Sleep, Baby, Sleep

The other night Tommy awoke at 11:30pm, ate a nice big meal, pooped, and then stayed awake, happy as a clam, until 3:30am. To say I dislike the nighttime poops would be an understatement. The night dookie happens at least once every couple of weeks with corresponding full-awake status. It makes me very tired. Also an understatement.

Then there's the matter of the frequent nighttime feedings. Tommy likes to eat. A lot. Betcha didn't guess that by looking at him :). And he likes to be soothed. A lot. What baby doesn't? The green binky is OK, the thumb will do sometimes, but his favorite pacifier is me. Good for the relationship, bad for the zzzzz.

And whenever Adam and I went to bed it would wake Tommy up, usually just a bit so he goes back to sleep when I feed him, but it pulls him out of deep sleep which I think makes him wake up more often throughout the night.

So we've begun the transition from the Snuggle Nest that resides in our bed to putting Tommy to bed in his crib. Right now it's just naps and the first part of the night until his first wake-up that he's there. Once he wakes up, almost like clockwork around 11:45pm, I bring him back to our room.

This transition makes me go boo hoo hoo!!!

I love having Tommy in my bed with me! I miss his little body snuggled in close and his little tender sleeping face next to me. Call me lazy, but I love not having to get out of bed when he is hungry, being able to doze off when he eats, and sliding him back into his bed when he's done so I can just roll over and go back to sleep myself (unless I've completely fallen asleep while feeding him, and then he just stays there in my arms until the kink in my neck or back wakes me up--believe it or not, I don't mind it at all!). I love our sleep snuggles. I love cherishing this time together because it all goes so fast. I love the quiet hours in the dark we spend together, when it's just him and me, the world around us fast asleep.

But I also recognize that he will be a happier sleeper and a better sleeper if he's not disrupted by us. And maybe if he is eating less in the night, the frequency of the night poops will also decrease. And consequently, so will the nighttime awake marathons. That will be good for us all.

I don't know. This is one of the hardest parts of infant parenting for me.

We never planned on being co-sleepers with our babies. It just kind of happened. Right from Zach's first night home from the hospital with us. It felt right. But when Zach was a year-old, we had to move him into his own bed because the three of us were sleeping in our little double bed and he was head-butting us in his sleep. OW!

Trying to get him moved out was a nightmare. He would cry and cry no matter how I rocked him and soothed him. After about a month, when he was crying ceaselessly anyway, I reluctantly agreed to Adam's suggestion to let him "cry it out." I read all the books, finding the method I felt best about and we went for it. That first night, I sat outside his door, listening to him scream and cry and call "Mamama!" and I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed right along with him. We did the interval comforting method (Ferber), it took until the 45 minute check before he finally stopped, that's around an hour-and-a-half of crying! When we checked on him after we were sure he was asleep, he was slumped over in his crib, sitting up, clutching the rails of his crib, heaving deep shuddering breaths. I was heartbroken. It was all I could do to keep myself from sweeping him into my arms and hold him all night long. Adam had to really encourage me to give it another night. But we did. And that night, mercifully, he stopped crying after the 10 minute check. The next night it was just a few minutes. But I was terribly scarred by that first night.

Ever since that experience we have continued our co-sleeping with each of the boys, but we move our babies out much earlier in their lives and naps after four months are always in the crib. We've still had to let the boys "cry it out," but never until they are around a year, when they are weaning and still waking a lot at night. That's a different kind of crying, it's more annoyed and complaining rather than pure devastation. Trust me. And when they are used to their own beds for naps and part of their nighttime sleep, the crying to sleep is so much shorter and less awful for ALL of us!

So here we are. It's Tommy's time to start napping in his crib. I have a hard, heartbreaky time moving my babies out. But I do think there comes a time when it is best for them, even if it sucks. So the Snuggle Nest has been relocated to the crib, he goes to sleep after a nice meal, sleeps swell, and I feel sad. But Tommy's been napping for three hours now, so I suppose the proof is in the pudding. Love you and miss you, darling boy!

An Easter Walk

For family night last night we started a new tradition. The Easter Walk. The idea is to read selected scriptures from the Easter Story and then have the kids find something along our walk to represent the scripture.

Before leaving we had talked about Easter and what it means: the significance and incomparable gift of Christ's suffering for us; ways we can show our gratitude for His willingness to sacrifice everything and endure unbelievable physical and spiritual pain for us; His death in heartache, despair and loneliness; and then the beauty and miracle of His resurrection; because He overcame death, we can too. The kids were really engaged in the lesson. I got a bit emotional and Zach said, "Mom's feeling the Spirit extra strong." I guess I was...I hope they were too.

Next we headed out into the "greenspace" behind our neighborhood...although this time of year it's more of a "brownspace." We set out kind of late, so the sun was setting on a beautiful spring day. The warmth of the day was still being radiated from the earth, with the coolness of the night just starting to set in. The gentle pink and dark blue of the early evening set a beautiful tone for our walk. Mark 15:17 And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head. Luke (with a frosting goatee from his treat) found this sharp stick to represent the crown of thorns.
John 19:17-18 And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of the skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. Josh made a little cross out of some dead grasses to represent the cross on which Jesus was crucified.
Mark 15:46 And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre. Zach found a big rock representing the stone placed in front of the tomb.
Matthew 28:5-6 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come see the place where the Lord lay. It was too dark to see anything living in the brownspace, it's still too early in the spring, but Ben found these little tulip leaves popping up out of our garden at home representing life and that Jesus Christ lives again!
On the walk home, a big, fat, yellow full moon was rising over Colorado Springs. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful lesson and a very enjoyable family night.
The idea for the Easter Walk is found here. Other great ideas with links that we plan to use to help keep the Easter week centered on Christ can be found on my friend Cailean's blog here.

{SUN}day

After a snowy, windy, freezing Spring Break, Sunday was a beautiful day. We took advantage of the lovely weather to move our indoor family time to the outdoors.This photo makes me think of those "Find the things that are wrong with this picture" games: barefoot with the un-melted snow in the background, dead winter grass and a squirt gun fight.I love Sundays. The Holy Sabbath Day. A day of rest from our labors. I love that we have been given a reason, truly a gift, to slow down our week, get a break, and spend time together. And I loved yesterday's sunny, warm, sweet Sunday!

It was such a beautiful day, that instead of driving up to our 5-miles away church building for the afternoon stake-wide meeting we decided to walk over to the building (our stake center--or the steak house, as my mom calls it :)) that is just around the corner from us. The program they were presenting was being broadcast to various ward buildings anyway, so we were all going to get the same information. And we all knew what that information was: our stake was being reorganized and new ward boundaries would be announced.

A ward is kind of like a parish. It helps the leadership target needs more easily so assistance can be given where needed; helps keep things organized so assignments in our volunteer-led congregation, like teaching of classes, can be made; keeps the sizes of the congregations regular so relationships can be built more easily (over time a ward, like ours, can feel like a family!); and many more reasons. Changes aren't frequent, this is the first reorganization of wards that I have ever been a part of, but changes do need to be made from time to time to keep balance.

Adam and I have always joked that our neighborhood was the "pimple" on our ward boundaries because the rest of the ward was basically a square with our neighborhood jutting off like a bump. And ever since we moved in and saw how our neighborhood was located within the ward we knew that if a change were ever made, more than likely our neighborhood would be moved to a new ward. So knowing these changes were coming, I'd been preparing myself to accept it. I have many wonderful friends in our ward, and the thought of change made me very sad. Over the weeks since the meeting was announced, I had been praying for the change not to include our neighborhood, but also, if it did, for joy in the opportunity to make new friends and peace with the changes.

This past Sunday morning my friend Heidi's Relief Society lesson on personal revelation was fabulous, and I truly thought much of it was directed toward me, to give me comfort in the changes ahead for our family. We often hear that God answers prayer in three main ways, "Yes," "No," and "Wait." But a quote used in the lesson said that sometimes God purposefully doesn't answer our prayers at all. He's given us the tools to know what to do or how to act in many situations, and sometimes he says, "You can do this on your own, you know what to do, just believe in yourself. I do." How weak would we be if he always answered our prayers just how we wanted! I knew this was something I needed to hear yesterday morning.

After church we went home, had a wonderful family day playing in the sunny backyard, and I felt a great deal of peace. I looked at my beautiful family, my boys that bring me such joy and my husband who makes me whole. Everyone laughing together, joking around, acting crazy. And I knew that wherever we were, we'd be together. That knowledge gave me great comfort.

And then came the meeting. Like I said, we went to the "wrong" building on purpose. So of course, we were the only family there from our ward! When we had to stand to give the vote of appreciation for one of the members of our ward's bishopric that had been released we were the only ones standing in a sea of people from three other wards... and they all turned to look at us! I gave a little wave as I wished we had gone up to our building. Fortunately everyone had a smile for us, perhaps it was because they thought it was funny we were the only ones there from our ward, but I like to think it was in support :).

