MyLilSleepAvoiders

I had myself two little sleep avoiders tonight.

Zachy just wanted to play ball. Really bad. He was having so much fun. But then came time for jammies. Got them on with some protest. Time to brush your teeth, Zachy! He walked out of his room right back to the balls. Silly guy. You know what I said! Teeth! He went into the bathroom, got his toothbrush and walked right back to the balls. No more balls tonight, Zachy. Time for bed! Teeth brushed. And then, a light bulb went off in Zachy's head: I'll play that great  game Mackenzie plays. Baby! Down on all fours, crawling, saying Baby! Chase me Momma. So, I did, tried to lure him back into the room. Finally got him there. In the crib. Right to sleep.

And now for Mackenzie.

No Momma, I need to do my paperwork. this is what the teachers do. Cutting. Writing. Choice time: Do you want to walk there or have Dad carry you? Dad comes over. I WALK THERE. Too late. Potty time. No, I need to do my cutting! I no have potty. I went poopy. Yes, there was indeed some more potty that needed to come out. Done. Jammie time. Fussing girl. Do you want Daddy to put on your jammies or me? Me? Then cooperate! Book time. It's late. One story. Nooooo. I want this many (ten fingers). Not happening. But two is a nice compromise. Books done. Laying down. Fifteen minutes. Droopy eyes. She pops up. The problem is, I not tired. I want to eat. Should have eaten more at dinner. I have an idea. Come with me and I show you. Nice try Mackenzie. Dad's turn!

Good Night My Sleeping Zachy and (Almost) Sleeping Mackenzie. Love You Both! SoVeryVERY Much!

RunningRambleNo.2

Whata week. Mostly good. We had a 'Moment' on Wednesday, but otherwise, not a bad week.

Wednesday I think we were all feeling a bit caged up. Especially me. After the holidays, the snow and then just not getting out, we've been home way too much. But, today we went to the zoo, full post with pictures to follow shortly.

I never really got around to posting this week other than my 2GoodTuesday. I started on Monday with some randomness, but never really finished. Then added a bit on Wednesday and then Friday. Also never finished. So, here's a combined RunningRamble effort from our at home days last week. Since they cover different days, ignore any 'time references!'

• I love the mud in the backyard since the snow melted. Really I do. So, so, so glad my kids are outside in the mud in their socks.
• Speaking of socks, Mackenzie has sock neurosis. They hurt her if there is the slightest crinkle.
• Mackenzie just called out from the playroom, 'I at the hospital. My baby is going to be a little born.'
• I think Zach threw away one of his Fisher Price toy milk bottles.
• Mackenzie is wayyyyy too fixated on Olivia. She now wants to be called Francine. Make that Queen Francine.
• Zachy came in and brought me his shoes to put on. The bottoms of his white socks are, not surprisingly, black.
• Yesterday Zachy and Mackenzie were outside. I hear him crying. I go see what's wrong. Mackenzie has been 'washing' him with cold, muddy water. Sweet sister.
• And, yesterday Mackenzie pretended to be a puppy, In doing so, she decided to pee in the backyard. It was as funny as it was disturbing.
• When I clean the playroom, I inevitably stop at the play kitchen. Do you think maybe, just maybe, this is some form of MommaRebellion?
• I just made broccoli, cauliflower and cheese soup, from scratch. Zachy is a food thrower. Why did I think this was a good idea?
• I made the mistake of referring to Mackenzie as 'Princess Mackenzie.' She's taken on this role and run with it. Demanding. Expects me to be at her beck and call. Oh wait...nothing's changed. Just another day with a three year old.
• Zachy comes up to me sometimes and just gives me a totboy hug. He's getting the whole cuddle idea too. Love it.
• Mackenzie is an expert Snuggle-bug. She Loves it. I Love it.
• Today I saw a wasp and the other day I saw a bee. Come on guys, it's January! We had snow. Shouldn't those things be gone by now? And I mean totally gone. Annoyed. And concerned, because if they have survived, they must be some sort of super stinging insect, bug or whatever they are species.
• Zachy is taking two to two and a half hours naps. Ridiculous! I might regret saying this, but bygosh he's become a good sleeper! Who'da Thunk that would even be possible!
• Mackenzie has a thing with closing all the doors off the living room. Wondering what it's about. I think it has something to do with her totfears and feeling safer and more in control with the doors closed off.
• Zachy just dumped dog food all over and said, Ut-oh. As if he didn't know that was going to happen!
• 'Momma, I need to jump way higher, so I will grow taller!'
• When I picked Zachy up yesterday, they said he is their favorite eater. He sits at the table, crosses his hands in front of him, and waits. Are they sure they were talking about my son, the food thrower?
• 'Momma, I having a bad, bad day because I got a papercut. Will you call the doctor so I can go in and say I got a papercut, please!'
• Mackenzie made sure I called the doctor. She asked to talk to the Doctor and wondered why the Doctor was not talking back. I made up some lame excuse. Told her the Doctor was busy writing everything down. She bought it and kept talking.
• Mackenzie playing Mommy to Zachy, sweetness.
• Mackenzie playing Doctor with BuddyCat. Have I mentioned how bizarrely patient that cat is?
• I will never get over how cute it is when Zachy puts a choking hazard in his mouth, seeks me out, laughs in my face and runs away. Cute and unfortunately dangerous at the same time.
• Zachy seeing his Favorite Book, 'Yummy, Yucky' and saying Ugy.
• Zachy now plays 'Baby.' He gets on the floor, crawls around and says, Baby. Hmmm....wonder where he got that idea?
• Zachy clapping and saying Yayyyy during the movie Happy Gilmore when Gilmore was playing golf.
• I am ashamed to admit this, but our 'Christmas tree,' a small, humble artificial one is still up. Maybe by February?
• Yippeeee! I found the missing milk bottle. He didn't throw it away. The wagon now has six again. Whoppeee. My life is complete.
• Mackenzie gets into arguments with RufusDog and BuddyCat.
• Mackenzie commenting, while lying on the couch, that something was Stinky. I pointed out it might be RufusDog or perhaps BuddyCat. And she replies with, Or maybe you, Momma. For the record, I was nowhere near her at the time.
• Zachy seeing Puffs and calling them Uffs.
• Mackenzie came up to me with her mouth wide open and then said, Momma, mouth is open. I tired.

