Ian's First Verse

Last night I dropped both Ian and Nadia off for the musical rehearsal on my way to my last choir rehearsal. I had worked with both children on the Bible verse that was due last night. They both recited their verses. It was the first time Ian learned a Bible verse. He really enjoyed the evening, and just like his sister was quick to tell me about the snack. We were listening to the CD in the van today, and I was surprised that Nadia already had learned a few of the songs. He has a really nice voice, but my prediction is that he'll have some "stage fright" and sing very quietly during the actual performances as he's more fearful than his big sister, and he is only three years old! I'm glad they are both enjoying this summer program. Pretty soon it will be time for Ian's first experience in VBS, and he'll be learning verses every week for Cubbies starting in September.

Oliver woke up with a fever and a runny nose. My poor baby seems to come down with this very regularly. We stayed home this morning, but this afternoon we were out and about as Nadia had her dress rehearsal for her tap recital and then we went to Nadia's next to last soccer game. Boy was it hot out. Her team did manage to score one goal, but almost the whole game the ball was near the other team's goal. Paul's parents joined Ian, Oliver, and I in cheering for Nadia at the game.

Wordless Wednesday

Disoriented

Oliver got up at 5:10am, and since he had slept for almost 9 hours straight (without any crying), I let him get up then. Getting up that early through him off his schedule as normally his naps start at (approximately) 9am and 1pm. He went down for his first nap a little before 7am, but that proved to be the right decision (he was yawning) because he slept for an hour!!! His morning nap used to be at least 90 minutes long, but over the last week it hadn't been more than 30 minutes. He got really sleepy at 11:30 so I put him down then for his second nap.

 

He slept for only ten minutes and then woke up crying. I decided to let him cry himself to sleep because ten minutes is not long enough to be his afternoon nap. He cried for 45 minutes and then (drumroll please) slept for five minutes shy of TWO hours straight. Thank heavens. That is the longest nap he's had in a crib in almost four weeks. Once he fell back asleep (at 12:30pm), I took the other two up to brush their teeth and get them in their bedrooms for nap/quiet time. After that, I crawled into bed myself. I must have been in a very deep sleep because when Nadia walked into our bedroom at 1:30pm, I looked at the clock, thought it was 1:30am, and told her it was the middle of the night and she needed to go back to bed. She corrected me and told me it was the day time. I then turned and saw the sunlight streaming through the windows and realized she was correct. I told her she could go downstairs, and I rested in bed for about 15 more minutes until Ian woke up from his nap. I obviously was in a rather deep sleep! I think I'd  better head to bed right now. Sweet dreams!

 

CIO

Noah and Nadia jumping over cracks at the zoo

Since Oliver started sleeping 10-11 hours straight at night just before he turned 4 months old, I thought we'd be able to skip "sleep training" (crying it out) with him. A little before he turned 6 months old he started to regress, and the unsolicited advice of the pediatrician at his 6 month appt was that as long as Oliver wasn't sick, I should let him cry it out. Almost 4 momths later I finally reached the point where I agreed. Last night Oliver woke up at 12am. I got up and closed our bedroom door to muffle the sound. When he stopped crying, I reopened our door.

He started up again at 3:15, and that time he cried much longer (until 5:05). I decided the next time he started crying (even if it was 15 minutes later) I would go get him. When I peeked in his room a little before 7am, he was just waking up. That's definitely the most he's ever cried before (by a long shot), but thankfully he didn't persist as long as Ian did the first time we let him cry it out at night. I'm expecting a fair amount of crying again tonight (although I'd love to be wrong). Experience has shown me that it usually takes two rough nights (the first being the worst), and then the crying episodes are usually VERY brief (maybe 15 minutes at the most) after the two rough nights. Given he's not napping well, I decided now is the time to insist that he starts sleeping at night. My goal is for him to sleep at least 10 hours straight, but at this point I'll settle for 9 hours. As for the nap situation, I've been letting him cry after his morning nap until he's been in his crib for one hour. Today his morning nap was 25 minutes long so I let him cry for 35 minutes before I went and got him. This was the advice that Ian's OT gave us.

