Sleep

The other day someone asked me what I thought about baby sleep.
I told them nothing, because it is such a controversial issue and it seems like it makes perfectly reasonable parents go crazy. You take a normally functioning human and then keep them from sleeping for just a few weeks and they just turn a little strange.  They read books and ask everyone they know for help. Then whatever book they were trying the day their baby slept through the night becomes the most miraculous cure ever invented.
Actually it's surprising when people say they are tired and you are a new parent.  Your friend posts on their facebook wall how they were up late from flying home from a trip then waking up for work the next day.  Rage just wells up when they whine about their four hours of sleep. The next day they are so tired but they had to study for a final so they only got five hours of sleep. You yell at your spouse when you are sharing the story with them about your stupid friend.  They probably are tired. but it will end.  They can go home and have a nap. But you can't. It sucks.  Then you cry.  Then you comment on their posting.   You are pretty sure your sentence made sense when you typed it. Someone else says how they are a new parent but not tired- and it's your own fault for not doing whatever it is that they are doing. You hate them.
Then you sleep an hour and get up again and feel grateful that you didn't yell at that poor unsuspecting friend.  Or maybe you did. You are just so mad that they think they are tired.  You. Are. Unreasonable. After two months you think you are going crazy. Your baby is older but you are more sleep deprived and crazy tired than ever. With Mark after six months I thought I might actually be hallucinating. Maybe I was but then again maybe not.  Still not sure.
I seems like every mom has some grand theory about sleep with babies.  Take a bunch of sleep deprived people who need structure in their lives and have very little control and you will get what- a whole lot of crazy. They are sure that if you do their plan you will have ultimate success. They have had it with their million billion children- or more commonly- their one child. My opinion?  The people with the strongest opinions are usually those least qualified to have them. This applies to medical opinions as well, but that is another topic...
  Right now my baby sleeps about eight hours a night.  He is 12 weeks old. I am dying of happiness. I am pretty into the feed on demand and comforting your child methods of parenting.  These methods almost  killed me with Mark.  The adjustment to two kids while my husband adjusted to medical school were probably one of the worst times in my life.  ever. As I was getting ready to have my third everyone told me that this would be the most horrible time ever.  I honestly couldn't imagine being more broken than with two. I decided I couldn't handle that much trouble- I couldn't stay awake if it meant I couldn't care for my other children again, because I don't know who would come bail me out of the mess of my life this time.
Then I got blessed with a good sleeper. The first month he had to be held to sleep. I had help for that period and John miraculously had Christmas break. Lots of people helped us.  Then one night he slept alone in his crib for a few hours. Then a few more.
I like the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" which had advice on how to get your baby to sleep, including white noise and swaddling.  When Danielle was born we read it and used it, and were quite happy when our screaming grouchy reflux baby started sleeping 12 hours a night with a four hour nap. Then came Mark.  Mark did not sleep more than a few hours for SO LONG.  Everyone decided it was their job to tell me about their sleep success. So many unsolicited ideas. This is when I developed my strongest sleep opinion.  Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you do not. Some babies sleep longer, earlier. Be grateful if you have one of those babies.
 At first I wanted to be like the über righteous co-sleeping people. Maybe with a little cot next to my bed so it didn't increase the risk of infant suffocation. What a delightfully happy breastfeeding mom I would be.
Except I can't sleep with an infant in the room.  Have you heard them?  They breathe loud. LOUD, I tell you. Loudly?  should I be telling you loudly? Whatever I can't do it. It's hard enough with John waking me up in the night.  Who knew I was a light sleeper. But my dream of those cute little mini cribs has been crushed by the fact that I own a normal sized crib and those little bed boxes just don't work for me.
The people I like the least are the cry it out people.  Even the founder of the so called "Ferber Method" says parents take it too far.  I heard him talk about how it wasn't his intention that people leave their babies all night.  Ok maybe I hate the Baby Wise people more.  They read a book that had to be revised because the original ideas lead to failure to thrive in infants.  Seriously? You are supporting a method that could lead to your child's death? Then they defend their opinions- oh no the book has been changed since the whole DEBACLE WHERE IT WAS PULLED FROM SHELVES SINCE IT HURT BABIES. oh Fantastic- good thing you are a disciple of the new and revised version instead of one of the fanatics from the really really bad version. Shouldn't you maybe question the credibility of your source though? Be proud of your inability to obtain reliable information.  Also be proud of how "you" taught your child to sleep.  Ignore that babies start sleeping longer when their bodies and brains are ready for it.
I think I am a little bitter about it.  I just don't understand recommending something like that. Congratulations with the forced revision, maybe some of your ideas don't put infants at risk of death and help them sleep now.

