And You Wonder Why I Don't Nap

Last Saturday I indulged in a very rare and long overdue treat. A nap. A nap with my husband.

Chubalicious was down and the Notorious MRA was having some quiet time, very quietly. So I fell asleep. It wasn't that kind of deep sleep where you wake up and feel refreshed. It was more that kind of sleep that while you are asleep you are still thinking and wondering if you really are, indeed, asleep.

I was thinking/dreaming I was having the carpets cleaned. And it was a good nice.

I heard MRA poke around downstairs a couple of times but he was really quiet so I did not get up and just kept on lying there wondering if I was asleep.

Once Chubalicious woke up, though, nap time was over and MRA wanted to show us what he'd been doing.

Jonathan quickly found 2 empty yogurt containers scattered around the living room so we knew he had been snacking, but what else???? After bouncing down the stairs with a stack of papers, MRA invited us to view his art.

MRA: Here are the tracks my toy dinosaur made across the paper.
Me thinking: Yep, looks like tracks, wait... shit, where did you get paint?

 

MRA: Oh, and look Mama at this one - these are my hands.

Me thinking (still sleepily) - Those ARE your hands - wait, did he put his hands in paint?

Then came...
Me: MRA? Are those your feet?
He was VERY proud.

 

Then the indisputable evidence. I asked him how he did it and he proudly confrmed that he painted his feet. 

 

I wish I had taken a photo of the carpet before I cleaned it up. I was thankful for washable paint but mostly really proud of his resourcefulness.

 

Sunday morning he painted all our feet! See if you can guess whose toes belong to who tomorrow!

Wordless Wednesday

MRA's Law

Its a little bit like Murphy's Law but a lot more painful and most likely to be applied in situations where I need sleep.

MRA's Law states that if you go out on the town, be it a date or ladies night or some other random event, you WILL pay for it. Any relaxation or stress relief that was garnered from your time away will be negated within hours of you returning home and going to sleep.

And this makes me angry. So then, I am just tired and angry and no one should talk to me, especially MRA. I should probably carry around some sort of warning sign or just not ever go out again.

And to think, when I came home and checked in on him, I thought "He's such a sweet child." Haha - MRA's Law.

Dr. Ferber, redux

It's that time again. We revisited Dr. Richard Ferber and once again are very, very thankful. Dr. Ferber has given us our lives back and changed parenthood for us, for the better.

You may recall me gushing about him two years ago when we were sleep training MRA. Not much has changed. ASA took a little longer with the program than his older brother but we started a few weeks earlier, so maybe that was the issue. In any event, the following photos are of MRA and ASA post- Ferberization.

Can you tell who is who?

I told some one the other day, "I think I would leave my husband for Dr. Richard Ferber. Actually, the truth is I think Jonathan would leave me for Dr. Ferber!"

Sweet dreams and fingers crossed this continues.

Elfin Magic

Last Sunday morning an elf appeared in our house. MRA named him Jacques.

In case you are not familiar with the Elf On a Shelf concept, he returns every night to the North Pole to report to Santa how the bambinos have behaved and then magically flies back to our house and perches in a new spot every morning.

Jacques has not done anything mischievous, yet, but he did bring breakfast with him the day he appeared - snowballs and reindeer kisses. A child's dream breakfast, a parents nightmare, especially when that elf put the snowballs in a glass jar not suspecting that MRA would want to devour about 100 of them. And whilst reaching for said glass jar would drop it, sending shards of cheap but terrifically sharp shards of glass across the tile floor, thus bringing a prompt end to the first annual North Pole Breakfast and the beginning cleaning up the floors.

We are really hoping that we can use Jacques to bribe  encourage some better behaviour in a couple of areas that have been a struggle lately, like getting out of bed at 5:30 a.m. (or earlier), coming into our room, uncovering me and saying (very sweetly might I add), "Mama, up. Mama up."

Of course, if there is no immediate response the sweetness goes out the window and turns into a full volume scream,  "MAMA UUUUUUUPPPP."