 

For the afternoon naps, I've been getting him and then helping him fall back asleep and sleep on me for the duration of his nap. I was thinking that he was so sleep deprived that it was making it hard for him to sleep and hoping that at least one half-way decent nap a day would help him get back on track, but I'm not sure if that theory is working either as it's probably still interfering with him resuming his self-soothing skills that he totally lost in Florida. At this point I think I'm going to just get him when he wakes up (from both naps) even if he's only slept for 15 minutes. I'm not going to leave him crying in his crib after either nap, but I'm also not going to let him sleep in my arms. I am really puzzled. He was such a good napper before our vacation. You think he'd be exhausted as he got at the most 8 hours of sleep last night, which is definitely not enough for an infant, especially one who isn't napping well!

 

P.S. Today his afternoon nap was 80 minutes long!!!! This honestly was the best thing that has happened in a week. Please let this be a sign that these 15-30 minute naps won't continue to be the norm!!!

 

 

 

 

No more picnics

In general I've come a long way with adjusting to having three little ones. I took them out to eat by myself twice last month at sit down restaurants, which was proof in my mind that I'm much more adjusted to handling three kids age four and under by myself than I was when Oliver first came home. I've even taken all three to the grocery store by myself, which is challenging because the shopping cart only accommodates one child, and I've started putting Oliver in that seat, which is very upsetting to Ian who wasn't ready to give that up. After church there was a picnic. I had a feeling this might be more challenging than a sit down restaurant, and I was right. I need to skip picnics in the future. Nadia did fine except for the fact that it was very windy out and the wind blew away her plate (with food on it) more than one time. She was very motivated to eat her hotdog and macaroni and cheese, as she saw the dessert table. Ian requested the pulled pork when I told him the choices, but he didn't eat anything except for a couple of chips so he wasn't allowed any dessert. This resulted in a MAJOR tantrum when he got home and was sent to bed for his nap a very hungry boy. I brought his sandwich home for Paul to eat. Oliver was a great eater. He had baked beans, macaroni and cheese, and some other bites from my plate including some of my desserts, but he was a fussy baby because he had been up since 4:15am. He only slept 8 hours last night, and he had only napped about 5 minutes total between 4:15am and 12:15pm when we were having lunch. Picture me at a picnic table with Oliver in my lap and my two other kids beside me trying to feed myself and Oliver, trying to get Ian to eat something, and trying to catch the napkins and plates which kept blowing away. Whew. The food was very yummy, but I was in over my head. Next time we'll opt for our usual lunch of yogurt or a sandwich at home. When he wakes up from his nap, I will offer him a banana, but other than that he's going to have to wait until dinner to eat. He needs to learn to be more flexible. Ironically there were quite a few choices at the picnic: chicken, hot dogs, pulled pork, potato and macaroni salads, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, etc. Ian needs to learn to eat more than just pizza or pancakes when we're out in public, but eating even one thing in public is a big improvement over last year. Oliver quickly is going to pass Ian out in his eating skills. Last night Oliver did a better job than Ian did with eating his pierogies for dinner. Way to go, Oliver! I am so very relieved he doesn't have a feeding disorder even though he was born 9 weeks early.

 

 

Early to Bed

My bedtime lately has been 10pm. I need to push it back to 9:00. Last night I went to bed at 8:30 because I hadn't gotten more than 7 hours of sleep in weeks. Many nights I've only gotten 6 hours. I function best with 8-9 hours of sleep. I tried to take a nap yesterday, but since Oliver only takes 20-30 minute naps now, that didn't work too well. I feel rather frazzled, and I figure getting a better amount of sleep might help. Today is our eighth day at home, and Oliver hasn't made any progress in returning to his pre-vacation self. For the past 6+ months he was getting an average of 14 hours of sleep a day (sometimes as much as 15). Yesterday he had 10.5 hours total (9 hours at night and three 30 minute naps). So he's losing about four hours of sleep a day. This translates to a yawning, fussy baby and makes it oh so much harder for me to do things like cook, clean, do the laundry, mow the lawn, pack, do schoolwork with Nadia, etc. Had I known this was going to happen, Oliver and I wouldn't have gone on vacation.

