Many Blessings

1. I'm thankful for the pictures I picked up at Walmart on Friday evening. I smile when I look at them - two are in the family room, three on the refrigerator, one in the downstairs bathroom, two in our bedroom, and I'll be putting one in my office at work. I mailed a couple to my sister yesterday and will be giving some to Paul's family today and to my parents next week. I'm also thankful that Walmart gave me a coupon for 2 more free sheets. I realized I didn't get enough of the one with the two kids together, and I didn't like one of the special effects so I ordered another sheet of that "as is" yesterday morning. They'll come in the mail.

2. I'm playing a flute duet at church this morning (Immortal, Invisible). I am grateful that I can participate in the worship service in this fashion. I love music!

3. Paul's parents are coming up this afternoon. They're bringing their truck so we can go buy a grill (ours is falling apart due to rust and the starter is one of the things that rusted out). We're also going to be buying Paul a suit jacket as his doesn't fit him anymore, and he needs one to wear when he gives his presentation in Poland.

4. Nadia's attention span for reading has grown so much. I love reading to her!

5. Nadia is over her bug, and I'm hopeful that Ian will be feeling better soon. He has a cough and runny nose.

6. Aside from the two Saturdays, there are various people planning to come up and spend at least a little time with us each of the 8 days Paul will be gone (Paul's parents, my parents, and Donna). We'll still miss Paul!

7. I'm grateful for the opportunity to teach an online course this second summer session since I can do that from home.

8. What a blessing it is to live in the USA!

9. It was great having Paul at home last Monday. I love it when he has a three day weekend!

10. I'm thankful Ian slept through the night two nights in a row for the first time! He slept from 8:10-5:25 last night.

11. I love getting Nadia dressed in the morning. She's like my little doll baby! This picture was taken this morning with a dress she got from Aunt Millie and Uncle Al for her birthday. Isn't it a beautiful dress and also such a beautiful little girl. Thank you, Lord!

Growing Boy!

 

July 9, 2010

Isn't it amazing how much babies grow in the 1st year, and he's only 6 months old (for 2 more days anyhow)!

Ian had a great night last night! I put him down at 7:35 and unlike most nights when he gets one more feeding before his long stretch, aside from a little whimpering around 11pm (according to Paul as I slept through it), he slept until 5:55am - almost 10.5 hours. YAY! I actually went and checked to make sure he was still breathing around 5:30. I had woken up about 4:45 and couldn't go back to sleep as my body was very ready to nurse Ian. It's kind of funny that the two nights he's slept through the night have both been Friday nights. Now I just would like it if he'd sleep through the night other nights of the week as well, lol. He only had 3 naps yesterday. I am trying to transition him to 3 naps as ideally in the next 2-3 months he'll transition to 2 (longer) naps. Nadia had a really hard time going to sleep last night, and it wasn't because she had sugar yesterday. It took her over 2 hours to fall asleep!

It's finally raining today. Boy did we need the rain! The upside of the heat wave and drought is that I don't need to mow the lawn. It's not been growing At All. It's brown. Hopefully it will turn green again.

Don't let these pictures from yesterday fool you, Ian generally hates to be on his belly. I thought his attitude would improve since he's been sleeping on his belly for a month. Nope. I am trying to get him to learn to sit independently, and I think he'll accomplish that in the next couple of weeks, but I have NO idea when this child will learn to crawl given how he can't stand to be on his belly. He much prefers to stand.

Babyitis

I definitely have a case of "baby fever" right now. I am surprised it's hitting me this early especially since Ian isn't sleeping through the night yet (aside from last Friday) considering sleep deprivation is the hardest thing I've experienced as a parent the past 2 years. I am not sure if it's because when Nadia was this age we started making plans for ivf or if it's because I am starting to be faced with decisions regarding whether to keep stuff or sell it (such as the infant carseat Ian is no longer using), but I definitely am desiring to have another baby. Seeing a newborn baby or walking by Motherhood at the mall stirs up those feelings even more, the latter I find to be ironic given I found being pregnant to be rather physically unpleasant both times. I wish we had a frozen embryo we could transfer in January. It's probably a good thing our insurance switched to Blue Shield on July 1 as the fact it would cost a lot more to do ivf right now is an additional deterrent. I also keep reminding myself that I'd have to stop nursing if we started ttc right now. I am grateful that Ian is still nursing, and I hope to be able to continue for at least 5 more months.

