The 4th Trimester

I was over at a friend's house this afternoon making lactation cookies, when I realized that I have blogged very little about Izzy's first few months (aka the 4th trimester). Technically she has another month left of this, my least favorite trimester, but if I wait to blog when it's over I'll: 1. likely forget to blog entirely or 2. forget something.

It's still likely I'll forget something, but here goes.

If you Google the 4th trimester, you get a lot of websites and advise on how to survive this period of time. Most of the time these articles end with something like "don't lose hope, it gets better!" (true) or "one day you will look back on this fondly" (false) or "don't forget to sleep when the baby sleeps" (a bad joke).

Usually the 4th trimester is characterized as the newborn stage - so around 0-3 months.

It's also characterized as being the most sucktacular of time periods, tying teething, in a young child's life. Which is pretty much true.

Izzy is an adorable baby. See exhibit A.

Exhibit A

But she is also challenging in all the ways babies can be and in all the ways I forgot about because of what I like to call parental amnesia.

Parental amnesia is when you forget or romanticize all the shitty stuff about pregnancy and infancy in order to convince yourself to have another baby.

I had some serious parental amnesia going when we tried for a 3rd. Bryan did not. But since he's a good guy and we make beautiful babies he signed up for #3 in spite of remembering just how awful the 4th trimester (and teething!) really are.

This is not to say that Izzy is a hard baby, she's just a normal baby.

Nursing

Child likes to nurse. Like, constantly. Which is something I forgot about breastfeeding. For all those "10 things I love about breastfeeding" posts I see everywhere, I could write a "10 things I loathe about breastfeeding." I could also write a "10 things I loathe about bottle feeding" too, because regardless of how you slice it, feeding a newborn is labor and time intensive.

Iz started off with a great latch, and she was slowly gaining so I was really hopeful we'd be able to EBF (exclusively breastfeed, for those not well versed in parenting lingo). Alas, she dropped too much weight like her brother and sister and we had to supplement.

I was lucky to have a friend who had extra milk, so Iz got breastmilk supplement and some formula. It was really only at night and occasionally during the day that she'd need the extra milk - we were only supplementing 4-10oz a day, which was hard for me (PPD and PPA this time around, which probably merit posts of their own but will have to wait another day).

After a long and annoying battle with pharmacies I was finally able to get a script for Domperidone filled (long story short: local compounding pharmacy could no longer fill, had to get a script from a Dr. in Monterey and get it through a Canadian pharmacy - alls well that ends well, I have my script and it helps my supply).

Anyway, before I was able to get my script filled, Izzy started refusing formula bottles. That was rough. We had run out of donor milk and I wasn't making enough for her, so we needed her to take the bottle but she just would.not.drink formula. Luckily another friend of mine who had recently had twins and who has an amazing oversupply has been our new breastmilk supplier. And with the DP script I'm making more and needing to supplement less (although I do still give her a bottle at night because my supply dips before bed).

I lost my train of though... where was I going with this?

Oh, yes. Izzy loves to nurse. All this to say that Izzy would happily spend 90% of her day on the breast if she could. It's exhausting. And contrary to most nursing websites, it is NOT helping me lose any baby weight.

You may be asking yourself, if 90% of her day is nursing, when does she sleep? The answer, she sleeps while she nurses.

Shh. I'm sleeping. And eating.

Sleep

I basically spend the whole day nursing her or listening to her scream in the car if I have to drive somewhere. We do take walks, and she will occasionally sleep in the stroller, but if she's napping and NOT nursing she prefers to be in the Moby. Which means I don't sleep (not that I could anyway) and the things I'm able to do during the day are rather limited.

She will give us (and by us, I mean me - another "benefit" of breastfeeding is that night time is all for Mommy... which is fine now because I'm not working and I do better on sleep dep. than B, but sharing the night time feeding with P & G was great for me). Crap, that sentence was an incomplete run-on. ANYWAY, she gives me 4-6 hours at night depending on where she's sleeping. This is awesome! Only the 6 hour stretch is if she's in bed with us with her body as close to me as she can get (she's like an inchworm, I move and she manages to inch up next to me).

During the day, I get 45 minutes to an hour of nap before she demands to nurse again.

She fell asleep nursing... when I tried to move her, she woke up and demanded to nurse.

Which is about how long it took for me to write this much, and now she's waking up and demanding to be fed. Maybe I'll finish this blog post later...

Back. 2 hours later. I hate shots. She got hers today and has wanted to nurse even more than usual.

Speaking of her visit, here are her stats.

10.8lbs, 23.25 inches

She is my peanut. While 78th percentile for height and 50-something percentile for weight, she's both shorter and lighter than her siblings at this age. Both older kids were in the 12 pound range and both over 24 inches. Baby Dora is the runt (thus far). Although she's still probably going to be taller than me when all is said and done. Oh well.

Mommy's peanut I am.

Confessions of a Co-Sleeper

I have written a lot about sleep since I started blogging, especially since Griffin is a terrible sleeper in comparison to Penelope.

Most of our parenting struggles with the Bubs have revolved around his desire to watch the moon track across the sky at night. The angriest I have ever been with him was in the middle of the night during a Sleep Suck (click the link above if that confuses you). But I have a confession.

I love cosleeping.

I know. Of all the problems we have had with his sleep, you would imagine that I would have sworn off cosleeping and would now be shouting from the rooftops about how it's best to sleep train your children as soon as they're born.