Maybe you are just desperate for some success since you are so very tired from caring for a child. Then again, maybe you aren't tired at all since you don't wake up with baby.  Or maybe your baby sleeps all night. Either way I don't want to be your friend.
Well actually I do, but if I was cooler I wouldn't be your friend just for that, out of principle. I have slept enough in the past little while to know that what sleep method you use isn't a reason to end a friendship.
Eventually, babies start sleeping.  Or go to the doctor for something more serious.  Maybe swaddling can help- or scheduling for feeding or white noise or whatever.  You know what helps most of all?  Time.  Growing up helps them sleep better.
That is what I think about baby sleep.  All right I have more opinions because you can read a lot about sleep if you just cut out the sleep portion of your day, but I'm bored with my thoughts.

What do you think?

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Dear life,

It's come to my attention that you do not seem to care what people can handle. I would even say you don't seem to give a flying rats ass. I don't even know where that phrase comes from. Is it the same place bat shit crazy comes from?
I remember once when I was rock climbing I put my hand in a hold with bat crap. Or some other type of crap. Who knew I would be nostalgic for that?
So at first I thought this might be different after I left my private hell Scranton but even my friend Wendy is sad this year. So we should probably work some things out.
1. I am sick of worrying about money. It's time to let my mom win the lottery.
2. John needs less to do.
3. This may be unreasonable but I would like to be able to eat as many cookies as I want without any negative results. We can compromise and just do girl scout cookies.
4.Why are the ads on my phone just a bunch of symbols? I think they are Czech. That is rude.

So life, let's be a little more reasonable here.I will settle for six hours of sleep and a cheaper power bill.
Love,
Janae

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Two weeks.

Two weeks. Two grandma visitors. Two holidays. Two siblings. Two sleepless parents.

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Sleepless

I keep meaning to post about the baby and christmas. I also mean to clean the kitchen floor though, and organize my basement... Somehow these things just don't seem as appealing as sleep these days.

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Babysitting Exchange

I think it's totally normal to be tired all day and then wake up at four in the morning wide awake, don't you?
Carlie visited a while ago and she has a pressure cooker and when I wasn't busy being so paranoid that she wasn't having fun and her kid hated my kid it was awesome. I was just thinking about the pressure cooker Carlie and missing her steel cut oats, which were excellent. Something about Carlie makes me want to work out more. Also having people over brings out the inner food pusher in me. If someone says they aren't hungry- that could just mean they aren't hungry for what you are offering because it doesn't sound that great. Just keep offering and eventually you will find something.
Speaking of which when Danielle wakes up and we don't have any peaches she is going to be seriously bummed.

For family home evening we started decorating for Halloween.  We have a craft of about ten minutes each week and a super short lesson. This week it was making a "bouquet" of bats.  The next morning Danielle was adding knuffle bunny to the bouquet with a craft lollipop stick and duct tape.  I almost died it was so cute.

after careful consideration I've decided I need to start having a babysitting exchange.  But like the Mother's day present one of the guys in the ward here did- where John calls someone and asks them to watch our kids. Seriously my friend's husband got 2 babysitters in one weekend and I had an overwhelming feeling of jealousy.  I would totally have watched her kid- and why didn't John think of that? Then I learned it was a mother's day present.  an EXCELLENT present. It would be awesome to have John plan something like this- but someone else thought of it first and we don't have a massive ward. Brilliant. Still jealous months later. But in a good way.

who wouldn't want to have a babysitting exchange with these kids?  Don't mind the nutella on the corners of their mouths...

