We've Moved!

States, not blogs. Thus the lack of posts, despite the hundreds of things I've wanted to post about.

We now have . . . .

a house under contract...yippee!!!!
- an apartment in Stockbridge, GA
- a swimming pool!!!
- a van
- a tablet (our computer died while Seth was in NC :( )
- a super cozy lay-z-boy (thanks M and A!!! it's made H such a happy girl! and me too!)
- a new haircut (not one pictured above)
- a new blog picture (5th anniversary...went backward in time...prev was 3 yrs ago...ah, well. It was better than the bedragled one H took of me while Seth was out of town. ;) )
- a new LDS congregation
- a new family to play with every couple weeks (kids aged 6, 4, 2, 2wks)
- a new elementary school
- an awesome 2nd grade teacher for H,
- and H successfully falling asleep WITHOUT melatonin!!!!!

I'm feeling really spoiled, which is good, because we could still use....

- a washer and dryer (EEK!)
- a keyboard for my tablet
- an unpacked apartment

- a husband available to help unpack and declutter (just teasing here, I know that isn't happening)
two potty trained boys (scary)
a housekeeper/mommy's helper so that someday the two above items might actually occur
vinyl in apt's eating area so we can allow our kids outside our tiny kitchen
kitchen table and chairs
a toddler who doesn't scream hysterically when we try to put him in his car seat because he wants to sit in his brother's forward-facing seat...or his sister's....when his head is so huge that it can't possibly be safe to let him sit forward-facing until he's like 10.
a mother who goes to bed before 12 or 3 a.m.
drs, dentists, pediatric versions of the same, and a speech therapist
and last but not least, a health screening/form that will allow H to go to school Monday....hoping to get that tomorrow!!!!

Kids sleep update

Just wanted to get this posted someplace for future reference. I'm super stressed about what to do with the kids' (and thus MY) summer routines, but I know it'll work itself out somehow.  Just will it be in a good way or a bad way???  ;)

email to a friend:

Re: naps, it would be a blessing if [H] didn't fight sleep so much and we weren't so great at getting her off her sleep routine, which always means her not being able to sleep and waking at night.  She's been on melatonin for the past two years, which has helped in a miraculous way.  Full-day kindergarten has been torture until this past couple months, but I'm also not the nicest mommy when pregnant.  We had to bring her home from school once a week just to make it through each week, and bedtimes before baby was born was 6 p.m.!  Now bedtimes have been 6:30-7, so she's spiraled to not sleeping until 8/9 and waking up each night instead of just waking one night a week.  I now just let her join us in bed or on the floor instead of making her go back to her own bed so that her awakenings don't interfere as much with my sleep as they otherwise would.  I'm looking forward to her napping regularly again, although it'll just have to be temporary until we can get her caught up. Then we need to figure out how much sleep (and when) she really needs now.  I'm sure next fall will be rough, but perhaps by next spring she will only need 10 hrs at night instead of this past year's 12 hrs at night and 2 hrs during the day?? Ha, riiight....

It looks like [S] will be the same way.  He sleeps better than she does--although I had finally understood infant sleep by the time he came around, so that's more because of me.  He sleeps for 3 hrs during the day if he's had his full 12 hrs at night.  Lately with our schedules being off he's gotten only 10-11 at night, so he'll seriously take a 4-5 hour nap mid-day.  It's amazing!   But it's not his ideal sleep times, so he's still a bit cranky anyway.  :(

[N's] also been one serious sleeper, and he's topping them all!  It's been a huge blessing with the whole transition to three kids thing, especially with the oldest child being the difficult sleeper.  He probably started sleeping 6 hrs at night at 2 weeks and now he's often sleeping 9 hours at night!  At 3.5 months old!  He still sleeps most of the day--he'll have probably 2-3 awake periods that last an hour or two.  These will be during the day if we're out and about--he can't sleep if we're out and about, which is opposite of [S] and [H] until at least 5-6 months of age--or late in the evenings if we're home all day.  I think there will be no choice but to homeschool or hold him back for kindergarten if we're still in NC!  (I wanted to do one of those with H's sleep needs this past year, but with me pregnant homeschooling wasn't an option, and I still dislike the idea of holding back any of our kids unless they are a summer birthday and need it from an academic standpoint.)