Hopefully, Jacques can assist. If not, I might just say eff the elf and start drinking from the bottle.

Merry Elfin Christmas!

One month

Its so hard to believe that ASA is already one month old. It seems like we just came home from the hospital. Of course the past few weeks are really just a big blur.

I know we have made some progress with the routine and breastfeeding. And the nights have gotten easier. That is not to say EASY, just not as terrible. I figured out that if I go to bed sometime between 8 and 9:30 (whenever ASA finishes nursing and goes to bed), I get a bit more sleep. Of course, I sacrifice seeing/talking to my husband or watching anything on TV but at least I get a couple consecutive hours of sleep.

My best friend recently told me that, "This is the hardest it is ever going to be." That phrase has become my mantra and I recite it 84,000 times a day.

On a positive note, ASA gets more beautiful, alert, and strong every day. He is growing like a weed (likely because he eats non-stop) and is, most importantly, healthy.

A Delayed Response

Most of you know that MRA just served a stint in the hospital after contracting some sort of virus. We sprung him last Wednsday and he is back to his former glory and then some. Since then, time for this blog has been limited. Here are just a few snipets of things that have crossed my mind during the last week and a half.

Hosptials are dirty - One would think that a hospital would be clean and sterile but one would be grossly mistaken.

There are no healthy food options in a hosptial - One would also think that trying to get something such as a piece of fish and some steamed veggies while trapped in a hospital with your sick 9 month old would not be an extraordinary request. On this instance, you have scampered right on past mistake and slammed head first into faux pas.  Doesn't it seem odd that a hospital, a place that is supposed to get you back to healthy, wouldn't have healthy food options? Which makes me think its a conspiracy and that they want people to remain in or return to the hospital - its probably part of their business plan.

It's impossible to get a good night of sleep in a hospital even if you are not the one sick.

Having his dominate arm/hand rendered nearly useless by an IV will not stop MRA from pulling all the tissues out of a box.

Being thrown up on really sucks. Being crapped on sucks more. Being diarrhea-ed on sucks even more than that. Being thrown up on and diarrhea-ed on in one day makes me a little angry. Being told afterward "Welcome to motherhood!" almost got Jonathan killed. Especially when this is, apparently, what fatherhood looked like... 

Yes, Jonathan left the hospital unscathed by vomit or explosive diarrhea.

And, I will leave you with this. In a crisis situation, I discovered that I am pretty darn good. I remain pretty calm, thoughtful, and can make decent decisions based on the information at hand. The stress doesn't bother me. It's after the crisis, in the lull of peace, when the full force of the afore mentioned crisis hits me that I lose it.

Moral of the story, if aliens invade the earth and attempt to destroy civilization, you can count on me to kick some butt and get you to safety. Just don't expect me to re-build your house when its over.  

An Open Letter to Dr. Ferber

Dear Dr. Ferber,

I think I love you. My husband and I have been employing your controversial fabulous methods for sleep training our infant for the past week. The first night was hard, no - not just hard, but nearly impossible. None of us slept. Listening to the crying  ALL NIGHT LONG was heartbreaking but we kept to the schedule. We did not break - even at 3 a.m.. We somehow got through it. The next night was better and so was the next.

Now, it has been a week and the Notorious MRA is nearly sleeping though the night! I say nearly - what I mean is, he still gets up and fusses but he usually settles himself and falls back to sleep without us having to go in his room. Every once in a while, though, we will have to go in but even on these occasions, we merely hand him his favorite bear and walk out. Of course, Jonathan and I both still wake up periodically and check the video monitor to make sure he is alright make us feel better.

Dr. Ferber, you have given us our nights back. We are all so much happier, so much more alert, so much less likely to snap at any given moment. It may take some time for us to catch up on more than 5 months of sleep deprivation but I think we are on our way.

Fate has a funny way of kicking my ass so I am not going to say we are in the clear just yet but we are hopeful, so hopeful.

Sincerely,
Aslightlylessexhaustednewmom