I always find that people say they want to babysit trade but they don't actually.  Also when they say so we can go on a "date" do you think they mean "so Janae can take a nap"? I can just never actually arrange things. Which makes me worried that I have two of the "bad kids" that no one actually wants to trade with. Or that I am too unorganized to plan something like that so I am one of the "flaky" people. I would totally start the trade. My friend Suzy and I traded like once but then she had a baby. Those tend to stop progress in my life for half a year or so... So I could trade like I can watch their kid every Friday from 4 until whenever and then they could watch my kids on Saturday or something. Just planning it is overwhelming- pretty much someone should just show up on Friday night with kids and I'll watch them. I will  might feed them Popsicles though so...

Danielle has decided that we need to take more photos of her. like lots more. sometimes I do it even though it's in the middle of the night and there is laundry all over the chair.  after all, she did have quite a lovely dress on.

Mark loves his stuffed animals. Mostly he loves his tickle me elmo which is on the floor in this picture.  Also loves?  Jammas jammas jammas of all kinds.

You guessed it- our babysitter went to college. 
After one week of preschool Danielle has decided she needs to clean all the things every day.  She straightened the whole downstairs during quiet time two days ago and yesterday (a few hours ago) she cleaned up Mark's room and her own room. I was so happy that she picked things up off the floor that I think I might have squealed a little in delight.

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Good Morning

The birds seem to think it is the freaking best time of the day early in the morning.
I went to get a drink in the bathroom and the window was open.
bird cacophony.
remember when I got married and my husband had a parrot that imitated loud beeping noises in the house as well as voices? Turns out beeping and screeching at about 150 decibels is WAY fun. Also that it's normal that he started wanting to kill John and mate with me...
Anyway it's hard to sleep with all the BIRDS. I'll blame them today.

Good news for this morning-
Last Sunday John had his white coat ceremony. I'm so happy for him- his class tests are over. Now he just has to take Step One of the USMLE aka the worst and biggest test ever. I made him let me take a picture of him on that day and he made a face. My mom watched the kiddos so I actually got to see the ceremony. Turns out it's awkward to watch people put coats on other people- but I love looking at all the shoes. I never realized that I love going to events just to see what kind of shoes other people are wearing. It is mesmerizing.

so I'll be going out of town for a while so he can study. (also have you ever lived with someone studying for that? Not so much) It's time to retreat to Mark and Sara's. and My grandma's house but that's not the reason Danielle has been doing whatever I ask her to do for days.

Also good news: I'm bringing the fabric Jen got me for my birthday. We play games with Jen and Steven and they put up with our kiddos and my ridiculous impatience. Speaking of which I am SICK of not being able to get maple bars. There was one store with half rate ones up until a few months ago when they stopped having them. You never know how much you want a maple bar until you live in a place without them. Needless to say I am angry about it.

Not angry about: my precious fabric. I just want to hoard it. I have a spot where I keep the japanese Echino fabric and it's literally a little hard for me to ever use because I still want to own it afterward. For my pile. I'm taking it on vacation with me.
why do I feel awake two hours before the boy wakes up (around five) and never when he wakes up?

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Good Morning Insomnia

seriously I don't know who thought of spin class, but it is awful.
and awesome.
bruises. that's all i can say.
I'm totally going back tomorrow.

