As many of you know, we use “so sad” as a
Love & Logic term with the kids. In the past few days Lex
has decided to be helpful and “so sad” Eve :) I’m not sure if
we should encourage this behavior (who wants their big brother
disciplining them?), but the funny part is he has been correct
in each case. He even says it with empathy and gives her a big
hug afterwards. For example, tonight she got Alan’s slipper and
started to chew on it, so Lex walked over, said “So sad Eve”
and took the slipper away. He put it back with the other one
and then went over and gave Eve a big hug. So cute!!

And speaking of Eve, she seems to have
discovered just yesterday that she can get farther by crawling
instead of pulling herself along with her hands. She’s been
doing a little crawling and a lot of GI Joe moves, but that’s
just a lot of work! Suddenly she realized that crawling can be
faster. Go Eve!

Lots of other stuff
going on these days, but it’s 10:30 and I’m tired. I did sign
up another kid today, a two year old girl. Lex will be
surrounded by girls :) She’s coming for a few hours next week,
then starting full-time in January. Should be fun!

We had a bake-a-rific weekend! Saturday was our
annual cookie party. We had two other families join us to bake
lots and lots of cookies. My little house had 5 adults and 5
kids running around. We made gingerbread men (and women and
children) and the toddlers painted them (with some help from
the grown-ups). We made fudge and Rudolph cookies and
cranberry-white-chocolate-chip-oatmeal cookies and all sort of
yummy things :) Sadly Jim & Julie were unable to attend
this year, but with little Tinkerbell almost done baking,
everyone was pretty understanding.

Eve and I went to visit my friend Jen today to
make a gingerbread house! My first! She is a professional baker
and offered to teach me. So we had a fun, relaxed day of
baking, cutting, framing, and decorating with breaks here and
there for lunch and tending to little ones. It was cool. Lex
and Alan got a boys day together and both were duly impressed
when I brought home my creation.

It’s day three of our at-home morning nap
attempts and he fell asleep!! Quietly, all by himself, and in
just 15 minutes! Yay! Very convenient too because I have A LOT
to do before our cookie party tomorrow. Now if Eve will also
fall asleep…

Eve was more than happy tonight. She was
bouncing, laughing, clapping and just thrilled to be alive! It
was hysterical. She is also super mobile now, between rolling,
crawling a few feet at a time, and perfecting her GI Joe crawl.
I put a plate of pistachios on the floor last night (just
putting it down for a second) and she did a snazzy launch move
that landed her about 2ft from where she started… right on my
plate!! And she laughs and laughs. She can also get up on her
knees to reach things, so we regularly find her kneeling in
front of the hearth playing with the toys up there. I think she
had a growth spurt in the past few days, both in size and
development and skills. I had my first full day with my daycare
baby today and she’s TINY compared to Eve. I caught myself
almost putting Eve on the floor with Lex and telling them both
to follow me into the kitchen while I carried the baby. She’s
mobile, but not that mobile… yet! Actually, she could make it
into the kitchen pretty easily, I’m just not sure she’d stay
focused that long. Probably get sidetracked a few dozen times
along the way. She’s such a joy. Then, after being more than
happy for awhile tonight, we gave her the pacifier and put her
in bed and she went right to sleep. How did we get so lucky
with her?? :)

Sorry to bore you all with my constant nap
issues, but part of the goal of this blog is to document stuff
the first time around, so we can review what worked and didn’t
for the second go-round. Right now naps, or the complete lack
thereof is the biggest thing going on around here. Lex is such
a sweet, friendly, helpful, fun kid — when he’s rested. When
he’s not… he’s miserable, defiant, fussy, and a general pain
in the butt. I love my sweet little boy and am not ready for
him to stop napping, despite his protests. Unfortunately you
can’t force a kid to sleep.

This week
we’ve been trying an AM nap instead of his usual PM nap. This
came about because he usually seems tired in the late morning,
so I was trying to get some lunch in him and put him down in
the early PM, but lately it seems like we’ve missed his peak
tired window and skipped right into fighting and crazy time. So
I’ve started giving him a snack and getting him in bed earlier.
So far this week we’ve had two AM car naps and two AM rests,
but no sleep in the bed yet. However, both AM nap attempts at
home have resulted in an hour of calm, peaceful reading in bed,
which is MUCH more than we’ve been getting at his PM nap time.
I’m going to try this for another few days and see if we can
get some sleep.

