Roommates

John had his 4 month checkup on Friday (16lbs, 4.5 oz, 26 inches long, and head circumference of 17 inches). Doc confirmed he is still perfect. Well, perfect except for the fact that he is a human booger making machine. I mentioned that my fear of him choking on his own snot (something that actually happens in the night with him-awesome) was keeping me from moving him out of the bassinet. Dr. Eaton kind of balked at the notion that John was not in a crib yet and advised we should move him over in the next month or so.

I knew this needed to happen, for no other reason than the fact that he had about a quarter inch of clearance on either end of the bassinet.

We had fears that since he's still swaddled, he wouldn't be able to defend himself against his big sister, should she decide that he needed an extra pillow or blanket in the middle of the night. And then there were the general fears about them waking each other up in an endless cycle over the course of the night.

By Saturday, I had convinced myself that we were ready to do this. I had warned Annie of the dangers of climbing on the crib (the words "it will fall over and smash you" might have been used) and felt fairly confident after viewing the fear in her eyes that my message was received. I chose to focus on the damage she could do to herself rather than her brother, should she decide to climb the crib and mess with him, because I am fairly certain talking about "things to not do to John", she would just hear "things to do to John".

We put John down first and he was asleep 20 minutes before Annie joined him in the tiny room. She is incapable of whispering. Her whisper is somehow louder than regular toddler speech (which is louder than normal speech). Apparently she thinks whispering is screaming, but with your hand cupped over your mouth with a raspy voice.

John woke up.

Then Annie wanted to see that he was awake.

We refused.

She broke down.

I got John back to sleep.

I got Annie back in bed.

She then had to use the potty.

John woke up from all the potty commotion.

I then took John out of the room.

She broke down.

I contemplated if it would be quicker to sell our house and buy a new one with 3 bedrooms or just add on a room.

Threats were made.

I was sweating.

Rick then stepped in. She knows it's serious when Dad gets involved.

Rick put John in his crib and got Annie in her bed and then sat in the room until both were asleep.

We did the same thing Sunday night as well.

Annie did not wake John up in the night and he didn't wake her up either. Turns out both of them can sleep through about anything. We all survived.

I can admit it: I cried on Saturday night when we finally went to bed and saw his little empty bassinet. I am crying now typing this. I have loved having my little guy right beside me, where I know he's safe and I can get to him in half a second. I know he's probably 25 feet away and I can get to him in 10 seconds if he needs me. I wasn't crying out of fear for him. I know he will be fine. I was crying because I know how this goes. That this move to his own room was the first of hundreds of acts of letting go that will happen for the rest of my life with these two babies. As much as I want to hold him as close as I can for as long as I can, I know that's not good for any of us.  So they move into the next room, into the next big kid bed, into the next school, into another house, but I hope they always know that I will always be right there if the need me.

Do they sell Cliff Notes for Fairy Tales?

Every night I tickle Annie's back before bed. This started out as me just sitting beside her bed and tickling her back. As things tend to do with these kids, the process has gotten more and more drawn out and now I am in her toddler bed with her, singing her "good night" song and tickling her back/head/arms. Last night she wanted another book after the lights were out. I bargained with her that I would just tell her a story and asked what she wanted to hear, thinking it would be Frozen, or Cinderella, or Belle or some other princess story that I know backwards and forwards.


Annie: I want free burrs
Me: .....(blank stare)
Annie: FREE BURRRRRRSSSS, MOMMA!


At this point my Annie to English translator kicked in.


Me: Oh, Goldilocks and the Three Bears??
Annie: Yeah! Gawdywocks and the Free Burrs!


No big deal. I know this one. Goldilocks trespasses into a bear's house/den/whatever and is very hard to please, can't find food/chairs/beds that meet her quasi-burglarific standards and she ends up sleeping in someone's bed when the bears come home. Right? Right. I can handle this.


But Annie actually knew enough of the story to know what I was saying wasn't accurate, but she didn't know enough to actually correct me. Just to stop me and say "No, Momma, that's wrong." I didn't know whose porridge was too hot/cold/just right, so we debated that for a bit. Same with the bed and the chairs. We eventually worked it out and then we got to the end where the bears come home.


I was stumped.


What's the ending of this one? It would be appropriate for her to be eaten by the bears, that being the price one pays for trespassing and all that. But that's not really appropriate for bed time. I decided to wing it.


Me: And then the bears came home and saw Goldilocks and they were so excited to see her, they had a party!
Annie:....(blank stare)
Me:.....
Annie: I have to poop.