The weather has been ALL over the place this past week. When we got back the highs were in the 60's and then it went to the 70's and then the 80's and then the 90's, and yesterday the high was only in the 50's! This time of year we usually don't use the furnace or the air conditioner, but we used the air conditioning for the first time this year a few days ago and then last night we had to turn the heat on for the first time in weeks. A few months ago I would have thought the 50's was balmy weather, but after being in Florida and then experiencing a brief heat wave here in PA, it felt so cold! At this time of year (when we're not trying to go swimming), my favorite weather is when it's sunny and the highs are in the 70's. The kids took advantage of the rain we had this week and enjoyed jumping in puddles although when we were walking back from the park on Thursday Ian discovered he didn't like jumping in really deep puddles because then the water splashed up higher than his boots. Yes, my little boy doesn't like to get wet (he cries when I wash his face after lunch), and he insists on using a fork to eat a brownie. I love you, Ian, quirks and all!

 

We haven't heard anything since Monday morning from MVCC. We're assuming that no news is bad news and that they picked the other candidate. What I find ironic is that we are so disappointed about a job that really was far less than desirable for so many reasons. This position involves teaching 19 credits a semester (I used to teach 12 credits a semester) for a salary about $10K less than what I started at 10 years ago, and our contribution toward our health insurance would be about $5K a year, double what we used to pay at my university. Also, upstate New York is definitely not where Paul or I were hoping to end up, but we would have accepted if they had offered. I am so tired of checking higheredjobs.com, chronicle.com, and Paul's two email accounts multiple times a day. We've submitted a total of 57 applications thus far for at least 60 jobs over the past 8 months. We expect to find out in the next week if Paul will be interviewing in-person at West Liberty. A little glimmer of hope would do our hearts so much good.

The realtor hasn't posted our listing on realtor.com yet. I am disappointed. I remember that in the past when we listed a home that there were several showings within the first several days, which is why I was SO thorough with cleaning and decluttering prior to Wednesday. I moved the kids' hampers into their closets, two floor lamps into the basement, etc. I am trying to remind myself that #1 God is in control (obviously I'm not!) and #2 four houses have sold very quickly in our small development over the past 10 months. We don't have any competition within our development because the house that went on the market in February sold this month, and the house that went on the market in March is under contract. The one that sold the fastest was our next door neighbor's. Theirs was on the market for less than 5 days in October, and the new family moved here in November. The last two times we sold a house it didn't go that fast, which is why I feel like we're late in getting started if we want to move the end of July or sometime in August, but hopefully everything will work out just right. It does feel strange to be trying to sell our home before we have any idea where we're moving.

 

Aunt Tina with the kids at the zoo

 

 

 

Rhyme Time!

The kids have picked up certain skills before I even expected them to such as Nadia walking when she was 9 months old and Ian learning the letters of the alphabet before I even worked on them with him. Other skills have taken longer than I expected them to such as Nadia learning to buckle her seatbelt and Ian learning how to eat. I am not sure why we as parents tend to get worked up when our child isn't on par with other children we know. Ian didn't crawl until he was 12 months old, and he didn't walk until he was 15 months old. Who cares? I realized after he started walking what a blessing it was (primarily when I carried him around at Nadia's gymnastics lesson) that he started walking a bit later than I expected he would, although the pediatrician told me he was still in the "normal" range. I think part of it really is pride. We want our children to be one of the first to accomplish a certain skill rather than one of the last. For example, I know many kids Nadia's age are much farther along in their reading skills than she is.