I don't know if I just didn't hold my stomach in quite enough but I have some evil bruises. I used to do this a lot more. Plus then I just went home and discovered I was starving so I ate a bowl of cereal. and a handi snacks.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels like Handi Snacks are like crack addictive. I asked John to get them for the children but now I realize I just wanted them for myself.
I bet spin class would make me lose tons of weight- if it didn't make me crazy crazy hungry.

also- am I the only one who wakes up at 5 in the morning and has lots of energy- then goes back to sleep and wakes up at 7:30 totally exhausted? Twice this week I decided to just stay up and do the dishes or laundry (or blog and make lists of all the things I need to do to finish every home project in the world) then go back to sleep around six. It's super nice to have some quiet time. I think I should start going to bed earlier.

baby Mark is currently in love with my special K protein shakes. I got them in the morning so John would eat something before school because there isn't a lot of time. Then I started having them since the mornings are a bit of a whirlwind train wreak with the kids. and now they are Mark's favorite food.

My darling boy is inheriting my expensive tastes, just like that.

Have a great morning today. If I leave right now I can make it to the morning spin class.

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Greetings from the Pillow Triumvirate

I thought the idea of a pillow triumvirate was super clever the other night as I fell asleep. I love sleep and I love pillows. Someday there will be an all body pillow- so you can lay on your side and put your arm out and have it be high enough that you shoulder never hurts.
get on that, people! I remember my brother in law has a sleep disorder so he had those elevated pillows like fancy ones that I look at in sky mall. They looked awesome. Jealous! Awesome like after you have a baby and get to move the hospital bed all around so your head and legs are elevated but you are still laying down and your arms get to rest on those awesome side parts. Give that bed a better mattress and I might have a hard time leaving the hospital. I guess I shouldn't be jealous but if I was my sister I would totally try to take naps with my husband's fancy pillows. Which is rude.
I dreamed about my etsy shop last night. I worked on listing new prints for a while after baby went to bed. His schedule is switched around but I still find myself getting lots of energy after about 10PM and I can't really fall asleep. I guess after over 6 months my sleep schedule doesn't want to budge. Danielle seems going through the infant adjustment period. Since they were never awake during the same time Danielle didn't do much at first. People would ask me how she is adjusting and I would say that there wasn't too much difference. Of course even then that was a lie but Danielle seemed to like the baby and that's what people are asking right? She likes to need food every time I have to feed the baby and she likes to climb all over me too. Danielle has also learned something from Mark: screaming. Mark has this hideous pig squeal cry when he is mad. Maybe it is less effort since Mark seems to be all about conserving his effort. Enter Danielle screeching every time we put her in bed. Also not sleeping. How can a child possibly stay up until one in the morning and still wake up at seven? I'll tell you what, they are super grouchy.
And I of course am super paranoid about her being obese so I am trying to get her to sleep more. and we have started mandatory- run around the house five times before we do anything else times- OK she runs all day but I feel better about it and since I have to run with her she likes it. maybe this will help her sleep. She is UNBEARABLE when she doesn't sleep. I read an article about childhood obesity being increased in children who watch more than two hours of television and get less than ten hours of sleep. Terrifying. And what kind of mom lets their kid watch more than two hours of television a day? So we've been limiting it and Danielle has been painting with her aqua doodle a lot. It's nice except for the inevitable- Aqua doodle soaked with a whole cup of water and left on the coffee table which is peeling from the water- tragedy. So sad. Here's what we are doing about the sleep problem
1. we got her a lamp (she likes to have the actual light on but doesn't sleep and she will scream for hours if she doesn't have enough light on account of the monsters)
2. We don't play too much for two hours before bedtime. as in we encourage her not to run around.
3. We moved bedtime to 8:00- no later
4. She has a regimented nap about 12:30 after lunch- she only sleeps about half the time though.
5. I have been putting lotion on her more- she had sores on her legs from scratching yikes!
6. We re-washed all her bedding just in case I accidentally washed it with a non scent free detergent. Danielle has sensitive skin.
7. No candy after the afternoon. Oh clever Danielle you are getting around this one all the time.
8. The bedtime routine has stayed solid.
9. No TV in the evening.

also I moved brushing her teeth to a non-bedtime activity and have started a daily 30 minute reading time so she doesn't think you only read when it's bedtime. Yesterday wasn't perfect with the reading time but she took a nap and went to bed. When she tried to wake up at 11:00 PM John told her he would take the lamp if she couldn't go back to bed and it worked instead of invoking the toddler wrath.