Only I don't think that at all. And should baby #3 happen in our future, I'll be advocating for another round of co-sleeping. Even though every single one of these things has happened in the last 6 months:

I've:
*been hit
*almost been given a black eye
*been kicked, in my surgery scars
*been peed on
*had the covers stolen
*been farted on
*woken from a dead sleep by snores (but let's be real, this happens when Griffin isn't in bed with us *cough*Bryan*cough*)
*gotten up to get water for a child who has been tossing and turning for an hour
*had a child roll over and sleep on top of my head
*had cold feet wiggled in between my thighs, pressed against my back, shoved into my belly

Bryan has experienced these as well, although has come to different conclusions about co-sleeping. Maybe that's because he gets most of the violence, and not as much of the lovey-side that comes with sleeping next to an almost 3 year old.

I wake up most mornings with a warm, mostly-sweet smelling child curled up next to me. Most mornings he turns over to see if I'm awake, then grins, wraps his little arms around my neck and whispers "I love you mama" in my ear. Most mornings he snuggles up next to me and we cuddle for a few minutes before he finally turns back over and says "can we wake up now mama?"

Then we get out of bed and he helps me make coffee.

What's not to love?

What's not to love about waking up in the middle of the night (which I do 10,000x regardless of who is sleeping in the bed) and having a warm body who wants to snuggle?

Co-Sleeping is not for everyone. And sometimes it's not fun. But I do love it.... and if we have #3, we'll probably get a co-sleeper so Bryan isn't so crowded, because he really does get the brunt of the boy-child's kicks.

I haven't posted in almost a month...

And so much has happened!

My parents moved from Sacramento to Scotts Valley (they are now 45 minutes away instead of 3+ hours), and before the move my mom lived with for a month until my parents found housing in the Santa Cruz area. It was nice having her here, the kids got to kiss Granny goodnight each night and Griffin really enjoying going downstairs in the morning to hang out with Granny as she got ready for work.

In the month of October Griffin reached 100% day-potty-training (wait, did I already cover this?) and we haven't had an accident in quite awhile. I must say, it is GLORIOUS not to have to change diapers. It is also wonderful to keep only an emergency pair of undies and pants in the car instead of carting around the diaper bag. In the last few months we've gotten rid of the diapers, diaper bag, and strollers, and it's been bittersweet. Mostly sweet.

G won't let us eliminate all vestages of baby-hood however. He's still in night-diapers and still wakes up once a night and crawls into bed with us. He quickly falls back asleep, although he HAS taken to trying to suffoate Bryan every night by sleeping on his head. It's something we need to work on, but neither one of us has the energy to tackle it yet. Maybe over Winter Break.

They're both doing well at daycare, Penelope keeps asking to go to school - and we're hoping to be able to send her to pre-school next year, but it depends on a host of factors. The major factor is, of course, cost. But we'll keep trying to figure out how to swing it. The pre-school I want to send her to is a Spanish immersion school, and I think she'd do well.

She's still dancing and Griffin is still in gymnastics. I do have some video of her last ballet class, but I need to youtube it so I can post it here. It's on my phone.

Squish is also making some pretty amazing drawings. She's better at coloring inside the lines than my Freshmen students (seriously) and her free-hand drawing is both creative and colorful. She'll literally spend hours at the kitchen table coloring/drawing.

As for me, work is good but hectic. I've taken on a lot this year and while I love a lot of what I'm doing, it takes a significant amount of time to get it all done. This year has also been my year for students-in-crisis. I've made 2 mandated reporter calls already and have spent a fair amount of time drying the eyes of some of my students. I'm glad they feel they can come to me, even if I loathe paperwork. That's what I'm here for afterall...

Ok, time to get back to lesson planning. I hope to be able to upload the videos I have later this week and post them.

He falls asleep how?!?

Some nights I wish we had a night-vision camera in the kid's bedroom so I could just post a video of the gymnastics that is bedtime.

The kids' beds are about 2 feet apart and there is a body pillow between them. At bedtime I lay on the pillow and read a book (or two) while Penelope listens attentively and Griffin alternately does yoga and attempts to SIT ON MY FACE.

Then, after lights out, we all lay down until the G man falls asleep. This takes anywhere from 5-60 minutes and usually lasts 20. We used to rock him, but that took just as long and could get uncomfortable. Laying down with Penelope is what actually taught her to put herself to sleep. We started earlier with Pen, and she has always been a better sleeper than G. So far it hasn't seemed to do much to help G learn to put himself to sleep.

I think we're going to try and get him attached to a lovey - I have no idea how but I'm willing to give it a go.

Anyway, after lights out the gymnastics don't end. Neither does his attempts to suffocate me. He'll roll over onto me, press his cheek onto my face, hug my arms, bury his head into my chest, kick me, grab my hand and put it on his face... he's also taken to attempting to undress himself.

It is both hilarious and annoying.

I wish "shhh", rock, bounce, pat, rub his back - to no avail. Eventually he falls asleep and I have no idea if anything I did actually helped.

I'm not quite sure what to try next or if it's just something we wait out. I have a feeling we just wait it out.

A little less sucky

Thankfully Griffin's sleep has gotten better the last few days, but it's still nowhere near great.

He's still waking up at least once, but the week-long stretch of multiple wakings, screaming, and bottle demands are done. For now at least.