Most of the reasons I want to have a third child are the same reasons I've wanted to have children for the last 25+ years. A few newer reasons have been added to the list, none of which are good reasons in and of themselves. One would be that I desire to make it past 37 weeks. I really want to experience giving birth to a baby who doesn't end up in the NICU. I highly doubt I'll ever be pregnant again, but if I am, I plan to keep switching OB's until I find one who takes me seriously regarding my propensity to give birth prematurely. I will put myself on bed rest if I start having contractions before 37 weeks. I wish I could go back in time and have done things differently at the end of the last two pregnancies. I also really want to experience nursing a baby who doesn't need a nipple shield. If we have another baby, I plan to stay at home for at least six months, even if Paul isn't done with school yet so that I can have one baby totally fed through my milk and zero formula for at least six months. I'd also love to deliver one baby naturally, but I know there's zero chance of that happening as once you've had two c-sections then VBAC is completely off the table. I love babies and always dreamt of having four. I came to terms a few years ago that three would be the most we'd have, but I haven't given up all hope yet of having a third. Paul commented recently how he was disappointed when he found out that we were just having one this second time. He was surprised that he was looking forward to having twins. We shall see which will win out - my dislike of clutter OR my miniscule ray of hope that the Lord will give us a surprise pregnancy. I have a feeling it will be a combination. I'll probably hold on to some stuff, but also start giving away/selling some stuff. I bought our infant car seat 5 1/2 years ago when I thought we were adopting a newborn baby boy. I had no idea then that it would actually be used for two biological children!

If any of you have suggestions for how to cure a case of "baby fever," I am all ears! I have heard some say they got a puppy and that helped. I do expect we'll get a puppy sometime in the next few years, but I don't think that will decrease my desire for another child one iota. I've also had friends whose children were much more spread apart in age say that after their last child was born they kept dreaming of the day they'd experience being a grandparent. I know some become grandparents in their 40's (Paul's brother for example), but we will likely be in our 60's before that happens. The best idea I've had is to keep reminding myself of a benefit of only having two children - having more time and energy to devote to them. Paul often feels badly for Nadia because she doesn't get anywhere as much of our time, physical touch, and attention as she used to when she was the only child. I often feel badly for Ian because he'll never experience our undivided attention like she did for 17.5 months. He rarely gets to enjoy an entire feeding without being interrupted. I don't think he knows what that would be like. I almost always have to put him down in the middle of nursing him or feeding him a bottle so I can take Nadia to the bathroom or something like that, and that's just one small example. I know the kids would benefit through having another sibling, but I am trying to focus on the benefits of just having two kids.

Puppy Love

Daddy is thrilled that Nadia loves dogs. I grew up with cats, and he grew up with dogs. He's very allergic to cats, and to be honest I am also allergic to them, although to a lesser degree. I've always known that some day we'd get a dog. Thankfully, Paul agrees that now isn't the right time. Maybe that will be my graduation gift to Paul when he earns his PhD and gets his first teaching job. Nadia will be just as excited as her Daddy! Her favorite stuffed animal is her doggie that Sarah gave her for Christmas (2009). A few months ago I instituted the rule that doggie stays in her crib. Lately she has found a replacement. She calls her little Fisher Price dog pull toy that she got from Grandma and PopPop for Christmas (2008) "puppy," and now puppy goes with her all the time. As you can see from this picture, puppy was coloring with her. She has conversations with puppy and gives him crayons to color, reads books to him, etc. It's so sweet! She also read a book to "big Larry" this morning. When she read him the last page of the book (How do dinosaurs eat their food?) she correctly said 4 of the 5 words that are on that page (omitted the word "little"). When she asks me to read a particular book, she usually says at least three words from the title such as "moose a muffin," "pig a pancake," "dinosaurs eat their food," and "mouse a cookie."