After a brief introduction, the ward boundary changes began...my stomach was in knots. When they announced our ward I was practically holding my breath--which I let out in an audible surprised rush when the map popped up on the screen. We weren't changed! I was so excited I had to keep myself from crying. I had been so sure!

Since we had been focusing on our neighborhood, we didn't notice the neighborhoods that were included in the changes until later. Because we had gone to the wrong building they didn't have a list for our ward, but they did have a list for the ward that now includes some of our old ward's neighborhoods. Some very dear friends will be moved. I was sad all over again. As I was texting with one of my friends who will be in a new ward after the meeting, she joked that she and another friend who had been moved out were calling their neighborhood the pimple on their new ward. Just like we used to! I had to laugh; I know just what that feels like!

Today I feel relief mingled with sadness mingled with comfort. No matter where we go, no matter what ward we belong to, the principles of the gospel are the same. We have a Father in Heaven who loves us more deeply than we can understand, cares for us, guides us, and helps us to grow if we let Him. And as the old girl scout song says, "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold."

The Roll

Here we go!Or maybe not.

OK, back on track!

Up

And

Over!

Now what do I do, Mom? How about roll to my side?!

Tommy's first official roll over from front to back...Tuesday March 23rd, 2010. He's not a big fan of it quite yet because all he gets from it is stuck on his back. I don't know if I am a fan either. Why you ask? Up next: sitting, then crawling, then college! Yeah, yeah, I know. Exaggerate much?! But the first year feels like life is paved with one milestone after another, this week in particular (see the previous post and an upcoming post!), which gives me a little bit of a skewed perspective on the flow of time ;).

I wasn't sure how long this particular milestone would take. Tummy-time for Tommy has to fall into the perfect window between just-been-fed and not-extremely-hungry. That is a very small window for my insatiable one! Fortunately when we can find that window, he is willing to be on his belly for awhile. It looks like he might be close to the total roll because the first thing he does on his back is roll up on his side. We'll see...it just takes practice...if we can find the "tummy-time."

A Promise Is A Promise But I Think I Should Have Broken It

When we were packing up for Frisco last week, I packed the swimsuits in preparation for a possible trip to the Frisco community pool depending on how the weekend went. We had so little time and so many other fun things planned that we just never got to the pool. The boys were devastated, particularly Luke. So I made them a promise that we would get to the local community pool at Cottonwood park this week sometime.

I had completely forgotten about the promise until the boys reminded me today. I was hoping Adam would be able to join us, since it's a challenge to keep track of all the boys on my own in a busy pool area, but he couldn't make it. Zach and Ben are both great swimmers so I wasn't worried about them, but Josh is a beginner and Luke can't swim at all. So I gave the boys some guidelines about how the outing would go...on threat of major consequences if the rules were not followed...and this afternoon we packed up our suits and towels and headed off to the pool. We had about an hour and 45 minutes of swimming fun ahead!

It is an awesome pool! There is a pool that has a zero entry, meaning there are no stairs and it just gradually gets deeper which is great for little Luke, and it has a wave machine! You read that correctly! A WAVE machine! Then there is a "lazy river" section with a whirlpool and a long slippery, twisty waterslide. Boy heaven!

Luke stayed right by my side the entire time playing with this little bag of plastic diving fish that he had brought along. I am grateful for a toddler that is not keen on running amok, or this outing would not have been possible. Period. Tommy just hung out in his car seat. He was happy as long as his binky was in his mouth and his toys were rotated every so often. Zach spent most of his time on the slide and in the whirlpool.

We were all having a great time.

About thirty minutes in came the scary moment that kind of ruined my experience there today. A lifeguard had to jump in to pull Josh out! I had gone with Luke to check on Tommy for two seconds, but that's all it took for Josh and Ben to decide that they were going to go to the lazy river. It's not terribly deep, but deep enough, and Josh just didn't realize how deep it was. Neither did I for that matter! I had told him to stay in the wave pool...grrr...but I think Ben told him he'd help him. Cool that Ben wanted to help, not cool that they weigh the same and Ben just can't help! I dashed over when I saw where they had gone. Ben was doing his best to help Josh along, but it just was too deep. Josh is at the point in his swimming abilities where he can keep himself afloat, but just barely, and so he looks a bit like he is drowning even though he's actually swimming, not a comfortable stage of swimming for a parent.