I am so looking forward to summer!!! :D  Get my two older kids back on a good routine!!  Then maybe *I'll* get some good solid sleep regularly too, eh?  :) Ha, riiight.  I'm afraid [H] gets her issues from me. :P  Oh, well.  Such is life!  :)

Life Will Change

Six-year-old H said something to me completely out of the blue that made me have to leave the room in order to not burst out laughing.  In fact, I would have laughed anyway if I hadn't have been rushing to find a paper and pencil in my mess of a house so that I could scribble it down before I forgot it, which, given my ADD manner, caused me to not totally catch or forget the exact words she used at the end.

"When you're 31, 

life will change 

because I'll be older then

 and will help out 

like I don't do now."

This school year has not been the year for "help[ing] out".  It's been a year we never want to repeat.  (Although considering that Lil'S at age 2 is taking a blessed three-hour name most days of the week, I have a feeling that we will.)  In fact, most days it's been like pulling teeth to get H to make it through homework, dinner, and her bedtime routine.  However, we've suddenly seemed to have had a reprieve from this, whether H's starting to need less sleep, or life has just returned to some kind of "normal" since N arrived and family has been visiting.  I've had glimmers of my beautiful H, the one that seemed to have disappeared ten months ago when she stopped napping regularly.  One of the beautiful parts of her showed up in how well she will apply good things she reads to her life.  She and I read a story in this month's Friend magazine about two girls who helped take over their mother's chores after her hand was severely cut.  By the time her hand healed, the girls had gained great skills and were perfectly content to continue helping out.  I was about to type that suddenly H was helping out!  However, I think she was really starting to help out more on her own, so this story just helped strengthen her efforts to do so.  Maybe part of this change has been my willingness lately to have her read to me, instead of me to her, and to let her stay up a bit late in order to have more than 2 minutes of reading time.  I've been leaving the room closer to 6:30 most nights and occasionally as late as 7.  As late as those times have been, she certainly has been tired afterward, but not as tired as she was previously.  I wonder if, were we to get her to bed at 6 again, would she be able to make it through her week without her Tuesday afternoon naps?  

(The most obvious change is that she hasn't been fighting her patch as much.  I think she wore it for about a week without complaint upon my asking her to put it on.  What a blessing that has been!)

H update

Stole this from an email to a friend. . . .

We've finally bit the bullet and are taking H home one afternoon a week.  She still really should be coming home every afternoon, but logistics wise, I don't know how to pull that off.  ([Lil'S's] nap is 11 to 1 or 2, and he doesn't do well with interruptions to that--I don't want to mess with his sleep in order to get H her sleep.  [S] will be coming home this Tues to pick her up, and I have to find someone to stay with sleeping [Lil'S] while I get her next Tuesday, but at least we'll have Christmas break after that, right?)  She's been getting stomachaches that have been increasing in frequency since we started her eye drop treatments, so it's obvious she needs her sleep so that she can better handle the stress of it all.  Although she's only "allowed" 12 absences, her principal said he wouldn't be coming after us for them.  They usually only make a big deal if absences are really excessive.  Phew!  A friend of mine told me today that her son missed 18 days for various reasons through his kindergarten year, so that made me feel better.  I hope I'll be more likely now to give her a school holiday when she needs it.  Yes, she may be missing out on some academics, but there's a ton she's missing out on learning here at home too.  We've been unable to expect even the most basic of responsibilities because she's just too tired (or wired) to follow through on things regularly.  If she wasn't so much better when she's well-rested, I'd think she had severe ADHD.  Honestly, she very well could have mild ADHD--her sleep has made me wonder, as difficulty falling asleep has always been a problem for my ADHD brothers and I--but she wouldn't be able to receive a proper diagnosis if she's not getting the sleep that it's obvious she needs.  She may be asleep by 6:30 most nights, but the fact that she starts zoning out or tantruming at 5:30 (usually mid-dinner) shows she really needs to be asleep sooner.  (And then there's typically the 2:45pm and 4pm crashes and the 9am and 10:30/11am ones on weekends. . . .  How do I keep forgetting those??)