Nadia's sentences are usually 3-5 words long. That's nothing new for her. What is new is that now she often says more than one sentence in a row. I actually feel like we are having two way conversations now! About a week ago (when the weather was oh so much cooler) I was weeding the flower bed while Ian was napping. Nadia came up to me and asked, "whatcha doin' momma" (admittedly not the best grammar but hey she's only 24 months old - we have time to work on it). I replied "pulling weeds" to which she said, "make a mess." LOL! Sometimes I think she thinks she's Italian as she adds the "a" sound to the end of a lot of verbs. For example, "washa hands; I am sticky" or "watcha Bob" (meaning watch VeggieTales).

She still has a fever today, but without Tylenol it was only 100.7 this morning. She's to be more herself today so I am thinking we'll take a trip to the grocery store this afternoon as we were inside all day yesterday so I am getting a bit of cabin fever, but it's too hot to be outside. The high is "only" supposed to be 80 on Saturday. That sounds delightful compared to what we've had the past few days. I only like those temps if I am at the beach or a swimming pool!

Unfortunately I think Ian (who as of yesterday weighs 17 lbs) now is coming down sick. It took FOREVER for Paul and I to get him down for bed last night (at about 9:38pm I succeeded). Then he only slept 5 hours and after being fed for an hour he slept 2 more hours. I had a hard time falling asleep after the 2:40-3:40 feeding so I got at the most 6 hours of sleep last night. When will this sleep deprivation end???? He doesn't seem to have a fever, but he's got a little cough and a runny nose. Plus it's like pulling teeth to get him to sleep. It took me 50 minutes to get him down for his first nap this morning. Thankfully he did sleep for an hour so it made my efforts seem worthwhile. It also took me a long time to get him down for his second nap. I even tried letting him sleep on me. Nadia woke up after 90 minutes, but I had her pee and put her back to bed and thankfully she went back to sleep. She slept 11.5 hours last night.

Nadia hasn't had an accident oustide of the crib in a long time, and she's been averaging 1 accident every 3 days in her crib. I am grateful there haven't been any #2 accidents this week. I don't like cleaning those up! I am always excited when she goes #2 on the potty!

George and GPS

Last night I discovered the reason why Nadia was emotionally fragile yesterday and didn't nap well. She was coming down with something. I thought the reason her nose was much worse yesterday was just due to allergies, but it seems she has some sort of a virus as she kept waking up in the night. She was burning up so we gave her Tylenol. At one point while the Tylenol was in effect, we took her temperature - it was 102. This is the worst fever she's had in her 2 years of life. I took it once this afternoon (again while under the effect of Tylenol), and it was 102.7. Poor thing! I declared this morning that I didn't care how much tv she watched today. Although we've been inside all day, which I would have likely done anyhow given how hot it is outside, I have still experienced a heat wave today whenever Nadia has been on my lap. She always loves to snuggle, but today she wanted to be held even more than usual. We read books and watched tv all day.

The episode of Curious George we saw was about George going through a corn maze. One of the contestants was using a GPS. I have to say I have been impressed with this show. I'm happy it's her favorite as I think the show does a nice job of teaching some math and science concepts. It cracks me up since the original Curious George books were written 70 years ago - long before GPS! Last week I was looking up directions for Ian's urologist, and I decided to stop using mapquest and move on to the latest technology - a gps. I ordered one from Walmart, and even splurged and paid a little less than $3 for shipping (usually I use site to store which is free). I got one that has free traffic updates for the lifetime of the unit.

After contemplating Curious George and the GPS, I was thinking about how the tasks I accomplished today wouldn't have seemed like work a hundred years ago. For example, I did a load of dishes and two loads of laundry. Really the machines did most of the work. I basically just had to put the clean dishes and clothes away. I also realized how dependent I am on my laptop as our Internet service was down for a couple of hours this morning. I hope that doesn't happen much over the next 6 weeks as it's really hard to teach an online course without a good connection to the Internet! I hope Nadia is feeling better soon, but I am very grateful to be able to stay home with her all day when she's not feeling well. It would have been very hard to go to work today and leave her with a babysitter.

Role Reversal!