I am SO looking forward to the day when he sleeps through the night without waking at all. It will come, but we may be looking at another few months of waking up to bring him into bed with us. I don't mind - provided its just the once - cosleeping doesn't really bother me. At some point we want our bed back full time, but they're only this little once and I've yet to come across another method that I feel comfortable with.

I know that at some point G will learn to self-soothe. We might actually try going to Build A Bear to see if having him pick out a special lovey will speed the process along. He hasn't really connected with a stuffed animal or blanket and he doesn't take a pacifier... His "lovey" right now is me. Which is sweet, but uncomfortable at 2am when he rolls over and squeezes me with all his might. Although it does make me smile when he hugs me and murmurs "mama" in his sleep.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Major Malfunction

Often, in the middle of the night, I find myself wanting to ask my son "what's your major malfunction?!"

We are currently suffering through what I like to call The Suck. It is called The Suck for 2 reasons: 1. it sucks and 2. you really just have to suck it up and deal with it.

There are lots of "The Suck" in parenting. What The Suck is depends on the age, and in some cases the child. But every child has a Suck. Generally, The Suck is outweighed by The Awesome - or at least they're 50/50 - but sometimes The Suck is greater than The Awesome and you want to just reboot the day (or you know, your life) or skip to bedtime or the 1st grade. Whichever comes first.

Some Sucks are: the 6 month sleep regression, a 9 month old who doesn't sleep through the night (because most don't, so don't get your hopes up), weekly tantrums, suddenly becoming a picky eater, etc. Sucks are temporary, which is the bright side of a Suck.

Griffin's Suck is sleep. It's always been sleep, and will probably be sleep for awhile longer. The Sleep Suck is one of the worst Sucks to have (with the exception of the Colic Suck, which is *also* a Sleep Suck and thus is a double whammy of Suckage). All Sucks suck, it's in their very nature, but some are more sucktacular than others.

And the Sleep Suck is pretty much the worst Suck.

Sometimes the Sleep Suck morphs into what I like to call Hell. And I call it this because it's pretty much the perfect description of the situation. Hell happens when your 3 year old doesn't sleep for 24+ hours (yeah, I know someone who dealt with this on a regular basis). Hell happens when your child goes to bed at 12am and wakes up for the day at 4am for an entire month. Hell happens when you cannot take your toddler out without a full meltdown and so are forced to water down milk in order to make it last the day.

I have not yet experienced Hell. But I know parents who have.

What we are dealing with right now, is just Suck. Which sucks, to be sure, but it just something that we have to deal with - unless is morphs into Hell, in which case I am driving them the 3 hours to Sacramento so I can have a weekend of SLEEP.

This incarnation of Suck is regular night wakings - every 45 minutes or so - that come with whining, plaintive cries of "mama!", and often an emphatic (read: loud) request for milk. This means that G is up at least 8 times, sometimes more. Getting him back down is sometimes easy, sometimes not and it's hard to tell when he's going to need more help self-soothing.

So we're tired. *Almost* newborn phase tired. And really? I haven't gotten consistent good sleep since Penelope was born and damn it, I deserve it. But there's not a whole hell of a lot I can do but comfort the G-man, keep trying new things to help him learn to self-soothe, and just wait it out.

But mark my words. Child will be getting some sweet, sweet revenge when he's a teenager. Mommy holds a sleep-deprivation grudge. For sure.

Ok, so how did YOU wean?

Last night was awful.

Griffin nursed to sleep at 8; woke up at 9:30 and nursed; woke up at 12:30 and I tried rubbing his back, rocking, singing, shhh'ing... it seemed to work at first, his eyes were still closed and he settled back down for a moment. But then? Then it was terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad. He screamed and flailed about like a child possessed. *sigh* Bryan took him at that point and gave him a bottle. He had a few ounces and eventually fell asleep. Then he was up AGAIN at 4:00, 5:30, and finally at 7:15.

I nursed him each subsequent waking for about 20 minutes - not like it helped since he woke up each time cranky, whiny, and on the verge of screaming. Which is what he's been like every night for the past.... 16 months?

If I would have nursed him during the Abyss (as I have taken to calling it) he would have fallen asleep, but he would have stayed attached for anywhere from 20-40 minutes in order to stay asleep. This is not ok. He is not an infant anymore and I cannot sleep while he nurses.

So if we're counting, that means that Bryan and I got less than 6 hours of sleep and no stretch longer than 2.5 hours.

The whole situation pretty much sucks.

And B and I are very much looking forward to next week when we'll be in Sacramento and my parents will have the kids for a night.

Anger management

Last night was awful. Really, really awful. Griffin was up over four hours and I was so very frustrated that I had to take a break from him. I half hoped that letting him cry, safe and secure in his crib, would actually work and he'd fall asleep and stay asleep; that I would be proven wrong about CIO and have to eat my words. And you know what? I wish that it worked. I wish I would have had to come on the blog and admit I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

But it didn't work. And I've become even more convinced that CIO is not appropriate for Griffin.

I'm hoping last night was just some horrific fluke. Because I honestly don't know what I'll do if we have another night like that.

When you become a parent, you're never really prepared for just how much (and often how quickly) you fall in love with your child. But you are also equally unprepared for how crazy they can make you... how angry you can get. I loved my son last night, but I did not like him. I was exhausted, frustrated, and since he's not sick or teething, I could not (and still don't) understand why he wouldn't just go back to sleep.