I wish S and I were more assertive.  I mean, I can be assertive with people I know well, but with those I don't know well, I'm often more passive.  I think we'd be bringing her home more often were we so--and I certainly would have been bringing her home from the start!

A big blessing this past week is that H hasn't had a cold--S and I have mild ones, but gratefully H and Lil'S have been spared since theirs ended around Thanksgiving.  H had various colds all of Oct and nearly all of Nov, on top of school and eye treatments and sleep dep, so it's been a great relief for her to be better in at least that aspect.

Why I'm Seriously Tempted to Homeschool

Two emails I sent off yesterday. It's been a long week.

Hi Ms. M[...],

I just wanted to apologize for the interruptions (backpack, lunch, barrette, etc.) this week. This week's been a rough one on H[...]--and thus the rest of us. Although she's normally been asleep by 7 lately, it's too late for her, and she's progressively been sleeping worse at night, culminating in 3 a.m. wake-ups where she's been unable to fall back to sleep at all (Mon) or to not be able to go back to sleep for a couple hours (Tues, Wed, Thu). We finally got her to bed at 5:45 last night and interrupted her sleep cycle at 12:40 a.m. (which often helps habitual wakings but isn't a guarantee). Gratefully, last night she finally was able to sleep the entire night, not waking until 6:07. What a beautiful thing to hear her calling this morning, "Mom! The clock says 6-0-7! Can I get out of bed now?"

We are re-doubling our efforts to be done tucking her in at 5:45 p.m. at the latest so that she can get a full 12hrs of sleep, which is how much she appears to need. (before school: 10 at night, 2 during the day) We will also continue letting her nap at least on Saturdays, early release, and no school days. (We try for an early nap Sundays, but it often doesn't work because she naturally wants to sleep around the time we're supposed to be going to church. We've actually missed church a few times this past month just to let her sleep, she's been so worn out.) She was able to nap 3-4x each week the first couple weeks of this past month (staff workday, keeping her home from church & 2 days of school with her cold), which allowed her to stop waking every other night--simply heavenly--and is probably why it was so easy to slip into letting her stay up until 7. However, upon returning to school for the whole week last week and our not getting her to bed before 7 p.m., she started waking briefly again and then finally couldn't go back to sleep, like I mentioned. Hopefully we can stick with this insanely early bedtime because otherwise I think I'm going to lose it myself! (She's already lost it a number of times.)

I'm grateful she's naturally such a well-mannered child because otherwise I'm sure her sleep deprivation would be much more obvious during school hours!

Thanks,

R[...] :)

The ironic thing is that Miss H was honored at a reception Thursday morning for being a "Terrific Kid" in the area of responsibility. Or maybe that was a necessary positive to help rebalance the scale so we didn't completely slide off into insanity. . . . She really is an amazing kid. This sleep thing just tends to hide that, which is why this full-day school thing is really killing me. I hate the effect it so easily has on her and the rest of us. But, I guess that's life. It's supposed to be hard, right?

Hi Ms. B[...],

First I want to tell you I'm impressed with your website! Nice job! I'm glad to learn what my daughter is learning in her classes as I take her education seriously. I appreciate you sharing not only what activities you're doing with my child but also what your expectations for her are.

My kindergarten-aged daughter H[...] S[...] (Ms. M[...]'s class) has exercise-induced asthma. Maybe you've already been informed of this, but I wanted to make sure you were aware as she's told me she's been having symptoms during P.E. Her asthma is generally mild, but it affects her ability to give her full 100% during physical activities. Her typical outward symptom when she gets active is coughing, although the less apparent symptoms are dizziness and foggy thinking. She's supposed to be receiving a dose of xoponex (similar to albuterol) before P.E. to prevent her symptoms, but this generally hasn't been happening. Apparently the dr only writing "as needed" on her medication form and then my request on all the additional health forms I filled out that she receive it before P.E. wasn't enough for her to be getting it then. Earlier in the week her doctor faxed a note clarifying that she needs it before P.E., which the nurse confirmed with me was all that was needed for H[...] to be given it regularly before P.E. However, H[...] said that she still wasn't given her medication today. Hopefully she'll start receiving it regularly next week.