I am trying to stop threatening her with bedtime. I wish someone threatened me with bedtimes some days.

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Spread The Love

One of my favorite pregnancy theories is that whatever your worst character trait is will explode in pregnancy. Let's say you are naturally not a morning person- you really should just stay home and not inflict yourselves on anyone. If you are naturally melodramatic you will get right on the crazy bus.
My sister in law Brooke accurately noticed what I already knew- I am unkind when pregnant. My first pregnancy I called my mom up every week or so and just fought with her. I would try to pick fights with people. All those unresolved feelings and issues from my entire life apparently needed to be dealt with. Except the ones that are really deeply buried, I just cried about those ones. OK maybe I should have been taking something to take the edge off of life, but I found myself having to make personal reminders not to share all the disparaging thoughts I had. Especially since there was NO WAY I could take the kind of heat that I wanted to dish out.
Turns out being very tired has a similar effect to being pregnant.
This morning John went and got the baby when I asked him to and then handed me a poopy baby in the dark. I was not pleased. I guess I wasn't polite when the light didn't instantly go on after I asked him to turn it on, so John left the room and I was left to change the diaper and feed the baby. Then I went downstairs to try to play with the baby since we are trying to switch his sleep schedule and it was officially daytime. I found where John had started to sleep. I tried to discuss if we should keep Mark up. Turns out John was sort of sleeping, but I still tried. John offered to take the baby but I didn't respond fast enough and he disappeared to sleep upstairs. Mark pooed as John walked away. All over his outfit and the changing pad and me. A lot of the time even if the baby hasn't pooed on me I feel like someone must have.
I was so angry I had to do something about it- so I constructed a clever twitter response, thanking John for his offer.
totally awesome- I'm glad I found twitter.
1.5 hours later I know it was rude, but I knew that when it happened. I guess I wanted to blame John for the baby waking up before I was ready and having a blow out all over me. And being grouchy when he wakes up and calling me out on not thanking him for getting me the baby.

When you are tired enough the whole world is just a little bit more annoying- like the kid I watched yesterday who wouldn't stop talking to me the whole time. Seriously I don't want to talk to a kid about his potty training experience for two hours. And stop telling on Danielle, because it makes me want to let her do things that I normally wouldn't since I can't abide tattle-ing.
The week before John's tests I try really hard to be nice and let him study. This attempt probably only produces a semi polite and tolerable human. I know I shouldn't say mean things about my mom being stressed at work but I do.

I call this spreading the love. I know that I don't really need to take out my feelings on people (especially my mom it turns out). It's like people who freak out when they have PMS- are those feelings less valid?
I just do my best to remember that the first time I think them and have overwhelming feelings of being wronged I need to shut up and wait. Sometimes it's just the fact that after one night of four hours of sleep and one of two I am looking forward to another night of four hours of sleep. All the gratitude and charity I've worked so hard to get seems to fly out the window.
I realize what I am made of, and at 7 in the morning today I'm not made of anything good.
Lesson of the Past
pregnancy + me sharing my feelings = not good.
John + waking John up = not good.
sleep deprivation + twitter = not good.

and it took A LOT of thought to come up with this theory. I bet other people haven't thought of it yet. or something like that.
Mark is talking and being super cute. His hands are thrilling. It's these cute things that I wait for. And Danielle waking up.

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The Turn

Well it is 11:00 P.M. and I just put the baby to bed. So far no screaming. I have honestly been thinking all day about what I am going to do if this doesn't work out tonight- I think I will have to get someone else to watch Danielle during the day next week because I can't stay up all night and day anymore.