The scene I saw when I arrived at the lazy river of Josh doing his beginner swimming plus Ben trying to push him up and going under himself, along with the current that was making everything worse panicked me and a lifeguard simultaneously. The lifeguard jumped in, grabbed Josh and Ben in one big hold and pulled them to the side. PHEW! I think they would have been OK, they were inches from the side themselves, having realized they had bit off more than they could chew, but it still sends jolts in my heart to think about it. I really do think they were ultimately going to make it. But I guess I have to believe that they would have made it just fine, even if the lifeguard and I hadn't gotten there and seen them, because just thinking about any other outcome makes my stomach lurch!

From that point on Josh was required to stay right by me and go no further than the 2 feet deep line in the wave pool. He also had to thank the lifeguard. Ben stuck close by too. I told him he could try the lazy river again next time we went to the pool, but I was still just too nervous to let him out of the wave pool. He's a good kid and wasn't too upset about that. Everything went smoothly for the rest of our visit. Josh was great, the other boys too. But I was just on edge the rest of the time. Eek!!! I was glad when we had to leave the pool to get Ben to soccer. Promise fulfilled. Children safe and blissfully happy. Mom still terrified.

In retrospect this outing was probably not the most brilliant of all my ideas. Maybe not a qualifier for the Bad Idea Hall of Fame, but close enough.

All in all, the kids had a blast. It really is an awesome pool. We will definitely go again. But not until Adam can go along and I've had some time to stop feeling freaked out!

Just The Reaction I Was Hoping For

You have no idea how happy I am to see this:And this:

The open mouth, the big smile, the shoving of his hands in his mouth attempting to keep that delicious goodness of mushy rice and pumped milk in...such the opposite of the reaction we got the last time we tried to start solid foods. Tommy LOVED food! Yipee!!!!!!

We had been waiting because he was such a happy nurser and putting on weight beautifully. He was healthy and satisfied, and to be quite honest I was a little scared to attempt a foray into the world of solids too early. We've had such an awful food experience with Luke that I just didn't want to push Tommy in any way. But in the weeks since his stomach bug cleared up, Tommy has seemed insatiable. He is hungry all the time. He wants to nurse all night and all day. I think he's trying to get back on track weight wise! And I am happy to help with that, but it just seemed that he wanted more. And he watches us eat, smacking his lips, our hands moving the fork from plate to mouth. So Monday we went for it. And I think we have success!!!

I'm bustin' out the Cuisinart...it's time to make some food!

Proof

If this won't do it......this won't either...

...nor will this...

...and definitely not this.

Nuh uh.Seeing the snow drifts blown up around our door from the garage to the backyard won't help...

...neither will the sight of our 12 inch ruler barely poking up out of the snow.

It's guaranteed that the beautiful two-and-a-half foot snow drifts in the backyard will not do it.

A cute face is sure sweet, but not helpful either.

Nope. Not this.

But perhaps this will do it...the little robin in the barren, snow-covered tree wishing he had flown north through Nevada instead...that just might convince you that yes, indeed. Four days ago it was officially declared spring. Maybe Colorado didn't get the memo.

But it's just the proof we needed to enjoy this snowy day, while still hoping that spring will make an appearance sooner than later.

The Zoo...With 20 Bazillion of Your Closest Friends

On Monday my friend Adri and I thought it would be a good idea to take our 8 kids combined, plus two kids of a friend of ours who is very sick with her pregnancy, to the zoo. Apparently two-thirds of the people who live in the city of Colorado Springs and the surrounding vicinity were thinking the same thing. I think the only people in the entire city who were not there that day were the group of our friends who had decided to go to Skate City instead. I parked in a parking lot that I didn't even know existed because I've always been able to park in the main lot before! I got super lucky and found a spot in this overflow lot right away, but Adri had to drive around for almost 30 minutes to find a spot...and to get that one she had to stalk a driver from the lot entrance.

But I'll tell you why the zoo is a popular place to go this time of year. It's not just that we parents are all trying to find something fun to do that gets us all out of the house on a warm spring break day so we no longer have to listen to our children bicker, it's also because the animals are out...and they are active!! Some of the big cats that I've never seen actually moving and not just snoozing the day away were actually quite spry!

So although it took us forever to locate two parking spots and navigating the crowds with a crowd of your own can be slightly stressful, I am so glad we went. The kids were happy and excited about the busy animals (me too!) and I always love spending time with Adri. She's a hoot!