Another thought I had
this evening is perhaps he’s missing one-on-one time with me. I
know we’re together all day, but he doesn’t get much alone time
with me. I’m always busy trying to get stuff done (why the hell
won’t the house and bills and stuff take care of themselves??)
or tend to Eve or manage play dates or whatever. In the past he
never wanted to play with me, but lately he’s been asking me to
play with him a lot. He has also been getting more jealous of
Eve, pushing her off my lap, taking away her toys, etc.
Yesterday, every time I sat down he came over and sat in my lap
and called it a nest. At one point when Eve was in my lap, he
sat down with her and said “two babies in the nest.” And,
yesterday, for the first time ever, he asked to nurse! They say
it’s common when a new baby comes along that the first may want
to nurse again, but I don’t think they mean 8 months later!! I
was sitting on the floor with them and she was getting fussy so
I made a comment about having to nurse Eve soon. Lex came right
over, cuddled into my lap and said “want me to nurse you”
(pronoun confusion boy) I said something about him being a big
boy and drinking milk from a cup and he just nuzzled into me
and sat there for a minute. Then Eve rolled on the floor over
to Lex’s sippy cup and he jumped up to take it away and say “No
Eve!” :) Today I had a friend over all afternoon and Lex was
his normal no-nap defiant self. When she left and Eve went
upstairs for her nap, Lex got really sweet and cuddly and just
wanted to sit on the floor with mommy and do nothing. He fell
asleep in my lap in the recliner. So, maybe, just maybe he’s
feeling like he’s missing mommy time. Does that make sense that
it would impact nap time? We may have to start scheduling
one-on-one time with Lex. I always just assume my kids are so
easy and roll with life, but sometimes I forget their special
needs too.

So, those are my nap time
theories. Neither bodes well for my daycare baby starting soon.
Hopefully I can get him napping in the mornings this week or
next so when she starts full-time the following week I’ll have
a happy toddler.

We got our tree a little early this year. We
took a little family outing on Sunday to this cut-your-own
place about 1/2 hour away. It was a lot of fun. The field is
big and not much of a walk, and they also have a cool ski-lift
swing, Santa, free candy canes and hot chocolate and other
stuff to do. Lex wanted a little tree, and I would have gotten
it for him except that the trees all cost the same amount, so I
couldn’t really justify $36 for a tiny tree in addition to the
full-size one I wanted. He was quite happy with the big one we
decided on and even happier to see Alan get on the ground and
cut it down… and even happier to see Alan haul it back to the
place on his shoulder. That boy loves his daddy!

Lex’s favorite part of the trip was a
tractor-drawn wagon ride through the field. The point was to
bring people out into the fields to get a tree, but we cut one
close by then rode the wagon just for fun. It was freezing, but
he loved it. He wanted to stay on for another ride, then wanted
to go back on it again later. Crazy boy. He wanted nothing to
do with Santa though. He actually liked the idea of visiting
Santa, until he saw the guy (perfectly normal and ok looking Santa, of
course) and then he said “no, no, no” and wouldn’t go near him.
Same thing happened last year. And the year before he didn’t
say no (he was only 7mos) but did spit up all over Santa! :)
Eve spent the day in the belly pack snuggled up against me. We
both stayed toasty, in the belly area anyway. She was amused
mostly by Lex’s exuberance for the whole event.

When we got home and put up the tree he got
even more excited. He kept saying “Wanna look at the tree. What
a nice tree. What a tall tree. Ooohhh, what a nice tree.” And
other such excited statements. I thought for sure he’d help
decorate it, but instead he played with the ornaments and tried
to crawl under/behind/on/in the tree. And he also put the
little Baby Jesus from our nativity scene to bed in an ornament
box :) I asked where the baby was and he said “the baby is
sleeping. Sleeping in the box.” Then a few minutes later he came running up to
me, handed me the baby, and said “baby woke up now!” Now that
it’s all decorated he loves to turn on the lights and say
“ooohhh, look at the tree.” The low hanging ornaments have also
become new crawling objectives for Eve. Can’t safely leave her
in the living room anymore!

Happy eight months to baby Eve! And boy is she
ever happy. She has a bit of a cold, but that’s not slowing her
down. We did a night of sleep training Wednesday night (after
my cranky post) and she woke up Thursday morning with a cold.
Unrelated, but I felt bad for her and I figured we were done
with the sleep training until she was well again. However, she
seems to have decided that her bed is the place to be and we’ve
had a few great nights now. Hopefully it lasts when her cold
goes away. She loves rolling around on the floor, practicing
crawling moves, and, most of all, her mommy!! :) Can’t
complain, but I think Alan would like some baby love too. She’s
also got the throw up largely under control. The other day we
made it until 5pm with one bib! Some days I even get daring
(crazy?) and put no bib on her for awhile. Wild woman,
huh?!?

We’ve started decorating for
Christmas and I think we’ll get a tree tomorrow. I’ve been
debating about whether it’s too early, but I got all of the
stuff out for it (tree stuff is all mixed in with other
decorations) so the sooner we get the tree up, the sooner I can
put all the boxes away :) Probably should look at a better
storage/organization system some day. Lex and I made an advent calendar and he’s
pretty excited about it. Last night we had all of the circles
(ornaments) on the floor and he was handing them to me, in
order, so I could tape them on the door. During the process I
learned two important things: 1) He can count pretty high (I’ve
heard him get to 50) but he doesn’t recognize number well above
10. So we were talking about what “teens” means and “twenties”
and when they were all up he spent awhile looking at the
numbers and counting them. And 2) he swears all by himself! I
said “Lex, what comes after 18?” and he said “19!… Oh shit,
where’s 19?” I kid you not!! There it was, clear as day.
Luckily he was facing away from me and didn’t see my reaction
of shock and suppressed giggling. I don’t swear much and
certainly don’t use that word often, so he wasn’t parroting, he
just said it, in perfect context, all on his own.
Wheee!!!