Ian's naps have been getting a bit longer. Sometimes they are still only 30 minutes long, but many times they are now 45 minutes long, and every once in a while they are 50-60 minutes long. Well wonder of wonders, Ian's first nap this morning was 1.75 hours long! WOW!!! Usually by the time I shower, blowdry, get dressed, and get Nadia dressed, Ian wakes up.; it's become my routine to do that stuff during his first nap while Nadia plays in our bathroom and bedroom. This morning his nap was so long I had time to do many other things while he napped such as read If you give a pig a pancake and other books to Nadia several times. It was totally unexpected given yesterday one of his naps was actually shorter than 30 minutes.  His typical pattern is to be up 1.5-2.0 hours in between his naps, with the exception of the time in between his fourth nap and when he goes down for the night. That stretch is usually about 3 hours long. His first stretch when he goes down at night is also the length of one of his naps, but the difference is that I feed him and put him back down right away (usually around 8pm). I was going to wait longer for his 2nd nap, but he fell asleep in the car on the way home from running a few errands (gas station, bank, CVS, McDonald's, and recycling center), and he got really tired and fussy around 1pm, which is generally when he goes down for his 3rd nap. I was shocked AGAIN as his 3rd nap was also 1.75 hours long!! My goal has been for his total nap time to be 3 hours. For a few months his total nap time was 2 hours. It's been about 2.5 hours lately. Today he slept 4 hours total (between 3 naps). After he had been up 3.15 hours he was really fussy. I put him down at 6pm, and he slept 30 minutes. I put him back down at 7:30pm. His nap times need to shift a bit if he's going to take 3 naps a day so that he can stay up until 7pm.

I've enjoyed having him take a few naps on me lately. Sundays are the one day of the week I am pretty much guaranteed to enjoy him sleeping on me (at church). Last Thursday I decided to let him take a nap on me, and it ended up being a problem as my sister, mom, and hubby all tried calling me on the phone while he was napping on me. It felt sooo good though. I figure I need to take advantage of these opportunities, as they won't be around much longer.

You'd think that since Ian had two long naps today that I would have been able to take a nap today. When I put him down at 12:55pm (not knowing he was going to sleep until 2:40), I laid down hoping to get maybe 30-45 minutes of sleep. Nadia had gone down at 12:10, and she typically sleeps 2-3 hours. Wouldn't you know she woke up at 1pm? I can't believe Ian slept far more than Nadia during the day, and actually he got more sleep than she did last night also. Typically she gets more sleep than him during the night and day. I have hope though that if Nadia gets back on track and Ian continues to take longer naps that maybe just maybe I'll have 90 minutes of time to "myself" each day. I use the term "myself" loosely as I'll probably be grading for my online course during that time span. So really the time will be for the 32 students who are taking my class this session.

Happy 234th Birthday, USA!

Ian napping on Mommy at Grandma and PopPop's house after church (7/4/10)

Nadia went swimming with Grandma and Daddy after lunch (7/4/10)

Nadia at our town's parade (7/5/10)

Nadia at our town's parade (7/4/09)

Yesterday Nadia slept during the entire one hour ride to Paul's parents house after church. Ian fell asleep at the very end (after fussing awhile) and then napped in my arms before and during lunch. Paul, Nadia, and Grandma went swimming in their above ground pool after lunch. It was so much bigger than Nadia's wading pool that she called it the ocean. Paul told her the ocean is humongous, and she then did a pretty good job of saying the word "humongous" which amused Paul and her grandparents. We left before 3:30pm hoping that Ian would sleep most of the way home, but unfortunately I wasn't able to keep him awake until we left and the 10 minute nap meant he wouldn't sleep in the car. He cried almost the entire trip home, and Nadia cried for about 30 minutes (half) of the ride home. She got herself so worked up that she threw up about 5 minutes from home. I guess we should have brought the portable DVD player for her to use on the way back home.