Thank God. Saved by the poop. Looks like it's time to brush up on my fairy tales since I can't rely on the poop break to bail me out of every story time bluff.

Tips on Potty Training

I feel fairly comfortable saying now that Annie is potty trained. She still sleeps in a pull up but wakes up dry about 99% of the time. I think the urge to use the bathroom is why we are blessed with 5:45 am wake ups, but that's another issue.


I read about every item available on the internet about potty training. They all had various and conflicting tips:


Praise and reward going on the potty!
Don't make a big deal about it, this is a normal human function!
Only go in the bathroom!
Put a training potty in every room of your house, and your CAR!


I was hellbent on getting Annie potty trained before John arrived. Rick and I would spend weekends in the house with annie just in her underwear, periodically soiling various pieces of furniture (thank God for hardwood floors!). She would occasionally poop in the potty but really just didn't seem to "get it". I should also mention that we have one bathroom in our house. And that one bathroom is upstairs. I was originally against the training potty and wanted Annie to learn to go in the bathroom, so imagine a hugely pregnant woman trying to sprint up the stairs, holding a 35 pound toddler that is mid-urination.


I gave up trying about a month before John was born. At that point I figured she would regress after the baby got here and what's the point? All the internets had also told me that "when they are ready, they are ready", but I had just ignored that little gem up to that point because I love nothing more than trying to bend a toddler to my will. It's very easy and rewarding work. And I inwardly doubted that there was any chance a child would, on their own without constant prodding from their parents, willingly just start using the potty. I mean, in what world does that happen?


I joked that she would pick the absolute worst time to decide she was ready start potty training: right when the baby got home.


Be careful what you joke about.


So about 3 weeks after John was born, guess who started taking an interest in using the potty?


Here's the good part: she really did just kind of start on her own. One day, while I was nursing John, I heard Annie call out "Mommy, I went potty!!!". I took this to mean that I needed to change her diaper. I finished up with John and went into the other room, and to my shock and awe, Annie was standing next to the potty, pants and pull-up down, and #1 in the potty.


Surely this was a fluke.


But it kept happening. Sure, there were some set-backs and accidents, and I still get nervous going to places where I don't know exactly where the bathrooms are, but I feel like we are out of the woods on this particular issue. So, in my effort to help future parents with potty training, here are my "tips":


-Put a potty in every room of your house. Possibly two in rooms that are larger than an average size room. Get over the fact that someone will likely be pooping in the same room where food is prepared (thankfully, given the size of our house, we have avoided having a potty in the kitchen, though it was considered at a point).


-invest in a LOT of candy. And booze. Most of it is for you. Reward going on the potty. Don't worry that you will have to give them candy for the rest of their lives. It stops eventually. Though I do find myself craving skittles every time Annie pees now.


-forget about dignity. At some point, you will be at a park and the bathrooms are still inexplicably closed even though it's mid-April and the playgrounds are packed and your child will start showing the signs that a poop is on the horizon. Driving home is not an option and you don't have a change of clothes (see: Be Prepared below). It's time for the public deuce. I had seen this executed by my nieces on the side of the road and once, impressively, off the side of a boat (stay classy, Loyd/Hagemann/Erwin/Harkins family!), but never really thought about it myself. Thankfully, children require very little persuading to poop outside of the house. So this is more about you and your dignity. But if you have given birth, it's likely you don't have a shred of dignity left, so this will seem like no big deal. It will happen. If you know the bathroom is locked, scout out a semi-private poop spot ahead of time and be prepared to bolt at the first sign of butt clenching. Relieving yourself outside is really a life skill, so just think of it that way and try really hard not to make eye contact with any of the other mothers on the playground post-poop. They know what you just did.


and the most important one:


-BE PREPARED. Always, always have with you a change of pants, underwear, wipes, training potties, and Xanax. And if you are so inclined and very disturbed by the public poop scenario described above, rent a trailer and a port-o-potty to haul around behind your minivan.


And I guess I should end with the advice that I ignored but seemed to be most accurate: you can't force it. They will get it eventually and it's not worth the struggle to force the issue.


Happy Potty Training!!!!

We are alive, almost 4 months and almost 3 years

Sooooo. What's up?

Remember us? We are neck deep in baby/toddler land over here. Dare I admit this in a semi-public forum (semi only because there are four people that read this blog), but John is sleeping through the night. Like real-deal sleeping through. 7:30-6:30. Somehow I am still only getting 6 hours of sleep a night, but whatevs. It's good for me mentally to be able to say that at least one person in this house is getting sleep.