I know you have lots of kids to keep track of, but if you could keep an eye out for her, maybe ask her how she's doing during/after vigorous activity every now and then, I would really appreciate it. I've talked to her about her need to raise her hand and let you know if she starts having symptoms, but she is still young and may not do so. If she does start having symptoms, she needs to sit and rest and have her xoponex so that she's symptom free before continuing activity.

Thank you so much for your help,

R[...] S[...]

There were a lot of other things I could have written in both emails, but I am very proud of myself for showing a great deal of control. To be honest, I think I've already "lost it" a couple of times this week. But as far as these emails are concerned, A+ for responsibility on my end!

SLEEP!!!

Those of you who know me really well understand how obsessed I may seem about sleep. For a number of reasons it's something I've struggled to get my entire life, but I just figured I didn't have much control in that area as any and all attempts to get more usually failed miserably. (Except for that one time in college when I finally had success teaching myself to fall asleep on my own by repeating some phrase over and over in my mind to keep myself from mulling over everything and anything until all hours of the night.) Then my lovely daughter H was born. I loved her more than anything--and still do. However, she was also unable to sleep. Period. It has turned out to be a blessing in disguise, in a way, as it made me desperate enough to search endlessly (ha, certainly not tirelessly, though!) for information on infant sleep. This road actually has lead me to find the puzzle pieces I've needed for understanding and improving my own sleep. (Not that I'm actually in happy land yet, as you'll see from the previous posts! Like I mentioned, there are many things that affect my--and anyone else's--sleep, and lack of knowledge was only one of them.)

Just now I came across what felt like the entire, completed puzzle explaining infant sleep--the jack pot, the pot of gold, whatever you might want to call it. The recently updated (Nov '10) webpage on child sleep (which I know wasn't this updated when H was an infant!) from the University of Michigan is so beautifully stunning that it brings tears to the eyes of this absolutely exhausted mama. (Okay, so not really right this moment as *BOTH OF MY CHILDREN ARE PEACEFULLY SLEEPING* but I'm sure that it'll make me cry tears of joy the next time I'm that absolutely exhausted mama, which I probably will be in about 10 minutes if I don't go take advantage of that fact that my children are asleep .)

The webpage fully covers--or provide links or book recommendations and/or reviews for--practically everything sleep-related that I've read up on the past five years of my daughter's life. And, what's even better, it has just pointed out to me a very likely reason why my daughter's sleep has been so completely and terribly awful her entire life.

After Lil'S's arrival, and after observing his beautiful way of understanding that he's supposed to sleep for a couple sleep cycles in the morning, a couple sleep cycles in the afternoon, and then one more sleep cycle in the evening (when younger and now when desperately needed as catch-up), I decided that the differences between H and Lil'S's sleep just had to be--not me doing something different--but the fact they were two different people and it just must be a compete difference. Well, that may play a part into it. However, there were major differences between how I was when H was born and how I was when Lil'S was born.

I wasn't as depressed with Lil'S as I was with H.

Check out this UM study linking mother's depression and infant sleep.

Okay, now I think I am going to cry thinking about it. Time for my nap! (After I go put Lil'S back to sleep!)

Sigh....

So, why is it 1 a.m. and not only I

but also both my children are still awake?

Guess it's just all part of being a mom, huh.

At least they're cute, right?

;)

Oh, and I just posted a brief saved post from H's birthday!

http://ncspud.blogspot.com/2011/02/birthday-fun-ii.html

oops!

I think when my next child comes, I'll be blogging about things a year after they happen....if I ever get them blogged about to begin with.

Now back to my shrieking (with glee) one year old, stuck in his chair at the kitchen table, likely wearing strawberry yogurt all over his mouth thanks to Sister's kindness.

Too cute.....even at 1:43 a.m.

Why am I still up?

Maybe because between my husband and my kids I've fallen asleep around 2 AM every night since Tuesday....

Yeah, I guess that would explain it.....

And I do still have more to post from Lil'S's birthday celebration--the celebration that actually happened on his birthday. (yay! more fire and smoke!) But, obviously, now is not the time. Good night, children, Mom is going to bed.

Oh, yeah, I have to put them to sleep (again) first, huh.....