He was just as exhausted. When he's tired his eyes get puffy and he gets these horrible dark circles. And yet there he was, alternately babbling and screaming, for over four hours. Four. Rocking did not work, nursing, bouncing, patting, singing... we even tried a bottle. He still.would.not.sleep.

I had some choice words for him, mainly "go to f*cking sleep already".

I'm not much of a curser, but holy mother of Oprah, I was fed up.

He finally let us sleep around 2am. Woke up again at 5:30 and (thankfully) went back to sleep and slept until 7am. He's asleep right now... And has been for an hour. Let's all hope he stays that way until at least 2 and then goes back down without a battle. I just don't know if I have it in me.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Jinxed it

I haven't blogged lately, sorry. A lot has been going on and I have a backlog of pictures and video to upload.

But first? Sleep. As so many of you know, sleep has been a touchy subject in the Rodgers household since Mr. Griffin was born. I reached the end of my rope during our trip to Wyoming and was afraid I was going to have to resort to the cry it out method in order to get some sleep. But the book No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers seems to have been our magic bullet. By incorporating some of the strategies advised in the book (notably keeping the room cooler, blacking out he windows, and moving up bedtime), Griffins sleep has improved remarkably.

He now goes down around 7:30 and gets up once between 2 and 4, nurses back to sleep, and is up for the day around 6:30. This means that Bryan no longer has to get up with him and I'm only up once a night. once. It is glorious.

We've also instituted family reading before bed. Which is really nice. We all climb onto Penny's bed and read book for 20-30 minutes.

So the kids are usually asleep before 8 and I feel much more well rested (and sane).

Of course, now that I've been telling people how improved things have gotten, the kids decide to have a rough start to the night. Although it's probably not because I jinxed myself, but because they both took late naps. Oh well. Griffin took over an hour to get to sleep and Penelope is still awake in bed. Could be worse, right? Hopefully the rest of the night is not as challenging as bedtime was.

What else... Still applying for jobs. Have applied for over 20 teaching positions in a variety of cities (and States!). I'm hopeful, but I'm not going to hold my breath. The job market is pretty terrible for teachers now.

Ok, here are some pictures...




Penny feeding the ducks. I'm happy her hair is long enough for one pony tail.



We had quite a few ducks and geese show up, one of them startled Penny when it got a little too close. I really hate geese, but Poe loves feeding them.




My mom and Penny at the Memorial Day parade by our house.




Penelope and her friend Gabe. Same parade. So cute!

Ok, video later.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Waiting...

For the last two days, I've spent Griffin's nap tense with anticipation of him waking up right as I start something (or am in the middle of something). This means that I've actually been putting him in his crib to nap instead of nursing him for the hour and a half period of his afternoon nap.

He's actually been doing pretty well. It used to be that I'd get 10 minutes of crib time before the nurse-a-thon commenced and now sometimes I get an hour (!!!) or even a smidge more. This is nice because I can actually get a few things done (like blog). Today I was able to prepare tonight's kabobs and stick them in the fridge, pee all by myself (this happens so rarely that it just MUST be documented), and change for work... plus this post (we'll see how far I get).

He's also been a bit better about sleeping at night. He's about where Penelope was at around 9-ish months. He goes down pretty well and is waking up about twice a night. Occasionally he needs a bottle, but more and more often he's content just to nurse. If he keeps this up (being behind P's sleep patterns by 4-5 months) then he'll be sleeping through the night at 19 months or so... which is pretty good when you think about it. I know some people who can't handle night wakings at that age and sleep train, but among my friends who do not sleep train, 19 months is good/average for the elimination of night-waking. We'll see. He could surprise us and STTN earlier (or later).

And yes, still nursing - so we made it a year! I'm really proud of us, we both worked hard to get here. Some days he's less interested in nursing than others, but he still seems to really enjoy nursing so we'll keep on keepin' on. He's become very... demonstrative when he wants to nurse. Usually I know he's ready when he starts using my chest as a drum or peeks down my shirt as if to say "hey there boobies, what's happening?"

His first plane ride is coming up in less than a month. We leave for Denver on May 17th - we'll spend a day or so in Denver and then drive up to Wyoming to see some of B's family. I'm looking forward to the trip, it's been about a year since we saw B's brother, SIL, and their kids. And G hasn't met B's Dad and Stepmom yet... neither kid has meet B's paternal grandparents so that will be a lot of fun.

Which reminds me, I need to order my iPad for the plane ride :)

Well, we're coming up on the 1hour mark of G's nap. So I'll sign of here. I bet the moment I publish this post he'll wake up.

Nap Battle

We mostly have a handle on Griffin's sleep at night. It's not great, but it's generally tolerable. Although the past two nights have been awful and I hope they're just teething related because if this is indicative of a new sleep pattern then I need to find him some baby Ambien.

Three days ago he actually slept great. Better than great, it was like magic. He went down at 8:30 and slept until 3:30. That is the longest he has slept in his ENTIRE LIFE. Then he nursed for 10 minutes, fell back asleep, and woke up for the day at 7:30ish. Glorious I tell you, GLORIOUS.

Of course, I had given him some baby Benedryl that night because he had red, puffy, watery, and itchy eyes and his nose was running like a faucet. Dollars to donuts that miraculous sleep stretch was Benedryl induced. And although I loved getting that much sleep, I'm not actually willing to continually dose him with Benedryl to get it... unless of course he has actual symptoms which the allergy meds can alleviate.