Rick and I joke that John is our "fake baby". He is possibly the most laid-back human baby on the planet. If he didn't smile and laugh in response to our fabulously hilarious antics, I might think something is wrong. But thankfully with these second babies, I seem to worry a bit less. I mean, I haven't gotten a hand cramp from furiously searching the internet for mysterious infant maladies like I did with Annie, so that's a step in the right direction. No?

John is still nursing, which is FINALLY going well. As you can see from his size, we are no longer worrying about him getting enough nourishment. Homeboy is large. We are almost in 6-9 month clothing and only using size 1 diapers because we have a ton to get through, but he is practically busting out of those bad boys. He eats 5 times a day now, usually at 7, 10, 1, 4, and 7. I only mention this for documentation purposes.

It is crazy to me how much you forget about babies in the down time between. I find myself looking at the information from when Annie was a baby to see what we should be doing now. This is bizarre because we certainly didn't know what we were doing the first time around, but yet it seems as if I know even less now. I am the Benjamin Button of parenting knowledge.

Annie is awesome. She is hilarious. She is starting to pick up fun new phases and is a shockingly excellent mimic. If I make a noise out of exasperation or frustration, she will say "mom, why you say (and then make the exact noise)?" She has gone from being the world's worst eater to maybe almost the world's third worst eater. I have finally just started rolling with it because I think she's genuinely not hungry. I mean, sometimes she won't even eat ice cream or cookies. Thankfully Mom and Dad are around in these circumstances to make sure this stuff doesn't go to waste.

That's all I have time for now, but eventually I will have both the mental capacity and the time to blog on the regular again. Until then, I might just start sending pics. That's all you people really want anyway. There's a surprising number of pictures of me in the images below. Not sure how I feel about that but I know I will be thankful for them later.

Time travel

To the person that thought it was wise to bump the clocks forward or back two times a year, I say...


EFFFF YOOOOOUUUU!!!! (sorry Gaddy)


I remember when I was 24 and I was out at the bar at 3:00 in the morning (sorry Dad) one cold night in November and it was closing time. Then, like magic, it was all of a sudden 2:00 am again and we didn't have to go home. It was the closest I have ever come to time travel, which I normally hate. It was also the only time in my life I have appreciated the time change. Of course, I was cursing the time change inventors the next day as I slammed my double cheeseburger and super-sized fries in an effort to get rid of my hangover, but I digress.


So what I am trying to say is that I have never, while sober, liked the whole time change thing. And then, you add kids into the mix and it's like those time change inventors are actually wagging their middle fingers right in your face and saying, "Hey, glad you had that sleep schedule all worked out, but...better kiss that whole scene goodbye because now your kid's going to be waking up at 4:30 in the morning for the next five months until you finally get them to sleep until a semi-normal hour and just when you settle into a new routine, we'll change things up again and they will be up until all hours of the evening. We hate you. Good luck."


And since Annie's on a strict circadian rhythm sleep cycle and lives and dies (or sleeps and wakes) by if it is dark or light outside, I expect us to be doubly screwed. But because I am missing the part of my brain that can figure out if I am going to be early or late if I miss the time change (I assume this is the same part of my brain that cannot figure out how Marty McFly can both be in the parking lot of the mall in the Delorian as well as watching himself from a hill overlooking the mall parking lot), I can't ever anticipate exactly how I will be screwed by the time change. Should I start moving the bed time up for this change, or moving it back? Will we be up late or up early?


I also feel like we should be able to opt out of the change. Certain people should not have to comply. Specifically the change where we lose an hour (I think that's this one). I am already getting a max of six hours of sleep a night. The last thing I need is to lose an hour because of some arbitrary shift in the clocks likely decided to be a good idea 100 years ago by some childless drunks trying to figure out how they could plow the fields for an extra hour a day. I would gladly get up and harvest corn before the light of day rather than watch 15 episodes of Calliou before the sun even comes up.


But, it will happen. And until I run for President, there's not much that I can do about it. If anyone wants to call me any time to gripe about this, feel free. I am sure we'll be up.


Edited to add: If you really want to make your brain bleed, think about Indiana and how they don't acknowledge the time change. It is both brilliant and terrifying. How anyone ever knows what time it is around there is beyond me. Or do they always know? Seriously, I might have a stroke....