Last week Mark became fully nocturnal. he was up all night from midnight to seven (OK he probably slept for 1.5 hours split up). The first time we stayed up and thought it was a bad night. The second time it was harder. By yesterday I was thinking of just letting him scream. I learned that he can scream for longer than I can stand it, even if I am literally deliriously tired.
Danielle has been watching a lot of cartoons. On Thursday I broke. Mark stayed up almost all night and then Danielle woke up at five. I had turned all the heat down in our house to save money and I forgot to turn Danielle's heat back up. It was about 55 degrees in her room. How sad! She didn't feel good and I helped her. At 8:00 I started crying. I let Mark sleep until 4:00 P.M.
My problem is that I'm not really comfortable forcing a schedule on a child. I think a lot of people who pretend their schedule is so important are trying to give themselves a false sense of control. They hold on to a schedule that might not be good for the child and pretend it is the best way to parent. Generally these people are uptight and judgmental. I don't like the schedulers. I also try to feed him on command- when he is hungry I feed him and when he is sleepy I put him in his crib for him to naturally fall asleep.
I kept holding on to this natural rhythm and gave myself excuses in the night. He really hadn't eaten all day because he was asleep all day. So I would get him and tell myself I was just going to feed him. Sometimes he wouldn't eat and this week he never went back to bed. I can't take the crying- it breaks my heart and then I start to panic about him getting dehydrated in the night or being covered in throw up or poop or choking. The only other time we thought about letting him cry he had a plastic clothing tag in his diaper. The time we let Danielle do it she we finally checked on her and she was covered in throw up.

Today I woke my baby up. He has eaten eight times today. I scheduled his eating.
I have heard the theory that sleep begets sleep and I believe it. But I woke him up to eat and left him in the front room where Danielle was. We carried him and talked to him while he looked groggy and stared into space.
He has never eaten so peacefully. A sleeping baby fusses much less when they are eating. I just did his bedtime. He is still awake but isn't screaming. I know he has eaten enough to sleep. It seems like he REALLY thrives with more scheduled feeding. He is so laid back that it seems like he doesn't think of crying until he is SUPER hungry. Then he chokes and throws up and cries. I probably should have thought of this before today.

I don't know how to turn someone's schedule around. I really hope this will work. More than I can express.
Babies and children push you to the breaking point and then keep pushing. They make you realize how little sleep you really need.

In other news Mark rolled over last night. So exciting. He likes it. It was funny to see how excited he was with his new skill.

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Good Morning

When did Sleep become the greatest gift anyone could give me? Danielle is currently inviting me to come sit with her and watch a show. I hate her shows. They make me want to poke my eyes out. Did you know that kid shows are unbearable? If she ever goes into another room I turn the shows off. I wish I could turn on the television and have her watch it in the morning while I sleep. But she does lots of other non-approved things- like finding the hidden scissors and cutting things up, or opening the pantry and feeding all the cereal she can find to the dog, or unlocking the deadbolt and letting herself outside to play. As someone who has photo evidence that I woke up early and covered myself and lots of other surfaces with Sharpie marker I know how excited she must be about these activities.
Why is it that yesterday when I said I couldn't find the scissors Danielle said "wait wait wait- just a sec" and produced them in under two minutes? Also after you build a fort and leave it that fort will deteriorate into a HUGE MESS. I knew it would happen and it did.
When we lived closer to family sometimes people would watch Danielle. Like anyone who had a young baby we would tell them we were going on a date, drive back to our apartment and sleep the entire time they were watching her. I don't live close to family anymore but I keep trying to figure out how I could invite someone over to watch the kids then go upstairs and sleep. I could feed Mark when he wakes up and then go right back to bed because they would hold him/play with him. Maybe they would swiffer my kitchen floor, or disassemble the living room fort.
John watched the baby a lot of the night last night while I sat in bed thinking I must have some kind of infection. No- just a cold and exhaustion. I realized yesterday that I must be easier to wake up than John. He watched Danielle and Mark while I took a nap and when I woke up he told me how hard it was to keep Danielle from waking me up. Some mornings I try to get Danielle to wake up John and she always refuses. "Daddy sleeping- he real tired." is what I get if she actually goes upstairs at all. I try almost every weekend. I don't enjoy waking him up- the man is GROUCHY when he wakes up. (although the grouchy he is now is much smaller than when we first got married). I guess the refusal to wake people up doesn't extend to mommy.
Anyway I love sleep. I made it a love poster.
now maybe I will get some sleep before John leaves for school.