But after "the miracle" we've had a night where he woke up for the day at 5:30am and then last night where he woke up at 3:30 and was up for an hour and half before finally falling back asleep. Terrible, awful, no-good, and very bad. I was exhausted. And really flipping annoyed.

So we'll see what tonight brings. We cannot do CIO, for many reasons, the #1 reason being that it will wake up Penelope and I absolutely, positively cannot have two children wide awake at 2am. Cannot.

But this post isn't about night time. It's about naps.

And the fact that G takes one nap a day.

Which only lasts an hour.

Unless, of course, he's nursing.

Those of you who have children of G's age, or remember what the 1 year stage was like, will understand how this is not acceptable. In any way, shape, or form. Babies this age NEED more daytime sleep than that. And mommies of babies this age NEED more downtime than that. I can get the extra downtime if I leave him attached to me, but I can't get anything done that way.

I honestly don't know what to do... I mean, when I have him, we nurse. But when my Dad has him he can't do that and so G only takes an hour nap. He's then super clingy/needy and just plain tired the rest of the day (G, not my Dad... although I'm sure Dad is pretty darn tired as well).

So I'm soliciting suggestions. Again, CIO is not possible. The last thing Dad or I need is two children who won't nap.

And yes, when Griffin is a teenager and refuses to wake up in the mornings or sleeps until noon, I will show him these posts and demand an apology. Or something.

Also? Does someone want our 5 year old dog? She's getting on my very last nerve. She's actually a sweet dog, but she tends to be very loud just when I'm getting Griffin to sleep. Daily. It is SO damn annoying.

Dear Son,

5:30am is not an acceptable wake-up time unless you're spending the night with Granny & Grandpa. Please make note of this.

Sincerely,
Mommy

Sleep

So before I go to sleep each night I spend a good half hour to forty-five minutes awake. I've been like this for as long as I can remember; even when physically exhausted I usually lie awake for quite awhile before I finally fall asleep. I've tried a thousand tricks to get to sleep faster but none of them work more than once. I usually end up composing blogs in my head, blogs that never get written.

These are glorious bogs. Witty, funny, smart, tragic - everything you could ever want in a blog post and more. So much more.

Alas, they disappear from my brain as soon as I fall asleep. So I am sorry, dear blog reader, that you never get to read these magical blogs. They would change. your. life.

No, no, not really. But they're not half bad and I do often contemplate getting up and writing them all down - not because they're literary masterpieces, but because I really want to get all the thoughts in my head OUT so I can SLEEP.

Sleep is a precious commodity here at the Death Star. Leia (you see what I did there?) sleeps beautifully - and has for the last year. She has occasional trouble falling asleep (don't we all?) but for the most part she goes to bed without a fuss, falls asleep on her own, and stays in her own bed all night. It's glorious. And since she co-slept until she was 14 months old there were are a few people (not me) who are shocked she transitioned so well (take that! Don't worry, these people don't read the blog, they're random BBC debaters who claim that bed-sharing babies will end up to be bed-sharing teenagers).

Luke, on the other hand, is slightly trickier than his sister. Maybe it's all those midichlorians. How do you even spell that?!?!

I have to remind myself that even at this age, Leia was still up at least once a night, so sleeping from 8-8 is still a bit in our future. But I would bet money that it will take him longer than she did to reach that particular milestone.

Some people have told me that we need to let him cry. I'm just not comfortable with that. Sure, it might get him to sleep through the night - which would be nice, really nice - but I'm just not comfortable with the method at all. I've read a lot of articles, a few studies, and talked with A LOT of moms and while I don't think CIO is the devil, I just don't think it's for us.

Luke goes from 0-Banshee in about 6 seconds. Even when he's comforted it takes him awhile to calm down if he's already worked up. He's woken up Leia at least once from 2am crying which was sooooo not fun.

Plus, I cannot stand to hear him cry. Cannot. I would have to leave the house and sleep at a hotel if we attempted CIO. I'm not exaggerating. I just can't do it.

Contrary to what some people think (not you, again I'm talking about obnoxious BBC people), this does not mean that my son is emotionally manipulating me. He's not even 11 months old. He also won't be sleeping in our bed until college. Or until pre-school. I am not "weak" for letting him reach sleep goals on his own time. He is not "developmentally delayed" for being an 11 month old who still wakes up 2-3 times a night.

He is just fine. He's where he NEEDS to be. He will learn to go to sleep and stay asleep in his own time.

We are fine. While we're all a little tired, we also have a family, school, work, and life. Of COURSE we're tired, we're PARENTS.

If, in a year, Luke is still struggling with sleep then we'll reevaluate. The cry of an almost 2 year old is much easier to ignore than that of my 11 month old. But we'll see. I'm not going to remove CIO from my parenting toolbox, but it is my very last resort. And that's just what works for our family.

I will say this - Luke's sleep is improving. He went from 6-8 wakings in the Fall to 2-3 now. A few nights he's able to skip the bottle of formula and just nurse. Vader and I both wake up whenever he does, but the wakings are slowly starting to stretch themselves out. So while I'm not ecstatic about his sleep, I am content. For now. :)

Be Vewy Vewy Quiet

The last few days have been crazy, but tonight the house is eerily silent. I can't decide if I like crazy or quiet better. I think maybe crazy.