I really, really don't want to push my kids. Why rush childhood? I would have loved it if she was already ready to really take off with reading, but she hasn't been. She is great at memorizing words, but although she knows the sounds each letter makes, the concept of sounding out a word truly hasn't clicked for her yet, and that's okay. She'll be turning five next month. Years ago children weren't expected to learn how to read until first grade. Now that expectation has been shifted back to kindergarten in most schools. Yes, some preschoolers can read well, but that's not the norm. A couple of years from now I'm not going to care whether she started reading when she was four or five. I'll just care that she loves to read and is continuing to grow in her skills.

One skill that Nadia didn't grasp the first several times I tried to work with her on it over the last year was rhyming. She's very auditory so I thought it would be an easy skill for her to learn. Nope. Every once in a while I would test the waters, and if it was still going right over her head, I would drop it for a few weeks or months. While we were on vacation, I discovered (out of the blue) that she now knows how to rhyme. This certainly put a smile on my face, and it reassured me that my approach of just waiting until the time is right, is the way I want to go. I haven't pushed the kids At All with their self dressing skills. I waited until Nadia started expressing her independence that she wanted to do it herself. I think the only thing she has yet to learn is to tie her shoes, and for now I plan to continue buying shoes with velcro. As long as the kids express an interest at a reasonable age, I am going with the flow with many skills. The next time I hear about a child a similar age of one of my children doing something he or she is not yet doing, I am just going to remind myself that it isn't a race, and in a short while it won't matter to me how old my child was when he or she mastered that skill. One notable exception would be chewing and sleeping. I doubt I'll ever forget how long it took Ian to master those two very important skills!

The one I'm longing for Oliver to learn is to say my name. I told him a few weeks ago that would be the perfect Mother's Day present, but thus far he only says one word (dada). I remember asking Nadia the same thing in May 2009, but she didn't give me my wish either, haha. If I had to pick three things for Ian, I'd focus on continued improvement with self-feeding a wider variety of foods, greater independence with going to the bathroom, and less crying and whining in general. My mental list of goals for Nadia is the longest. Four of the ones I'm hoping she'll master in the coming weeks and months include learning how to pump her legs to keep the swing going (I've tried so many times to teach her that skill!), feeling brave enough to learn to ride her bike without training wheels, learning how to read by sounding words out, and realizing when she needs to blow her nose so the long strings of mucus will go in Kleenex rather than down her face, on her clothes, the floor, etc multiple times a day EVERY day. We also need to work on her soccer skills if she truly wants to play on a team again in the future. Last night she had soccer practice for the first time in five weeks.

Paul is very discouraged about the job search. He had been trying not to get his hopes up, but when he found out on Monday morning that he was one of the top two candidates, he got his hopes up again. On Wednesday his advisor said she had talked with the Dean. This school hadn't requested letters of reference with the application as most schools do. Yesterday another of Paul's references said the Dean hadn't contacted him yet. Paul has four references, and only two of these can speak to his experience as a teaching assistant, and his advisor isn't one of them. The community colleges don't care about research just teaching experience. I'm hoping God is closing this door because He's going to open one at West Liberty. An invitation to interview in-person there would do my hubby a world of good. He's made it to the top three twice and the top two once, but what he really needs is to be chosen as the top candidate somewhere. It's hard for me to see him so depressed. I keep telling him he has four cheerleaders at home who love him very much!

 

 

Thankful Thursday

1. We made it home safely from our vacation and enjoyed fabulous weather while we were there.

2. Gabby, Alexis, and Beth (our beloved neighbors and babysitters who moved to Oklahoma) surprised us with a brief visit and gifts on Monday. We hadn't seen them for 11 months. What a special time it was!!!!

3. Paul worked SO hard and did SUCH a nice job with several spackling, sanding, carpet cleaning, and power washing projects the last five days. He's going to work on Saturday because he took yesterday off to work around the house and sign paperwork.