Thank you-2.5 Months

Oh John,

I am so sorry. You are so neglected on this blog. But I wanted to take a second (because that's really all we have these days) to say thank you. Thank you for being such an incredibly good baby. You are so sweet and are always smiling. This could partially be because your big sister is constantly one millimeter away from your nose screaming "SMILE JOHN!!!!!! JOHNNNNN, SMIIIILLLLLLE!" Every once in a while you manage to get your little baby fingers tangled in her hair. That'll teach her to get so close.

I hear these horror stories from mothers, telling of how their baby can't be put down, wouldn't sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time, wouldn't stop crying, had colic, wouldn't let anyone else feed them/wouldn't take a bottle, wouldn't sleep unless they were held...the list is endless. All the while I am holding my sweet little boy a little tighter while they eye you like a hungry person eyes a sandwich. I really do feel like we won the baby lottery. Again, thank you.

You transitioned to Jen's house very easily. A little too easily, if you ask me. Part of me was hoping to hear that you wanted your Mom, but you are so easy going that it wasn't to be. I guess I am even more happy that you are so content all the time. You have started taking a monster nap in the afternoon from around 10:30-1:30. Unfortunately, there are only a few days of the week where your slumber isn't interrupted with us throwing you into your car seat to shuttle your big sister somewhere. You second babies get no respect.

You are still in size 1 diapers, you weighed 13 lbs 6 oz (70th %) and were 24 inches long (83rd %) at your 2 month check up. Your head was a whopping 16.5 inches (96%). Doctor Eaton confirmed that you are perfect and have no issues growing. Music to my ears.

You are a great sleeper and go to bed around 7 each night. We then get up for one feeding at around 3-4 and then back to bed until 7. Lately you have been so charming after our middle of the night session and smile and coo at me. I am on to you and know you are trying to keep me up, and believe me, mister, it is very tempting. But no one wins when Mom is tired.



Oh look, so sweet.....

.....until she looks like she wants to bite your head off.

My little man.

Let's be honest, these are going to be more around the half month mark. 2.5 months old in this pic.

You hate the swaddle, but can't sleep without it. Or can't sleep for more than 15 seconds at a time.

Basically, life is starting to feel like "normal" again. I feel like our family is complete with you in it. Thank you for that, also.

I love you, sweet boy.

~Mom

6 Weeks.

Dear John,

It was recently subtly pointed out to me that I have been slacking in the blogging department, and that you were the party taking the most direct hit with the lack of documentation of your early days. For this, I am sorry. The truth is, there is just so much MORE these days. More laundry, more picking up, more feeding (you like to take your time), more meal planning, more more more. But there is also a bit more appreciation this time around. With you, my beautiful second child, I am hyper aware of the fact that I will NEVER get this time back. This time with you where it's just us and I don't have work, and some days we don't have your sister, and because there are no degrees of warmth outside, we don't even have the pressure to DO ANYTHING, except to lay around and stare at each other and for me to take in every little bit of your beautiful baby self.

You really are quite handsome. What can I say? Your Dad and I make some pretty good looking babies. There are times you look so much like your sister did as an infant that I find myself calling you Annie. It's amazing how your brain recalls images that had long since been tucked away until you have something that brings it all rushing back.

And it did all come rushing back. How a baby's head feels tucked under your chin, how you have to be so so careful with their little tender bodies, how MANY DIAPERS you go through when they are this age, how it almost feels like it's not worth getting in bed at 11 at night because you are just going to have to get up in an hour and a half.

But with you it feels different. I feel more calm about what we are doing. Well, except for the breast feeding part. That took us a bit to get into a groove there. And that's an understatement. I might have had some sort of post-partum depression that manifested itself as a manic obsession with getting you to breast feed "properly". Once I bent myself to your will, things turned around and we have been much better since. Never get in a fight with an infant. You will lose and it won't be pretty.

Don't let my lack of writing about you make you think I have not wanted to. I have written 100s of posts in my head about nursing, differences in baby #2 from your first, priorities, obsessed big sisters, the holidays, etc., but every time I think about putting you down and picking up the computer to write one, you win. Every time. So while you were neglected on this blog, you were definitely not neglected in real life.

I have two more weeks of maternity leave. I am not sure where it went. I am struggling between trying to jam all the little projects I have wanted to complete into those two weeks and then wanting to hold you and snuggle you the entire time.

But I will keep reminding myself that the sorting, folding, and cleaning (and blogging) will always be there. But my little baby-my last baby-won't be this tiny baby for long, and the rest can wait.

I love you, sweet boy.

~Mom