Early EARLY Thursday Bryan left for Oklahoma. His best friend's wife passed away and he went out to be with his friend for a few days. He comes home late Sunday and we all cannot wait until he gets back. I'm really glad we could make it work so B could go out there - I wish we all could have gone - but we miss him. I miss him. A lot.

And not just because the kids are super-clingy suddenly (although that certainly factors in). I miss him because, believe it or not, I really love that man. Good thing I guess :)

But until then I'm (mostly) doing ok. Tonight my parents have the kids for their regular Friday night date (it's move night, they're watching Aristocats) and so I am all by my lonesome for an entire night. That hasn't happened in over 4 years! I don't know what to do with myself... laundry is started, the living room is clean, the floors have been swept and mopped... I should probably get around to cleaning the bathrooms (ick). Maybe after blogging :)

I have a TON to talk about and I hope I remember it all. Every day something new happens with one or both of the kids and I feel like if I don't write it down I won't remember it. And I want to remember. I love these stages.

Penelope is a chatter box. She narrates everything! "Mama, see trees? Pah-pooh-pea see trees! I count them, 1, 2, 3, 4..." She can count up to 30 (which she calls twenty-ten), and is so very sweet. He big "bad" thing is hitting - she gets frustrated and hits, which we're working on. But afterward she'll come up and apologize and give you a hug. Griffin is usually on the receiving end of her swats and he tolerates them pretty well. He cry and bit and then grin at her when she gives him a hug.

G is getting very brave - he's ready to walk (mentally) even though he's not quite there physically. And we've decided that "mama" is indeed his first word. He now uses it only when he's talking about me, which is often. That child is one big mama's boy.

They're both big (in 4T & 18-24 months) and pretty much the most adorable children ever conceived. But I'm not biased or anything.

Penny sleeps with the following items: Her Jessie doll, a Buzz Lightyear toy, the Woody cake-topper, Kiki (he stuffed cat from Build-A-Bear), Cookie Monster, and her pillow pet.

When she's tired, she whispers EVERYTHING. When she knows Griffin is asleep she'll also whisper. Sometimes she talks in a high pitched voice when she's trying to mimic my "sing-song" voice or when she's calling for Griffin.

One of their favorite games is to chase each other up and down the hall. She'll say "this way Bubba! This way" and he'll crawl after her, she'll screech and he'll laugh.

His sleep is improving. He's only up 2-3 times at night and a few nights he doesn't need an extra bottle. WIC is setting me up with an LC next week to see what she thinks about my milk supply. We'll see. I don't have my hopes up that anything short of more domperidone will increase my supply enough to drop the 1-2 bottles of formula he gets a day.

I've been looking for a job since January and so far it's gone about as well as a hunt for the end of the rainbow. A lot of districts aren't even hiring subs. But I'll continue the search. Something has to turn up. Bryan and I are discussing out of state options, so we'll see where that leads.

Ok, that's all I can think of for now (kid related at least). I do have some Soab-box-y stuff I want to talk about, but that can wait. I'll end with some pictures (which are also on Facebook).


With the kids at the zoo today


Little man and I


I love the expression on G's face in this one.


The kids with my brother, Uncle "O-Nic"

Sleep, CPR, and "the animals"

Sleep has been the biggest issue in the Rodgers household lately. After the kids spent Friday at my parents, Griffin had three nights in a row of terrible, awful, no-good, very bad sleep.

He was up every 30-45 minutes, would scream but quickly fall asleep if rocked or bounced, however the MOMENT he was put back in his crib he'd scream again. And I'm not talking whimpering or crying, I'm talking about "oh-my-god-someone-is-trying-to-kill-me" screaming. It was awful. It coincided with an attempt at night weaning but I don't know if the timing was strictly coincidental or if the night weaning attempt was the trigger. It doesn't really matter since we've nixed any sort of weaning for now.

He is teething, so that could have contributed to the no-sleep clusterf*** but I doubt it was the only reason. Other possible culprits: normal sleep regression, he's about to hit a new developmental milestone, nightmares, asymptomatic illness, or any 1,000,000 other things that can affect a baby's sleep.

I think it's because children with G names have sleep problems. This is based solely on Griffin's sleep and the sleep of a friend's baby whose name also starts with a G. So Jodie? Stay away from the G names (Jodie is my cousin whose due with her first in August).

Luckily the past two nights have been tolerable. One wake up to bring him into bed to nurse and one at 3am - that one Bryan takes and gives him a bottle. Then he's back in bed until almost 7. Much, much better. I would LOVE it if we could just go down to one waking and then B and I could switch off nights, but I'll take what we've got - it's better than what it was earlier in the week.

___

So today I went and got CPR certified. I've been certified before - and have actually taught CPR - but it's been a few years. It all comes back to you, so the class and test were pretty easy for me. 30/2, 15/2, AED. If you've taken CPR you know what I mean.

The class was adult and infant CPR so we worked on both mannequins. Giving CPR to the infant mannequin, even though it only barely looks like a human baby, was really difficult. I had to stop myself and center before I could practice. Visions of Griffin lying on the table were overwhelming and during the video portion where they dramatize a baby's resuscitation made me tear up. Luckily they didn't have toddler sized mannequins otherwise I think I may have had to excuse myself - that would have been too much to have to practice on mannequins that too closely imitated the sizes of both of my children.