4. Oliver woke up at 2am on Monday morning. I let him "fuss it out." It was the right decision as he then slept a little past 6am. Because he was only fussing, I was able to close our door and go back to sleep. I know from experience with his siblings that had he been crying, I still would have heard him through our closed door. This didn't work on Tuesday morning. Wednesday he slept until 5:45am! This morning I let him cry for a little bit at 2am. I think it's reasonable to expect him to sleep at least 9.5 hours (8:30pm to 6:00am, especially since he's lost his ability to take nice naps.

5. Paul is one of the top two candidates for Mohawk! The search committee picks their top two, and the administration picks from those two. The Dean contacted Paul on Monday to say that he would be contacting Paul's references. They had interviewed five people. It was so encouraging to know he made the next cut. We'd MUCH rather go to West Liberty (his last phone interview), but he'll accept the job if Mohawk offers it!

6. Nadia and I picked out 2 flats of annuals on Saturday. We both enjoyed the outing as well as planting them on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

7. Ian and Oliver like lasagna! I am so very thankful that Oliver is such a good eater. His current diet includes being nursed once a day, formula the rest of the day, and table food (no more baby food aside from some baby cereal mixed with other things). He only has two teeth, but that doesn't slow him down!

 

8. Paul's parents loaned us a carpet cleaner, power washer, and the truck. We planned to put more things in the truck (ex. the broken treadmill in our basement), but on Tuesday night I sawed off a bunch of tree branches fron five trees to make it easier for me to mow the lawn, and I pretty much filled up the truck. There was still room for a few more things but not the treadnill.
9. The weather is supposed to be much cooler starting today. The highs were in the low 90's the last two days here in PA in May! Yikes! It felt hotter here than it did when we were in Florida! Walking to the part is much more enjoyable when the temps are in the 60's and 70's. Once our swimming pool is open for the summer then I'll hope for temps in the 80's, but right now I'd like another couple of weeks of spring like temperatures!

10. Nadia attended the musical rehearsal last night, and I found out Ian is old enough to do it this year. I'll take both of them next Wednesday night!

For Sale

Today we signed the paperwork to put our house on the market. If I could go back in time I would have stuck with our original plan to put it on the market 7 weeks ago, but that's water under the bridge now. In some senses it might still appear to be too early to try to sell the house since Paul doesn't have a job offer yet. We're still hoping he'll start a career as a chemistry professor in August, but even if he doesn't, his current commute to work is one hour each way. Even though we've been planning for quite some time to try to sell our house, it still hit me as rather official when I saw the sign in our yard. I've already left my job so pretty much the only connection I have to this town right now is church. I did find myself feeling rather emotional at choir rehearsal this evening thinking that I might  not be singing in this choir in the fall. I joined this choir in January 2009. Next Sunday I'm playing the flute with the choir, and in two weeks we'll have our annual "Choir Sunday" which means we'll be singing five anthems that morning.

Ever since we got home, it has felt like we've been under a lot of pressure to get the house ready for 1pm today. I was trying to be really thorough in cleaning so that the realtor could take pictures and also in the hopes that if our house started to be shown a few days after that, we'd be ready to show the house. Paul was doing things like power washing the fence and one area of the siding, steam cleaning a few areas of the carpet in three rooms, spackling, sanding, etc. I put more toys in the basement to make it easier to keep the house clean. I figure that we'll be outside a lot more and won't need to have as many toys inside. I'm hoping it won't take long to get the house under contract mainly because keeping the house ready to show is going to be really hard with three little munchkins. I actually feel a little sense of relief now that the pictures have been taken, and I'm ready to show the house if someone wants to see it later this week. Cleaning the house and unpacking from our trip has been much harder because Oliver's schedule is totally out of whack.

For more than 6 months Oliver's naps have totalled an average of four hours (sometimes as much as five). On vacation this wasn't the case, but I expected that would likely happen. I didn't think that it would be this bad after we'd been home for five days. Aside from going to the library and ballet on Tuesday afternoon, Oliver has been at home the past five days to make sure he could take his naps in his crib at the right times. Wrong. A short nap for Oliver in the past was 60 minutes. Usually his naps were at least 90 minutes long.

Yesterday he took ONE nap in his crib, and it was 20 minutes long. Today he took two naps in his crib (30 minutes each), and then as you can see from this picture he took a brief nap in the stroller on the way to the playground before dinner. Oliver is usually a very happy baby, but over the past five days he has been a very fussy baby. This has led to a frazzled mommy. If I had to do it over again, I wish Oliver and I had stayed home in PA and not gone on the vacation. I really hope he goes back to taking nice naps - for his sake and mine. Now that the rush for getting the house ready is over, I want to get back to doing schoolwork with Nadia tomorrow. I did start reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle to the kids today. I hadn't read them a chapter book for more than two weeks, and we were all missing it! Both Ian and Nadia had been asking me the last few days to start reading a chapter book to them again. Speaking of vacations, I asked Paul today what his three most favorite vacations were, and I was wrong about one of them. He said Aruba, not Italy, was his third most favorite. I was right that he thought St. Lucia was #1 and England/France was #2. I have many more vacation pictures to post, but I thought I'd share some I took today instead. The dress Nadia is wearing is the one I bought at a yard sale shortly before we went on vacation. It's long enough that she'll be able to wear it more than one year. I think it's stunning!

Downtown Disney!

 We didn't eat out that many times (nine meals) considering we were on vacation for ten days. We bought lunch at the zoo, ate a dinner at the Patio (restaurant near the pool at our resort), bought lunch at the Magic Kingdom, got a dinner at Subway, got lunch from Dunkin Donuts on our way back to Jacksonville, ate one dinner at the airport, and we went to three sit down restaurants - Perkins, Denny's, and the T-Rex Cafe in Downtown Disney. The latter was our biggest splurge. On Thursday morning we went swimming and then had our picture taken at the resort (so we could receive two free 5x7's). Our next stop that day was a trip to Downtown Disney for lunch and to visit the shops. The kids enjoyed playing with the legos and potato heads and riding the train. This picture (at left) is Paul's favorite from the trip. It was taken inside the Lego store.

In Antigua and Grand Cayman, Paul's parents shared a unit with us. I am sure they got more rest, sleep, and quiet since they were in their own unit this time. We also had separate cars, which again meant their time in the car was much more peaceful and quiet as Oliver does not like to be in a car seat unless he's asleep. Vacations with little ones are definitely not as relaxing. The exception would be our trip to Antigua when Nadia was 10 months old. Of all the vacations we've been on over the past 12 years my three least favorite were the cruise, Grand Cayman (because of the lousy weather and the fact that the food at the restaurants and grocery stores was SO expensive), and our trip to Florida in 2010 (because Paul was studying most of the time and Ian wasn't sleeping). My most favorite vacations from the past 12 years would be #1 St. Lucia (2001), #2 Mexico (2002), and #3 England/France (2002). St. Lucia is also Paul's favorite, but our trip to Mexico wouldn't be in his top three; I think he'd put my #3 as his #2 and Italy would be his #3. Aside from the nights in the hospital, I haven't had a night away from the kids since Nadia was born. We almost went away for a weekend for our 10th anniversary two years ago. A little trip with just Paul would be heavenly. Maybe in 2014 we can take a little getaway.

 

This trip went much better because the weather was perfect, and although Oliver got up at 4am or 5am most mornings, I still got far more sleep than I did on the first two vacations with Ian. We might not be able to go on a getaway this year, but I think at least a date is in order. We've been on only one date in the past twelve months, and that was with Oliver. It's been more than a year since Paul and I ate one meal without any kids. These years with the kids is going to fly by (unfortunately). Some day we'll be able to go on vacations as just a couple again, and maybe someday we'll be able to go on a vacation with them when they are married and have kids. It definitely was helpful having Paul's parents with us. Paul's dad even got in the water (two different days!). He hadn't been swimming since we were in Antigua (2009). The water in the splash pad was COLD (unlike the water in the swimming pools, which was nice and warm). Pop Pop went with Ian in there several times. I told Ian that this was true love. Our kids are so blessed to have four grandparents who love them very much.