This morning we went to our town's 4th of July parade, which they had today since the 4th was a Sunday this year. They're having fireworks tonight. I can't wait until the kids are old enough to do that. I miss seeing them! I am certain they'd hate them at this stage of life. Nadia is reduced to tears at the sight of the vacuum cleaner! She loved the parade this year. She was somewhat interested in the horses and tractors and such that went by, but the highlight for her was picking up lots of pieces of candy that the people on the floats and vehicles were throwing to the children. I think she'll get more candy on July 4th each year than she will on Halloween, LOL!

This morning was the first morning that Nadia didn't wake up dry since I started putting her to bed in her underwear. She did well at the parade though. She asked to go potty and held it until we got home. Thankfully we only had a 5 minute drive from the parade to our house.

Ian hasn't slept through the night again like he did on Friday  night. Saturday night wasn't a very good night for him. Last night he slept 8.25 hours and then after being fed for 40 minutes he slept another 1.25 hours. So that was better than Saturday night but not as good as Friday night.

It's been nice to have Paul home today. I wish he had more 3 day weekends!

I am very grateful to live in the USA. I am very concerned about the direction our country is heading. I hope our country is still a great place to live by the time our kids are adults.

He did it!

Nadia - 6 months old (12/27/08)

Ian wearing the same onesie - 6 months old (7/3/10)

Ian slept through the night last night! He slept about 30 minutes and after a brief feeding he went back down at 7:45pm and didn't make another peep until 5:45am. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was in bed from 9:30pm to 5:45am!!YAHOO!! Ian's other accomplishment is that although he still pushes food out with his tongue, he can now eat about 1/2 a container of baby food in one sitting if I keep spooning what he ejects back into his mouth. The food that did the trick was pears with blueberries yesterday. The only problem is that now his spit-up isn't always white. I looked online, and most websites say that babies usually outgrow reflux by 1 year. I can't wait. He wears several outfits a day, and my clothes, the carpets, etc. get sabotaged daily. Between the previous potty training accidents and his spit-up, I want to have our carpets shampooed by a professional. I'll wait until December or whenever he outgrows this very frequent upchucking.

My parents arrived at our house around 9:30 last night. I felt badly for Nadia as she sobbed when Paul came home about 4 hours earlier as she was wanting it to be Grandpa. She felt better about the fact it was Daddy when he took her to the playground. This morning Ian and Nadia enjoyed spending a few hours with their grandparents. Grandpa took Nadia for a walk around the neighborhood, she showed him her new scooter and bike, and four of us (Ian and Daddy stayed home) went to the playground. They left during her nap. Ian's first nap was a record this morning - one hour long! Lately they're usually 30-45 minutes long. He also rolled over after he woke up. It was the first time in quite awhile that he was on his back in his crib when I came into his room.

Nadia's nap didn't go well At All. She kept saying she had to go to the bathroom, and of course we didn't want to ignore a genuine request. She hardly slept. I have noticed that she has started using bathroom requests to her advantage during the day as well. She knows that these requests trump everything. No matter what I am doing (such as feeding Ian), I will stop and take her to the bathroom. Any suggestions on how to curb these requests that aren't based on a genuine need? Her record thus far is 54 hours without an accident (now that she's wearing underwear 24 hours a day). All of her accidents over the past 2 weeks have been in her crib.

I was loving the temps a few days ago. Unfortunately the temps have gone back up. The good news is that it's great pool weather! I put the slide in Nadia's pool today, and she really enjoyed sliding into her pool. The water was way too cold for Ian. He screamed and couldn't adjust to it so I gave him a bath in the bathtub instead.

 

Allergies

Unfortunately, I believe Nadia has inherited my allergies. Every morning she sneezes and sneezes and sneezes and lots of clear stuff comes out of her nose. She is worse if she spent a lot of time outside the previous day. The same goes for me although my sneezing and runny nose lasts All Day and All Night long. I finally caved in and took one Claritin yesterday because the area around my nose was rubbed raw; it was red and very sore even though I use tissues that have lotion in them. I am much worse after I mow the lawn. I like the fact I get a good one hour workout, but I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it to suffer physically for a few days each time after I mow the lawn. I took another Claritin this morning, but I'm not going to take another one any time soon as I am feeling a bit light headed today. I think I'll buy myself a mask. I was looking online this morning at washable ones as well as disposable ones. Does anyone have any experience with wearing a mask outside for allergies? I at least need to wear one while mowing, and I might end up wearing one anytime I'm in my backyard. My body isn't appreciating spending so much time outdoors, but I'm certainly not going to keep my outside loving girl cooped up all summer. I know I'll look a bit ridiculous, but #1 not many people will see me and #2 I learned as a child that preventing illness is more important than vanity. As a child and teenager I had to wear ear plugs plus a bathing cap when we went to the pool to prevent ear infections. I was the only one under the age of 80 wearing such a thing on my head at our community pool.

