wordless wednesday

Friendly Reminders

Dear Ben,

Waiting for me to come get you in the morning is a very nice gesture.  I am thankful that you do this.  Just remember, while waiting in your room, if you happen to find a container of Vaseline, all of its contents do not go in your hair.  Even if you think it's wildly entertaining.  Stop yourself.



Dear Bex,

1 am to 3:30 am is NOT a full night's sleep.  Not even if you wake up happy.


Love, Mama

Half Birthday

To my Biggest Little One,

It's been six whole months since you joined us.  Thank you, by the way, for deciding on the 17th to come out.  You were getting pretty big and it was hot.  In some ways, I'm in denial that my baby boy is already half a year old.  In other ways, I feel like you've been here forever.  You've definitely changed my perspective on raising an infant in your baby career so far.  I had the misunderstanding that I was genetically predisposed to give birth to angel children that slept on command and stayed in quiet-alert mode during their waking hours.  You don't do either and have all but ensured you will likely never be a middle child.

Sleep is getting more appealing to you.  You're only waking up two times a night, on average, and don't fight too hard when it's nap time.  This after months of sleepless nights, pacing the floor and bouncing gently for hours on end.  And by hours, I don't mean 30 minutes that felt like hours.  I mean from 1:30 to 6 am, every.single.night.  Your dad and I were even taking shifts until very recently.  I'd get the first half of the night, and he'd soothe you until the sun came up and longer.  You're welcome.  Luckily, you have the best smile in the world and when you flash it, I forget how tired I am and smile back.  You're all gums and cheeks and even your eyes smile when you're happy.  It's delicious.

 Your favorite toy is whatever I'm holding.  It's important to you that I'm within your reach at all times which I secretly love, even if I act put-out by it sometimes.  I think it's important for you to bond with your other family members so I share you with them often, but I can feel your stare, even when I'm not looking right at you.  I am your security blanket and am totally cool with this.  And prepared to be your roommate in college because the attachment is mutual.  I love my little Becky.  Oh, and by the way, I apologize for such an unfortunate nickname.  We didn't think this one through when we named you.

At six months, Ben is your hero.  You watch him like a hawk all day and lose your mind with excitement if he decides to play with you.  You smile, giggle, and kick your legs with glee.  Ben adores this and imitates you, which turns into its own little game.  He loves taking care of you.  He helps me give you medicine in the morning and burps you after a meal.  He insists on helping you take a bath and rubs lotion into your skin afterward.  If you're playing quietly by yourself and he notices you, he approaches you and says "Hi baby!" and always kisses you, complete with a "muah!" sound.  This makes you squeal with delight and makes me happier than you'll ever know.  You two already share such a special bond, just like I envisioned when he would pet you in my belly and you'd kick back.

You are rolling over, starting to sit on your own, and trying so, so hard to crawl.  I said you'd do it by the end of your 5th month, but I'm quite sure it'll happen by the end of the 6th.  And that could be my bad because I've slacked off on tummy time recently.  You are grabbing anything in your reach and love to type on my keyboard.  In fact, you have an uncanny ability to pull up my html editor and change my toolbar settings.  Already a computer nerd, you fit in quite well here.

The last six months have been exciting, educational, challenging and a total love fest, all at once.  Every day gets less hard and more fun and makes me look forward to what's next.  I love you to the moon and back, Pookie.  Happy six months!

Love, Mama

Beware the Ides of March

We're all making this face today.  Sickness has made its way to Turner Place and we're all feeling the effects.  It started with Ben, of course.  He has a new fascination with hani-tizer (hand sanitizer) but apparently this wasn't enough to keep disease away.  And what fun would winter be without at least one episode of fever, sore throat and runny, runny noses?  So after a few days of Ben sniffling and sneaking sips out of Mama's sippy cup (read: Coke or sweet tea with a straw), Mama fell ill.  After a night of hallucinating, soaking my pillow in sweat, and losing the ability to swallow without wincing, I found myself at Urgent Care, getting lots of antibiotics, steroids and orders to sleep it off.  "Get some rest", the doctor says.  I answer with "I will", laughing on the inside.  Sure I will.  My kids will definitely allow that.