But I was the first done with my test (got 100%) and the "practical". It was a class made for healthcare professionals - and it was unnerving to see so many respiratory therapists and RNs who messed up on the basics. Although most of these people probably don't have to do basic CPR since they have access to medical equipment on the job.

So anyway, I'm certified. Now I hope I never have to use it. Ever.

___

Penelope has become obsessed with the zoo. EVERY morning this week she's asked to "go see the animals mommy" as an afterthought she'll say "and go see aunty meagan too" (I don't know why she doesn't use capitals). Her Aunty Meagan is one of my best friends from high school and she works at the zoo, so we get to see her whenever we go (she also has us on her membership so we get in free - score!). Poe's favorite animals are the giraffes and the zebras. She also likes the flamingos and the white faced saki. Don't ask me why.

I think I'll have a regular zoo-day every week (unless I find a full time job or get sub work that day). It gives us a chance to walk around for a few hours and both kids nap pretty well after a morning at the zoo.

I wish we had an aquarium though...

Lets see how much I can get down before one of the kids needs me for something

That title was excessively long.

Anyway, I've been meaning to sit and write down all of the cute/funny/sweet/exciting things the kids have been up to lately. I figured that being on break from school would naturally give me more free time. Ha. Hahahahaha. Haha.

So I'll try and remember what I can and see if I can squeeze some pictures in at the end.

1. Penelope and Griffin have become almost inseparable. When she wakes up from her nap she wants to "see Bubba" and if he's nowhere to be found (i.e. in the livingroom or with Bryan in the office) she starts to cry "Mama, see Bubba! Bubba are you??" (which is how she says 'where are you') until Bubba is produced. She will also whisper when he's sleeping so as not to wake him.

He returns the affection. He laughs at almost everything she does and wants to do whatever it is she is doing. He loves to give her kisses (which are wide, open mouth ones that look like he's trying to eat her face) and he also loves to pull her hair.

They do really well sharing with each other. Poe will often want what he's playing with, but she's good about giving him a new toy - so they'll switch toys and that way no one cries.

Of course, they don't always get along, but they honestly get along 95% of the time. I'm a little amazed at how well they interact since all you hear when you're pregnant with #2 is the horrors of sibling rivalry. I'm sure they'll fight and yell at each other at some point, but I do think that they'll continue to get along rather well. Only time will tell.

It has made me think a lot about my relationship with my brother growing up. Of course, he and I have completely different personalities than Poe and Griffin - plus we were 5 years apart. We get along rather well now and I think we generally got along as kids, but we had some epic arguments. I moved out his freshman year in high school so we didn't really see each other a lot when he was in his obnoxious teen years (not that he's no longer obnoxious - he is).

2. Penelope has finally started referring to herself as "I". No more third person.

3. Griffin still isn't crawling. Maybe by New Years. I hope by then!

4. The other day Penelope had some friends over for t-shirt painting. She made a shirt for herself, one for Griffin, and one for each of my parents. Here's some pictures of her making the shirts and then a group shot of everyone in their shirts:





5. Christmas! The kids made out like bandits this year, our house is not big enough for all of their stuff. This has given me an excuse to go through toys and donate gently used items - I was planning on doing it anyway, but finding a place for new toys has made donation a necessity. We're very lucky to have so many generous people in our lives, but I have to admit the sheer volume was very overwhelming! Two kids can't possibly need all these toys, but we're still very thankful for all we received. Our kids are certainly loved by both sides of the family!

Here's some Christmas photos - I didn't get a chance to take any while we were in Reno :( and I should probably devote a whole post to our Reno trip, but I don't think I'll get to it. It was a great trip with the exception of one night in the hotel when Penelope was awake from 1:30-5am.


Griffin in his 2nd favorite position


My cousin Macy and I


Riley and Penelope during present opening


A sleeping Grandpa Larry


Cousin Jodee (8 weeks pregnant with her first!) and G-man

And I shall leave you with more upsidedown baby

Potty Time

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I am ready to potty train Penelope.

She may or may not be ready to BE potty trained.

I bought a book called "How To Potty Train Your Child In One Day" and read the first two chapters. Meh. Some of the info is great, and I may use portions of the techniques, but the author advocates a "potty party" complete with cake and presents. I don't really have the time for that - plus, while I want Penelope to know that going to the bathroom on the toilet is good, I'm not sure I want to make it a holiday. I want to normalize it, not turn it into an event.

The author also says some very inaccurate and obnoxious things about cloth diapers, so I'm just ticked off enough to not want to use her technique. This may make me silly and/or petty, but whatever. You publish a book containing inaccurate BS and I'm going to look at the rest of what you have to say with a different lens. It is what it is.

I did, however, take the potty quiz in the book to determine in Poe is ready for the whole experience. She scored a 7/10 which the author says is close, but not quite ready. So we're going to wait until the winter break and see what she scores then.

In the meantime, she and I have watched some videos of Elmo singing about potty training and I've ordered her some Sesame Street books about using the "big kid potty". If Elmo does something then Penelope wants to do it as well.

It's already made an impression on her. Last night after I stripped her down for bathtime she walked into the bathroom and asked to sit on the potty. She also wanted ME to sit on the potty, so we sat (I was fully clothed, she was naked) together for about 5 minutes. I praised her (she didn't pee, just sat naked, which is a big step) and talked about how big girls use the potty. She told me "Elmo pee-pee potty mama. Cookie poo-poo potty" and was very proud of herself.