Cancelled plans and lack of sleep have compounded me allergy woes and left me felling very sad today. The plan was for my parents to come up last night and spend time with the kids and I this morning and then we'd meet my sister and her hubby and 4 kids at Knoebels this afternoon. We haven't seen them since May 21, and it will likely be 2 years until we see them again. That's also part of the reason I'm feeling blue today. I don't like not being able to see my sister and her kids for what feels like such a long period of time especially considering how much young children change in that amount of time. The reason the plans changed is because their youngest has hand, foot, and mouth disease, and it's a very contagious virus. My inclination was to still meet them because it's not like kids touch each other a lot at amusement parks or share toys or anything like that, but Paul was concerned, and if either of our children ended up contracting HFMD, I'd feel awful. Every fiber of my being wants to put the kids in the car and drive to Knoebels right this very minute. I hate that they are 45 minutes away from us, but we won't see them. The weather is gorgeous. What a perfect day to have fun with my family at an amusement park. The good news is that my parents are going to come to our house tonight and spend a little time with the kids tomorrow morning. I'm grateful for that.

The lack of sleep is because of Ian. Paul put him to bed a bit early (6pm instead of 7pm) although Ian was up from 6:55pm to 7:30pm as he woke up shortly before I got home from giving the exam so I nursed him. He cried at 12:30am, but I let him cry for the first time in awhile. Thankfully he didn't cry very long, and he slept for another 3 hours. The problem was that he nursed for almost an hour and then I gave him a little bottle to make sure he was full. Usually he only nurses for about 20 minutes. Then it took me more than 30 minutes to fall alseep, and Ian slept less than an hour between 3:30-5:30am. So during that time span I got about 10 minutes of sleep. 3:30 is just way too early to start one's day. Thankfully I had gone to bed before 9pm. I would have gone to bed sooner, but I was grading exams. I am thinking in the near future I am going to go on strike with feeding him during the night. He's almost 7 months old. I really think he can go from 7 or 8pm to 6am without being fed. That is my goal. Hopefully he'll achieve that soon! When Nadia was this age she was sleeping from about 6pm to 6am without being fed. I tried to take a nap today but the overlap between their naps was only 30 minutes, and to make matters worse Nadia woke up and asked to use the bathroom half-way through Ian's nap. Thankfully she went back to sleep after I took her back to her crib, but that cut my nap super short.

Family Dinner

When I was growing up, we almost always had dinner together as a family. That is a tradition I want to have with our kids. That's a glitch with my working schedule. I eat with the kids on the weeknights I am at home, but Paul usually doesn't eat until the kids are in bed. An idea I had was to change the fall babysitting schedule from 2 days a week from 3-6pm to 3 days a week from 3-5pm. It's still 6 hours a week of babysitting, but this way I'm hoping Paul will eat dinner with the kids on the 3 nights I'm at school, and I'm hoping the 4 of us will eat dinner together at least some of the other 4 nights of the week. When Paul graduates, I hope to become a SAHM, and then hopefully all 4 of us can eat dinner together most nights. Ian isn't eating solid foods yet, but I imagine he will be by September. Tonight is my last night of teaching on campus until August 30 so hopefully we can have dinner together at least a few times over the next 2 months.

Nadia wore underwear to bed for the first time last night; she stayed dry for 11 hours and peed on the potty as soon as she got up this morning! Good job, Nadia! Ian slept almost 9.5 hours, and after I fed him he slept another 80 minutes! He slept almost 11 hours total!! It was heavenly not to get up until 6:25am (I was up with him from 4:30-5:05). Way to go, Ian!!