We had a nice visit with Grandpa and Grandma
today. They brought bagels and a gingerbread man cookie. Lex
loved the cookie and Eve was very eager to try it. I gave her a
teething biscuit instead, but for some reason it wasn’t the
same…. maybe if it frosting on it…

Two more hours until
dear hubby comes home to take the kids and I’m off with some
friends for dinner and belly dancing show. Sounds like fun,
right? The woman doing the show also teaches belly dancing
classes and I thought that sounded like a blast. I hear the
show is great. For now I’m off to enforce “mommy quiet time”
for another half hour. Looses some of the relaxation aspect
when it needs enforcing, but oh well. Better than nothing. And
remember…. life is good!

Happy
December!

I know it’s almost over, but everyone wish
Joyce a happy big 25!! Hope you’re having a good one
sister.

Lex has stopped napping. This has been
exhausting and stressful (mentally, physically, and
emotionally) for both of us. For awhile now he’s fallen asleep
only after Alan or I physically restrain him by wrapping him in
our arms in our bed and holding him still until he falls
asleep. We call this “cuddling him to sleep” and he hates it
worse than anything. And when he screams, we sing. So we sing
and cuddle him until he falls asleep. Mean parenting, huh? But
lately this hasn’t even worked and Eve’s nap schedule has made
it difficult for me to lay down with Lex every day. So this
week I decided to try “mommy quiet time” instead. Lex doesn’t
have to nap, but he does have to give me one hour of quiet time
where he sits in the living room and reads books and doesn’t
talk to me. This makes him pretty happy and he’s pretty good at
it, but unfortunately it’s not as restful as a nap so he’s
still exhausted by bedtime. We’ve been putting him to bed by
7pm and he usually goes down in a screaming fury. :( Then wakes
up at 6:30am, still tired. This morning he was rubbing his eyes
at 6:30am, fussing and crying by 7am, and telling me he was too
tired and needs a nap by 7:30am. “Are you tired? Are you tired
and need a nap?” (“you” = “I” or “me” in Lex’s world). So I
tried to get him to lay down on the couch (Eve and Alan were
occupying both bedrooms), but he wouldn’t, so we started our
day (every day, all week) very tired, which results in more
meltdown, more rebellion, and more “wanna just do nothing”
days.

On top of his issues, Eve has
decided that the best, and only, place to sleep at night is in
my arms. Not my just bed, but my arms. I love her dearly, but I
don’t sleep well with babies in my arms. She won’t sleep long
in her bed and she won’t sleep with Alan, just with me. She’s
become quite the momma’s girl. It’s hard to complain about that
:) I guess we’re going to have to do some sleep training soon,
and hope it doesn’t disturb Lex’s desperately needed sleep.
Alan’s idea is to bring Lex in the bed with us instead and
letting Eve CIO (cry it out) in the crib. We did a modified
version of that with Lex around this age and it worked well. It
was emotionally tough, but worth it.

So,
ready for my tired rant? I haven’t had a good one of these in
awhile. I’m also struggling because it’s coming up on Christmas
and I LOVE CHRISTMAS but we are so broke. My daycare business
isn’t exactly picking up as quickly as I’d hoped. The baby got
pushed back two weeks and everyone else I’ve spoken with either
has an infant (I can’t take any more infants) or is looking for
work. I’ve got several people with two year olds who say that
as soon as they find work they’ll sign up with me. But that
still leaves me broke and somewhat in limbo for the holiday
season :( It’s Eve’s first Christmas and Lex’s first that he’s
old enough to understand. It’s also the first year we will be
at our house Christmas morning. I really want to buy them fun
things (not a lot, just a few) so they can have a wonderful
Christmas morning, but we are so broke :( Alan keeps reminding
me that they will never remember this and they’ll get plenty of
presents from everyone else that evening and over the next few
days, but it’s not the same. It’s more about me, I guess :)
Selfish, but oh well. I also really like shopping for others
and wrapping presents and all that jazz. I wanted to take them
to the mall to see Santa and help me pick out presents (they
are both great at shopping), but we won’t be doing that this
year. I just love Christmas! Anyway, that’s just a rant and if
anyone is looking for a gift for Eve, she (hehe… ok, I)
really wants a pair of gingerbread Robeez. Alan pointed
out, rightfully, that since they are holiday shoes she’ll only
be able to wear them for a month or two, but I say they are
just so cute!

Ok, I’m done with my
tired rant and Lex is reminding me that “mommy quiet time” is
over so I’m outta here.