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Babies

Well, Danielle was officially better at growing hair on the top of her head and Mark is officially better at biting his hands. The last few days have been really rough. Mark decided to become completely nocturnal- after staying up until 7:00 one morning I wondered why I had deleted all my recorded programs the night before and why I didn't just let him cry it out. He slept all day though. I think they are working in shifts to make sure one of them always knows what is going on. I always thought Danielle was more active than Mark and I think I was right- she rolled around at his age and could hold herself up a little. Mark holds his head up pretty reliably though and sometimes half rolls over. He is just a little more laid back.
So far Danielle has fed Austin lots of food this week- every time I feed the baby or go to the bathroom she heads straight for the pantry. Being completely exhausted has helped me be more relaxed. I am too tired to get anything done so today we built a fort out of all the furniture I could put together in the living room. We have storage ottomans and if you take the lids off they make great tunnel building pieces.
I think we are nearing crisis mode with the sleep. Too bad when Mark is awake crying everyone wakes up.
In other news I started being more active on Twitter which I think is great fun, and I'm finally getting pictures on the wall. At least the pictures that didn't fall on my foot today and shatter all over the fireplace. Those ones not so much. Rule of life: don't hang photos very high when you are exhausted. Also do eat lots of cookies.

I like my kids.

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Six weeks in.

I don't know when Baby Mark went to bed. At one o'clock John said he would hold Mark and read for school. Mark is not awake yet. I am excited to get used to him sleeping so much rather than waking up in a panic.
Does this mean little baby Mark is learning to sleep through the night? I hope so. Mark frequently wakes up throughout the night lately and just wants to be held. As soon as he realizes you are there he falls asleep again. After a few days of this I realize the appeal of having your baby in or next to your bed. I just can't sleep with so much baby grunting. How can someone so small make so much noise in the night time?
I don't want to speak to soon but it seems like the kids are over their colds. We went to church though so maybe it was enough to capture some more germs. Sadly our pictures of Halloween don't really look good, although I did realize I am still baby chubby. I decided to give myself a six week break before starting to work out. Maybe I should have avoided Halloween candy too.
Every day Mark likes to throw up most of what he eats for one meal. I know it is coming because he starts gasping and frantically eating. Shortly after that he seems like he is choking and throws up. Since it isn't as bad as Danielle with her every meal throwing up I haven't thought about it. But maybe at his two month checkup I will ask if throwing up is normal. He is probably just eating too much for his little belly or eating too much over a hidden burp but I have no clue. It doesn't seem like it is painful for him to eat though. I am shocked how much easier it is to have a child who seems like he can tolerate dairy and who doesn't seem to have pain when they are eating. Poor Danielle seemed like she was always in pain. Mark is so cute with his cuddling and tiny little cry. He almost never cries but when he does it is VERY quiet. (of course later today I will regret my words as he suddenly develops lungs). This is my first cuddly baby and it sure is different. He started smiling this week. I love it when that happens.
And now he is awake.

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Freedom

I probably give my daughter too much freedom. For example she once again has been wearing the bug pants for several days. I ask her if she wants to wear her pretty pink sleeper and she says "no sanks". This is also the response I get when I ask her if she wants to go to bed. Danielle gets to pick her own clothes. She gets to select what to eat for dinner. Once she chose to go home from church. Danielle frequently decides to feed the dog junk food. She is very fast. For example just the other day I went upstairs to feed the baby and Danielle opened a bag of candy bars. Austin was really appreciative that Danielle didn't like them but I was a little sad to lose all my butterfingers. Despite all my attempts I haven't been able to replicate the consumption of a bag of candy in ten minutes. I wish I could say it is infrequent that Danielle gets food she shouldn't- but this is one of her recurring toddler victories. I can blame sleep deprivation I hope.