Of course, I think half the reason she sat on the potty for so long was because she didn't want to take a bath. She used to LOVE baths, but it's become a bit of a headache recently. She hates getting her hair washed/wet and cries about the whole experience. Plus, Griffin is a splash-o-matic and while Poe sometimes finds his antics amusing, she also hates getting water splashed in her face.

Oh well, whatever the real motivation was for her potty time last night, the fact that she sat (naked) on the potty for an extended period of time is a good sign.

I would love, love, love if she was potty trained by x-mas. Love. I don't expect daytime AND nighttime training to happen that quickly. If I can get daytime training done by the holidays I will be ecstatic.

Side note: Last night G went to bed at 9-ish, woke up at 12:15 and nursed, woke up at 3-ish for a bottle, and was still asleep IN HIS CRIB when I left the house at 6:50. This is awesome.

Just a few things

Nursing:
Griffin has become less and less interested in nursing. He arches and gets frustrated during the day but seems fine with nursing at night. So we'll stick to nursing at night and see how long it all lasts. If we end up giving it up then I'm ok with that. 7 months is a huge milestone for us both and while in an ideal world we'd nurse until at least 12 months, we all know that this world is NOT an ideal one.

Sleeping:
Things are getting better. For almost a week he's been down to just two wakings a night, Bryan wakes up with Griffin for the first round and I get him for the second.

I'll end with some pictures. I do have a lot more to talk about but I don't really have much time. I need to get a few things ready for work tomorrow.

Prep Period

Third period is my prep and I have a few minutes to blog before I need to do some planning/grading.

So lets talk about sleep, shall we? On the adivce of my midwives I gave Griffin a half of a homeopathic sleep aid two nights ago. It worked, he slept past his normal 12am wake-up time. However not being woken up actually woke up Bryan. When he went to check on G, G was cold and B couldn't tell if he was breathing, so B got a bit panicky. Griffin was fine, he had just kicked off his blankets. B woke him up and fed him and then brought him into bed.

I didn't know any of this until the next day - that night I was sound asleep. And I felt wonderful the next day... B not so much.

So last night we didn't give G the homeopathic tablet. He woke up a few times before 11pm and I was able to pat him back to sleep. Then *I* woke up at 1:30am paranoid that he wasn't awake and went in to check on him. He was fine. I recovered him and went back to bed. Griffin finally woke up at 3 and Bryan fed him and then brought him into bed at 4. G nursed until 6 when I got up for the day and he woke up for the day at 6:45 or so.

Still undecided if we're going to use the tablets again tonight. Although now we know Griffin is capable of sleeping from 8-ish until 3-ish. This is wonderful news and it hopefully means that soon he'll be down to one waking a night and I can just nurse him, cut out the bottle, and Bryan won't have to get up anymore. I can handle one waking - heck, I can handle a nurse-a-thon from 3am-6am if I get uninterrupted sleep from 9:30 (when I go to bed) and 3am.

More sleep will certainly help with the PPD, my attitude and coping skills are 1,000x better when I have adequate sleep.

But I still have a metric ton of stuff I need to accomplish in the next month and it's becoming very, very overwhelming.

There are a TON of hoops the State of CA makes potential teachers jump through before you're credentialed. I don't necessarily have a problem with the process (although some of it is redundant and unnecessary), I have a problem with the time commitment since I HAVE NO TIME. I have Touchpoint papers to grade, lessons to plan, grade checks for failing students, tutoring hours for AVID students, a paper for my seminar class, TPA 3 & 4, a computers class (I can test out of it, but I need to take the test), a credentialing appointment to make, PLUS a Dr's appt for Griffin, arranging family pictures, planning P's birthday, and so. much. more.

I barely have my head above water. I am so stressed out right now it isn't funny. It's effecting my work, school, my relationship with my kids, husband, and family.

But at least I got enough sleep last night. So there are things to celebrate.

Oh please, sweet goddess of the night, let him sleep

Griffin's lack of sleep is driving me insane. Literally. I have been diagnosed with PPD. And while I'm sure it's not solely due to sleep deprivation, the sleep dep. plays a huge role.

So we're working on getting more sleep. It's a slow process. And for those of you who are curious, no I am not on medication. My midwives and I agree that we want to try and eliminate the possible causes before they refer me for medication. I feel much better now that I've talked to them and we have a plan... and now that I've gone "public" so to speak. Keeping it all inside was really hard.

Anyway, back to G's sleep (or lack thereof). Today we bought a white noise machine. We've also increased the amount of food he gets during the day and added in fish oil - the extra calories will hopefully help him sleep longer. Bryan now gets up with him once a night and gives him a bottle (instead of me bringing him into bed and nursing him all night). He does eventually make his way into bed and I do still nurse him through the night but it's getting (slightly) better. I really hope the noise machine is the silver bullet here and we get a decent night's sleep.

He did break tooth #5 today so maybe that will help. I also gave him some Tylenol tonight since we just discovered the new tooth. Hyland teething tablets have been recalled and they were our "go-to" for teething so now we have to use Tylenol (or the off-brand from Target). His gums weren't swollen so I didn't realize he was teething! So far his teeth have come in pairs so maybe #6 is on its way.

Both Bryan and I will be happy when G is out of this stage and sleeping through the night. When he's 14 and I can't get him out of bed I will revisit this post and laugh.