, she acted relatively normally.  We went outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather for a couple of hours and you'd never know she was running a fever.  Her temp was down to a little over 100 by bedtime that night and she'd eaten a good dinner, so we figured she'd be feeling good this morning (Monday).

Baby Girl woke up feeling good.  She had no fever and ate two bowls of cereal.  Everything seemed normal until naptime.

I was downstairs enjoying a little bit of alone time.  I'd gotten Baby Boy to sleep and Baby Girl was laying quietly in her bed.  The fact that she didn't fall asleep seemed like a good sign to me.  Then I heard her pitter patter to the bathroom and heard her ask me to come wipe her tushy.  I knew immediately that she had diarrhea.  As soon as I got her back to bed, her brother woke up.  She was back in the bathroom a few minutes later, at which time I told her to just get on up.  She still seemed fine.  She and her brother played with their train table and some other toys for awhile.  She kept coughing and running to the bathroom, thinking that she was going to "spit up", but nothing happened.

And then it did happen.  She got sick again.  I called The Hubby and asked him to come home from work.  After she got sick, she wanted a hard-boiled egg, which only Daddy can make, so he cooked her one when he got home.  She seemed to be feeling fine.  However, about five minutes after eating the egg, it came right back up.  And again.

So now we wait.  We wait to see who else will get it and when.  We wait to see how long it takes Baby Girl to recover.  We wait to see how long this goes on.  We wait to see whether we can keep the baby healthy.  We wait....

My Favorite Time of Night

Every evening after dinner, we enter my favorite time of night.  The Hubby gets Baby Boy into his jammies and the four of us snuggle up on the couch together with only a couple of lamps lit.  We read a couple of books, then Baby Boy gives his daddy and sister hugs.  I pick him up and he immediately starts to wave at The Hubby and Baby Girl.  We walk to the bottom of the steps and turn around to look at them and blow them kisses.  Baby Boy currently just makes kissy faces and doesn't do the hand part, but it's still adorable.  Then he starts to wave some more and he and I head upstairs to my dark bedroom.  I sit in my bed, holding him, and he nurses in the dark.  This all started because he was so distracted when nursing downstairs with the TV on (my chosen nursing location for Baby Girl) and I was anxious about sitting in silence, with no TV, no electronics, nothing but my baby and my thoughts.

Instead, it's turned into my favorite part of the night.  I spend that time talking to God and memorizing the feeling of having my baby in my arms.  I know from experience that our nursing relationship will end all too soon and I'll miss it.  So for now I'm going to take the time to really enjoy it, to think about it and nothing else.

10 Month Update

I'm suffering from a MAJOR case of the winter-time blah.  I can't get motivated to do much of anything, but know I'll kick myself someday when I look back on this blog and don't have an update on Baby Boy's 10th month, especially because it seems like SO MUCH has happened!

It's amazing that in ten months he can go from this little snuggly blob to a cruising, stepping, waving, babbling, growling little boy with opinions all his own.

Teeth: Over a month after cutting his fifth tooth, tooth number six appeared 2/24.  And just days later (2/27), so did tooth number seven, the bottom left (2nd one over).  The kid is determined to be lopsided!

Mobility: Baby Boy is everywhere and into everything.  He's pulling up and cruising on anything that he can.  On February 20th, he took a single step after standing all by himself for awhile.  And then he promptly dropped to his knees and crawled the rest of the way.  He'll walk quickly while holding fingers, stands by himself, and on March 3rd stood up in the middle of the room without pushing up on something.  So we've got all of the pieces in place--we'll see how long it takes him to actually walk.  He *can* climb stairs, but we don't let him yet!

Clothes: Baby Boy is still pretty solidly in size 6-9/9 month clothes.  He has one pair of jammies that is size 6 months, but there are also plenty of 6-9/9 month clothes that are getting too small.  I'd guess we'll move up a size in the next month.

Communication: Baby Boy knows the signs for "more" and "all done".  He uses "more" to signal that he wants something to eat and has started to sign it while he's still eating.  He also signs "more" while he's nursing now, too, which is sort of hilarious.  He only signs "all done" when we say it.  Sometimes I think he's trying to tell us that he's done, but then he'll quickly sign more again and eat more.  And sometimes we think he's waving when he's signing or vice versa.

He is also using quite a few consonants now--g, b, and m are his most common.  He says "mom mom mom" both while pointing at me (also a new development) but also when he's getting into his high chair, as if he's saying "more" or "yum".  He also says something that sounds sort of like "all done"--it has two syllables, at least :)

Nutrition: We are still nursing here, day and night.  I don't think he would notice too much if I stopped offering during the day, but I'll keep offering until he's a year old, then we'll take it from there.  He does still NEED IT SO BAD overnight, though.  Last night, The Hubby went to Baby Boy when he woke up at 9:30 and Baby Boy put his head down on The Hubby's shoulder, then sat up straight and pointed at the door.  He knew where to go to get the good stuff, apparently.  My pumping production has decreased quite a bit and I'm struggling to keep up with him, but his demand has reduced markedly also and is easily appeased by solids.

Speaking of solids, Baby Boy is a pretty big fan of eating.  He growls and makes all sort of crazy noises when you put him in his high chair and don't have food for him RIGHT NOW.  When I'm cooking, he'll crawl into the kitchen and start smacking his lips at me.  He LOVED having hot dogs and likes it whenever he gets food off of someone else's plate.  He love carbs (pancakes, especially), avocados, pasta, and some veggies.  He'll eat any fruit you give him, so far.

Sleep: I'm honestly fairly embarrassed to even post about his sleep.  At over 10 months old, my baby is still waking about 4 times per night.  I'm exhausted.  He wants to eat almost every time he wakes up if it's been at least two hours since he last ate.  I'd thought that we'd figured out that he was going to bed too late and that was why he was waking.  We started eating super-quick meals, crock pot meals, doing anything we could to get him to bed earlier.  And he's still waking up.  It isn't the 4-8 times per night that it was, but it's still not good.  The Hubby, Baby Boy, and I are all exhausted and running on fumes every single day.  Happily, Baby Boy is still pleasant and happy almost all the time, even being short on sleep.  He sleeps best in our bed, so there are nights when I nurse him to sleep and he just stays in our bed for a few hours.  Unfortunately, The Hubby and I are then incredibly sore the following day after laying in one position all night, trying our hardest not to roll over on the baby.

Likes: Avocado, screaming, his sister, throwing things, pushing buttons, being on the go, putting things into other things, playing Godzilla and knocking down block towers, anything his sister is doing, trying to throw himself down the stairs, unrolling toilet paper, getting mommy's cookbooks, opening cabinets and playing with the contents, baths in the sink, playing in close proximity to the other daycare kids, music, peek-a-boo, looking at books

Dislikes: Staying asleep, baby gates, being confined, having to wait (especially for food), laying still for diaper changes, getting buckled into his car seat
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Baby Boy--

For ten months, you've been providing me with happiness that I didn't know possible.  You may not sleep, but you honestly make up for it by being so happy all of the time.  The smile you give me when your daddy brings you into my bedroom makes my annoyance over being awake AGAIN dissolve.

Your favorite person in the world is your sister.  Everything she does fascinates you.  You two play together incredibly well.  She can be a little rough, but I think you like it.  It is awfully hard to scold her for being so rough with you when you're belly laughing at her.

Some days it feels like you were just born, but more days it seems like you've been a part of our family forever.  Your sister doesn't remember life without you.  I had fears of not being able to love you as much as I love your sister, but my heart has grown like The Grinch's to give me the ability to love you both an incredible amount.

I love you, my beautiful little man.
Mommy