I am a little bitter right now about being sick and never sleeping. I know that eventually the baby will sleep for more than three hours at a time but it doesn't seem like the endless wakefullness will ever end. Mark can't really sleep with his baby cold.
Well I think I finally have pink eye and the cold everyone else has had for a while. Danielle is done with the medicine and Mark is halfway through. Also Danielle has an ear infection. Every sickness Danielle gets can aparently be solved with the use of a bandaid. from stomacheache to pink eye, many bandaids are used. I just hand them to her and let her figure it out. Usually if they ever make their target they are finished with their miraculous healing in ten minutes when she decides to remove them and attach them to the carpet.
Tonight Danielle was being super cute and we played in the garage all night- she was making a "puzzle" out of the rock climbing holds. I forgot that she can play with those things for hours on end. I know what we will be doing all morning tomorrow.

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memories.

Well today Danielle dumped her whole bowl of cereal with milk on her dress. I guess she didn't like wearing that dress. I also discovered that the graco swing we bought for Danielle really is the best purchase I've ever made. We got it after we burned out the motor of 3 different Fisher Price swings. - They were the plug in kind. This one is a black toile so it is OK for a boy- and it has a lift off bouncer. Danielle pretty much lived in the swing- she loved the most powerful setting and it was one of the only ways she would sleep. People have all these ideas about the right way for babies to sleep but when you haven't slept for two weeks you could care less what they say and will do anything that gets your baby to sleep. Danielle needed a swing- Mark doesn't really care for it. Pretty much he just wants to be held- and he fakes being asleep. He cuddles up and the second you put him down the eyes fly open and you realize he was just being cuddly. Since my last baby wasn't cuddly it is an adjustment. Today I discovered that while he doesn't like the swing he does like the bouncy chair. He sat in it for 30 minutes today when he was awake- which is pretty much a record for him.

I don't know how people have two children- Danielle is awake all day and Mark is awake all night. Although last night Danielle was also up for a few hours. Why did she decide as soon as we moved to stop sleeping? After he was up and awake for so many hours I just gave up and the three of us went downstairs and watched Yo Gabba Gabba.

Just a few weeks ago five days before I had Mark we decided to go hiking. We looked up a hike and drove there- it was just ten minutes away. Unfortunately after 20 minutes of searching through endless parking lots next to the park we found the trailhead. What are people hunting right now- and why didn't I remember that everywhere is Pennsylvania is full of hunters and NO hikers? I will figure it out eventually I guess.
Danielle fell asleep in protest.

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I am exhausted.

I have to say one of my favorite things is cute little babies who have eyes that go just a tiny bit cross eyed. Mark is a squishy little cuddle. He is so different from Danielle- he just wants us to hold him all day. Or to nurse all day. Hello slow baby- Danielle wasn't cuddly at all so it is still fun. I don't know what I will do in four months when he still wants to be carried everywhere- or in 14 months.

Lots of people have brought us food which is really nice since I am exhausted. I have done the dishes twice since the baby arrived and finally put up the photos in the nursery. Turns out newborns will sleep through you pounding nails into the walls.
Mark still doesn't have very much hair on the top of his head, except a tiny swirl that looks a bit like a comb over- luckily the sides are growing quite nicely so maybe he will look like a very old man soon. Mark went on a road trip this week to pick up Danielle. We really missed her on Tuesday so we packed everyone up and got Danielle early. Danielle hasn't been to a park since she has been back, but she has watched some yo gabba gabba and sang about happy thoughts a lot. She has learned a lot from yo gabba gabba- like whenever I get frustrated she knows to tell me to keep trying- don't give up. I tell her the same thing when she things it is too hard to throw away her trash in the floor.
If she knows hot to find my wipes and diapers and throw away the dirty diaper and wash her hands afterwards maybe she is ready to be potty trained.
If only I could stay awake long enough to do it.

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