But thankfully, Jacob stayed home, under protest, so I could burn off the fever and let the drugs take over.  I woke up to Ben screaming his head off, taking his train table apart like Godzilla-Ben, Beckett sniffling and crying, and Jacob, pacing the floor, holding Beckett and making the same face I make when he gets home an hour late on a hard day. 

Oh, did I mention Daylight Savings Time screwed us up royally?  Whoever came up with the genius idea to manipulate the clock a couple times a year obviously didn't have kids.  Our first experience with this was our first night as parents.  Ben was born at 11 am and that night, we gained an hour.  I remember us thinking "Oh great, an extra hour we get to be awake".  On Saturday night, we lost an hour so the next day flew by, naps were all screwed up and complicated with sickness.  We're still trying to get back on track. 

Tonight I have a coffee table full of empty chinese food containers and prescription medication, a 2 year old sleeping in the middle of his floor, wearing the clothes he wore today and clutching a pair of shoes, and an infant who went to bed entirely too late and has been squirming around ever since.  Oh, and a messy kitchen, pile of laundry and a Tupperware container full of dirty diapers.  A shining moment in motherhood.  Looking forward to feeling better and having two snot-free children.

Ode to a Denim Jacket

When my sister was Ben's age, her uniform consisted of a dinosaur t-shirt and red shorts.  And it wasn't a girly shirt.  The dinosaur wasn't a famous cartoon character that had a name.  It wasn't smiling.  It was a screen print of a t-rex, with his little arms curled, mouth open, and standing under a very tiny sun.  I'm not sure how she came to own this terrible shirt, but she wore it every day for months and pitched a fit if it was unavailable.  The red shorts didn't match her "diney shirt", but they always went with it.  Strangers would smile at her and ask my mom how old her son was.

Ben's uniform is the denim jacket and jeans, his Canadian Tuxedo.  While shopping for winter clothing last fall, Ben spotted the jacket on a hanger in Target, pulled it off the rack, into the cart, and smiled.  This was the first time he'd ever expressed a preference for clothing, so I went with it.  I made sure he understood the fashion choice he was about to make and tried to talk him into something else, but without success.  He cradled the jacket throughout the whole store and proudly placed it on the checkout counter, taking personal responsibility for it.  And every day since then, cold weather or not, he's worn this stupid jacket.

I'll admit, it's pretty cute with a pair of khakis and a button-down shirt.  But when I try to explain to him that jeans AND the jacket is just too much denim, he brushes me off and insists it complete his ensemble.  Sometimes, I hide it so he forgets about it while he's getting dressed.  Up until now, I've had to put it on him.  But this week, Mimi taught him how to put it on all by himself.  So now he even wears it with pajamas.  I gave birth to a Canadian.

Since the denim jacket purchase, I've bought two other jackets.  Grammie bought one too.  He screams if you suggest he try any of them on, so the denim jacket it is.  I have a lot of anxiety about this summer and the jacket.  Just like the time my sister engaged in a battle of the wills over wearing her diney shirt to a wedding, I envision fighting Ben over wearing his jacket to the park on a 90 degree day.  But for now, I'll let it slide.

B Squared Bathtime

When it's been raining for two days and you have two small, antsy kids looking to be entertained, bathtime will buy you at least 20 minutes of entertainment.  After that, you have to get creative.

Benny is a rockstar:

And a big brother:

And Beckett is happiest when wet and surrounded by bubbles:

Notice the hand positioning there.  Beckett found his "special purpose" and this makes him very happy.  You've got to love little boys.  We just said goodbye to Mimi and the Aunties after a four day spring break at Turner Place.  The guys had lots of fun, lots of pictures were taken, and I slept and slept and slept while enjoying 24/7 babysitting services.  And I might even be caught up.  Icing on the cake?  Beckett SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!  And go figure, no voodoo was involved.  So there we are - at nearly six months, Beckett finally realized he might be tired after all.  Praise Jesus.

Milestones

Yeah, that contained five ounces before Beckett got to it.  Turns out, the key to getting a stubborn boobie-addict to take a bottle is NOT maple syrup, it's kicking the boobs out of the house.  I pumped, went out for two hours, and came home to a sleeping baby and an almost empty bottle.  Thanks to Jenny for the bottle suggestion.  And for telling me I needed to leave the house - it worked!  Phase one is complete: the kid takes the bottle.  Phase two involves Dad fixing a middle-of-the-night bottle for Beckett and feeding him  Another challenge begins.