TotMusing of the week:

Quite awhile ago, after Mackenzie had done something that upset me, she suddenly started to sing me the ABC song and I started to laugh. On Wednesday, I got upset with her after she dumped her smoothie all the over table for an 'art project.' When I was explaining my upset to her, she said:  Momma, Do I need to sing you the ABC song?

TotboyAndLollipopStealer

My kids seem to develop and do amazing things days much faster than I can possibly find the time to adequately document. It's constant. They are such little developmental sponges.

Zachy is a little totboy now. He's no longer a baby. He is full on tot. Still not in a defiant way, not yet anyway. But, he's grown. His wobble walk is less wobble. He tries to run now. That's pretty priceless. Today he learned how to point to his nose and ears and wiggle his hands, all in one day. He already had the tummy and the head down. He was playing Peek-A-Boo and, very softly and deliberately, said, 'ee ba boo.' He practices new words all the time. His actual vocabulary is still pretty minimal, although I suspect he says a lot more than we realise. And regardless of his use of actual words, he communicates what he wants very well and understands seemingly just about everything.

He imitates Mackenzie now. Loves to do what she is doing, which at times is okay and other times not so okay. One day she was pretending to fix her kitchen with some tools. He wanted some of that action, bad. But Mackenzie was not in the mood to share her game or the tools. Later, after she had gone to bed (he stays up about a half hour later), he went right to the tools and started to fix away. He even reproduced the sounds she was having her tools make.

Today they played doctor. More like Mackenzie played doctor and he decided, after she forced him, to comply. I look over and he's laying there while she examines him. When I walked over she asked me to take off his shirt. I didn't. But I laughed. When she was finished, she said, 'Your baby was very patient today.' She doesn't miss a beat, that girl of mine.

Things have been pretty good lately. Zachy is sleeping better and OHMEGOSH he goes down to sleep by himself. He cries for a minute or so (tonight just a whimper) and is quiet. Now if only I could get the three old to follow suit! I am convinced she is going to cosleep until she leaves the house. This morning she woke up and I was already out of bed and she came out and said, 'Momma, I was worried about you.' Probably more like she was a bit scared (she has definitely entered the stage of the scaries), but it was sweet nonetheless.

Oh, and BIG NEWS....Mackenzie got a real haircut (1-8-10)! Well, I cut it. She had gone with me to get a haircut and I asked about her hair, which I think might make the Guinness Book of World Records for slowest hair to ever come in. But it was cotton candy like in the back. The woman who was cutting my hair explained to me that I needed to cut it regularly in short layers to keep it healthy and growing in (Rookie Mom, I know). Mackenzie would not let her cut her hair, but the stylist showed me basically what I needed to do and I did when we got home and it looks a TON better! Yay! I know she still wants 'True Princess Hair' (Shame on you Dora the Explorer), but I think just seeing real hair on the floor felt good for her.

I cannot believe how fast they are growing up. They learn new things and change every single day. It's impossible to keep up with! They are constantly doing things that amaze me. They make me smile. They make me laugh. And, yes they make me crazy. But at the end of the day, I will have inevitably fallen more in love with both of them.

Now, for a few TotMusings...

• Last Spring Mackenzie and I went on an 'Adventure.' First stop was the car wash and, despite all we did afterward, all she could talk about was how much she did not like the carwash. On Saturday I asked her if she wanted to go on an 'Adventure.' Her response, 'Okay Momma. But I no like the car wash very much.'
• Mackenzie and Zachy were playing Merry-Go-Round; Her 'spinning' him around on an upside down Little Tikes Table. She would say, 'Zachy do you like this?' And he would say, 'YAH!' Trust me, hearing a sixteen month old and a three year say that over and over again is very amusing!
• Zachy loves meat and cheese sandwiches. Actually, what he really loves is the process of taking out the meat and cheese and eating it. He dismantles the sandwich, bit by bit. It's intense.
• Mackenzie called Zachy 'Dude' the other day. I have NO idea where she got that.
• The other day a plane was in the sky and Zachy started to wave and say, Bye bye. Mackenzie did the same thing at his age - it's in the Tot A curriculum, I suppose.
• Mackenzie likes Lollipops. Today she manipulatively told me to go in Zachy's Room, while looking at the Lollipops. I played along and she came and found me and said, I a Lollipop Sneaker! I going to tell everybody I a Lollipop Sneaker!

NappingBabes

(When I started this post...)Mackenzie and Zachy are napping. Zachy now for an hour thirty and Mackenzie now for an hour twenty. After a year of nap struggles, it is bizarre to me to have them both nap at the same time and for any length of time. One day, not all that long ago, Zachy napped a total of TEN minutes and Mackenzie a total of ZERO. And, it took me about two hours to get that TEN minutes out of Zachy. I pretty much lost my MiaMommaMind that day.

That was about the time that I knew something had to change....for my sanity, and for my kid's well being, 'cause an insane Momma is not a good thing, nope, not.at.all! I knew there was no way that one could remain sane and always have either a toddler and/or a baby awake at all times of the day with little to no reprieve from one or the other. Not to mention that nighttime sleeping also was not going well.

Naptimes went through different phases over the first year. I know I have already talked about the ThreeFootTallTotMonster who would interrupt just as Zachy was almost alseep. And then we had totgirl herself, who would not go down for a nap unless I was with her. Finding it impossible to coordinate either of Zachy's naps with her one nap, I would try to put her down while keeping him quiet. For the most part, this worked marginally well probably for about six months. Stressful on me, but we managed...not great, but we did manage. Then, he got louder and would not just nurse to nurse. So, I had both interfering with one another's naps.

Then at about nine months, it all got progressively harder and harder and harder. Zachy was very difficult to figure out a solid sleep routine with. This was likely due, in part, to his still frequent nighttime wakings and, in part, due to the hour long drive to totbabycollege two days a week, which meant catnaps in the morning and evening, which meant it was hard to keep bedtime consistent and therefore naps and so on and so on and so on. Same thing happened with Mackenzie during her first year.

So, from about nine to about twelve months, it was pretty much a daily disaster. Some days better than others, but, overall, N.U.T.S.! Totgirl would refuse naps, but still clearly needed them. Zachy would take two naps a day, but I never really could figure out when was best and the length just never had any rhythm or predictability; So, I never knew what to expect. About three or four in the afternoon, we were all in meltdown mode.

And then came the day of the TEN minute cumulative 'naps'....that was our turning point. I had been considering moving Zachy to one nap. He did not seem quite ready, but CLEARLY nothing else was working. And totgirl....well, it was just plain way over the time where she was just going to HAVE to go down to nap by herself. Cry it out had NEVER worked with her before (even her early babysitter agreed that it did not work for her). But, we all needed MiaMomma to have some sort of grounding break during the day (And it was about this time I let Dad take over the nights with Zachy; Nobody can function on that little sleep for that long and be human).

So, I set my plan in motion: Totgirl to lay down by herself and Zachy to move to one nap. Took a few days, but it all worked. Totgirl protested loudly the first day, not as loudly the second, and hardly at all by the third; She does continue to have some protest daily, but it is pretty weak and she knows I mean business. Zachy adjusted to one nap, which took probably one to two weeks. I also think, strangely, that moving him to one nap helped regulate his nighttime sleep (along with Dad being in the room instead of me). And, he now goes down easily and in his crib no problem...who'da thunk?!?!?

Totgirl is still a nighttime cosleeper. I don't think Zachy was ever really a cosleeper, but I did keep him in bed with me for months for my own survival. Totgirl talks about having her own big girl bed and I think she is getting more and more ready to move in that direction. We are trying to get her to go to sleep on her own at night now, but she is fighting that one HUGELY! But, it'll happen...in TotgirlTime, whenever that is.

So...that's the story of naps and sleep around here over the last year. Clearly, MiaMomma is a bit traumatized from the whole thing, but things are good now. And, for that, I am so.very.grateful! And, I am more convinced than ever that there would not be as many books on sleep as there are and as many internet threads, and as much well intentioned advise, if babies sleeping was an easy or one size fits all kind of thing.

So, today I got two hours thirty out of Zachy and one hour thirty out of Totgirl! That's FOUR cumulative hours, with a whole hour thirty of total peace and quiet...YIPEEEEE!!!!!!! And, on some level, as difficult as the day was, I gotta look back on TEN minute nap day and be thankful, because that day made my life a whole lot better!

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE spending time with my kids and playing and being a Momma. But, today at one o'clock, the house was quiet and my kids looked like this....

...and THAT gives MiaMomma a little time to have some quiet and get some things done. And THAT is a good thing for everyone!

LastNight

Last night Dad had a big football game on the t.v. that he wanted to watch. Arizona vs. Iowa. Usually we divide the bedtime duties...he takes totgirl and I take babyZachy. Last night I planned on putting both to bed. I picked totgirl first, since she had gotten up at the unGodly hour of pre5 a.m. and had barely napped. I figured she would be quick. And, she was, fairly quick, but not quick enough....

While I was putting her to bed, I could hear babyZachy crying. He really is a bit of a Mommy's Baby still and tends to rely on me even more at night for comfort, as he winds down from the day's activities. Perhaps I would have put him to sleep first, but it was hard to tell if he had gotten enough sleep for him during the day, since his napping needs have never been as well defined as I would like.

I shall forever remember the first year of his life as the Year of No Sleep. Totgirl was sleeping through the night at 10 weeks. She has always done better cosleeping, but she slept. But babyZachy was another story. He had normal infant sleep patterns until about 4 months old; Was not sleeping through the night, but was within the normal limits of what the 'books say' would be expected of a baby his age. Then at 4 months he started to wake up pretty much on the hour. I remember taking him to his 4 month appointment at the Pediatrician and saying I thought it was a 'phase.' That phase lasted for about the next 6 months. I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around how little sleep I got during that time.

At about 10 months his sleep 'improved,' meaning he was getting up fewer times a night, but still far from great. To clarify, he got enough sleep it seemed; he would fall back asleep while nursing; It was me who was not getting anywhere near enough. And, during the day, no matter what I tried, I could not get long naps out him. So, I was losing my MommyMind. At about 12 months I decided I just couldn't do the nights anymore and, very honestly, me getting so little sleep was not working well for anyone, especially since the days were long too. So, Dad took over night duty. Actually, Zachy does better when Dad responds to him in the night; with me, he would want to nurse and nurse and nurse. And, Zachy has moved to one nap, which actually seems to be working; Life is looking up on the sleep end! Sleep issues aside, Zachy has been a really easy baby. I guess they all have to have something to keep us on our toes! But man, I knew I probably wouldn't be lucky enough to have two that slept through so early, but honestly, never in my wildest imagination would his sleep be so erratic!

Even thought Dad has taken over the overnight duty, I still put Zachy to sleep at night. We have our special time, all alone. Last night I heard him crying when I was putting Mackenzie to sleep and by the time I got out he had cried himself to sleep. I was so sad. Not only because he cried to sleep (some would think this was a good thing, probably my Mom for one), but because it was the first night in a 265 plus 29 days that I had not snuggled with him before he went to sleep for the 'night,' told him good night, told him how much I love him and kissed him good night.

He is as happy and as fine as ever this morning and Mommy couldn't get in the room fast enough to wish him Good Morning when he woke up!