We didn't do the giraffe crackers this time around because I completely forgot cash, but just because you can't view pictures from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo without at least one of the giraffes (the zoo's snazzy showcase habitat)...here you go. Here's two-thirds of the kids we had with us with the zebras behind them. It's hard to see zebras and not be reminded of Ben, at 20-months-old visiting the Hogle Zoo in SLC, shouting, "Hey! Zebra!" over and over again, trying to get them to come to the fence.Always a popular feature...the animal-shaped benches. Our zoo does not have rhinos, although for some reason the boys think there are "white rhinos" there. Whenever I say we are going to the zoo they say, "Can we see the white rhinos?!" I don't have any idea why they think there are white rhinos there, or if that is even a real animal, but every time I have to say, "There's only the blue rhino bench. No living rhinos at all, sorry guys!" If you know where I can find a zoo with a white rhino exhibit, please let me know.

Here's Zach with the snow leopard behind him to the left in the window. Forgive the glare, but look how close it is! I don't think I've ever even seen this animal at this zoo before, much less up close to the viewing area!

And Josh and Luke with the tiger below in its moat. I have seen the tigers, but they are usually really far back in the enclosure, just sitting and staring with bitterness in their eyes over being animals in a cold zoo instead of the warm jungle.

They were actually quite playful, they were rolling around this big barrel that was floating in the water. It was a good, happy scene! Maybe they like snow.

Likewise for the bears. In our many visits, we have seen the grizzlies both active and sleepy. This visit however, they were in a part of their enclosure that I didn't even realize was part of their enclosure! Just lumbering around, la-de-dah. It's hard to remember those big, fuzzy cuties are scary, defensive, claw-out-your-brains-in-seconds GRIZZLY BEARS!

Luke said, "Bye bears!" when it was time to go. He'd love to be a zoo keeper!This O.C.D. otter kept swimming across the glass on top of the water, then down under the water, back across the bottom of the glass then {pop!} out he'd come! Just like that in front of where Ben is standing! Over and over and over, exactly the same, the entire time we watched. I was just starting to wonder if it was a fake otter, battery operated, placed there to please the zoo crowds, when it swam off and got out onto the rocks.

Luke loved this big, fat frog exhibit! I am taking the picture through the glass, so it's not a great photo, but Luke sat and counted the frogs, over and over, kind of like the otter. There were nine of them, beloved by Luke, every single one!

Hippos! When we walked in the gates upon arrival, I asked Luke what he wanted to see the most. And aside from the elusive white rhino that his brothers had been talking up, he wanted to see the hippos. Every time we'd leave one exhibit to head to another he'd ask if it was time to see the hippos. Sometimes when the answer was "not yet" I could see him trying to hold back tears! The hippos were the second to last exhibit we saw. Finally! I think Luke was happy to see them out and about, romping in the mud! Romping? Do hippos romp? Well, no, but they were moving, which is more than I can say I've ever seen them do before! Usually they are lying in the sun, next to a pile of poop. So this was a big improvement.

Last but not least...the monkeys! Always a hit. They never disappoint. A couple of them were getting a bit "romantic" so we decided to move on before we had to do a "facts of life" lesson.

I have to add that Zach was such a huge help on our visit to the zoo. I had Tommy in the Moby wrap on my front, so Zach offered to push the stroller. He pushed it throughout the entire zoo! Even up the monster hills. Ben was really helpful too, lifting Luke up so he could see over the rails and fences and into tanks. What great big brothers!

It was a super day at the zoo! We all left feeling very satisfied in our visit to the animals, as well as the great time we had with our friends. Unfortunately, we had to leave it all behind to go to Zach and Ben's dental cleanings. Not the most exciting reason to hasten away from the zoo.

In closing, let me just tell you that it is a BAD idea to get your kids in bed at 10:30pm the night before (extremely late for our boys), take them to the zoo (fun, but tiring), then to the dentist (for an hour) and still try to squeeze in a trip to the grocery store (stupid, stupid girl). It was all good until that last bit. Standing among the frozen foods, ten minutes into the shopping trip, I realized that maybe I should have listened to that little voice speaking to me before I entered the store, saying, "Don't do it! Just wait. Do it later." That would have been wise.

As we pulled out of the lot, having made our hasty purchases while making off-hand comments about "don't you just love spring break?" and something like "boys will be boys!" while rolling my eyes at the cashiers and bag-boys who were looking at me like I was insane and completely inept, at least ten things on the list forgotten or ignored because of the chaos going on around me, five children strapped into their car seats: three fighting and two making an odd scream-cry sound, I inhaled deeply focusing on the good part of the day. And then I had to chuckle. It was all I could do. Some days are wonderful, some days are terrible, and some--like this zoo/dentist/doomed-trip-to-the-grocery day--are a mixture of both. That is the world of parenting!