Another set of milestones occurred at Turner Place this week too.  This one, however, gave me actual heart palpitations.  After 28 months of rear facing in his car seat, we turned Ben around.  His seat cover needed a spin in the washing machine, and as I was inspecting it to figure out how it comes off, I realized he actually exceeded the rear-facing weight limit by more than a few pounds.  Whoops.  Turning him around made me feel uneasy at first, but it's turned out to be kinda cool to look back and see his little face smiling and watching the world out his window.  And Jacob, who has been fighting me on this extended rear facing thing is much happier to be able to move his seat back if he wants to.

Not sure about this forward facing business:

But wait, there's more!  The same day that Ben flipped forward, Beckett got his very own big boy car seat.  Beckett "The Mammoth" Turner was reaching the weight and height limit on the infant seat at a young five months.  He got the identical seat that Ben has, and actually enjoys riding in the car now.  His screaming fits while riding in the car may have actually been related to being uncomfortable in his baby seat after all - go figure. 

Totally into the big boy seat:

My babies are growing up.  The palpitations were a direct result of realizing that this Mama thing is going by way too fast for my comfort.  Pretty soon, B Squared will be racing to the car yelling "shotgun!" or better yet, be asking for the keys.  Ugh!

Sleeping Like a Baby

Whoever came up with that one obviously never lived with Beckett.  I'm putting it in the same category as the term "morning sickness", like being nauseous and throwing up into the nearest available container only happens when you first wake up.  It's all BS.

March 1st means Beckett is five and a half months.  The same age Ben was when he had been in his room for nearly two months, "sleeping like a baby".  He cut out his night wakings at this stage and while I realize we were ridiculously lucky with him, we are equally unlucky now.  Beckett still wakes almost as often as he did when he was brand new.  I feel like I've been really patient with this but I'm ready to move on.  In a desperate effort to at least reduce our awake hours at night, I started reading books about scheduling naps and bedtime.  I am not a schedule person normally.  I don't like structuring my day so rigidly that I'm boxed in.  We have naptimes during the day, but they fluctuate with whatever is going on at the time.  Bedtime is always negotiable.  And this has always worked for us with Ben.  I'm realizing now that screwing with a child's schedule and still having them look forward to putting on their jammies and jumping into bed, no matter what time, is pretty much a miracle.

So these books say to put your baby to bed before they know they're tired, and do it at roughly the same time every day.  They also encourage bedtime by 6:30 or 7:00.  In this house, Dad still isn't home for at least another hour.  All of this goes against my mama intuition, but being desperate, exhausted, and over it, we've tried what the books say.  And guess what?  It's gotten WORSE.  One of the books say sleep begets sleep.  With Beckett, sleep begets enough energy to stay up all night and party like it's 1999.  So after a couple of weeks, I'm back to the drawing board.

After my last blog, I got a lot of creative tips on how to get baby to take the bottle so Jacob can feed him and I can sleep some.  Within 24 hours of the post, I pumped, ran to the store and bought a new brand of bottle, and even put a little bit of maple syrup on the nipple so he'd have an incentive.  While he was definitely interested in the maple syrup and licked it all up, he still knew the fancy bottle wasn't Mama and rejected it.  Another tip we've yet to really push is Jacob giving him the bottle while I'm not home.  This one doesn't come up a lot but we're going to make a deliberate effort soon.  I haven't slept more than three consecutive hours in over six months.  I'm willing to try anything!

In other news... I'm participating in another Natural Parenting carnival event this month.  The random, declarative post on family help with all those links at the bottom was my first contribution.  In the rare moments of free time I've had over the last few months, I've been reading lots of mama blogs and found a group of them I really enjoy.  And every month, this group gets together on a predetermined topic and posts the same day.  March's post comes up next Tuesday so check it out, and if you're interested, check out some of the others in the links I post.  This group has a lot of fantastic mama-writers, and I've become addicted to many of their blogs as a result.  To keep you busy till next Tuesday, you can check out the hosts' pages: Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama.