Another Day in Parradise: Sleep

Showing posts with label Sleep. Show all posts

Lola is 1! We Made It!

365 days? The days have gone by slowly, but the year has flown - know what I mean?

365 days ago we went from this:

...to this:

...in a matter of 3 hours!

The "Babies for Dummies" websites say not be be offended if your child doesn't smile at you the first few months of her/his life, but Ms. Lolo was having none of that...

...and she has been smiling ever since.

She's pretty much gotten the hang of handling her rambunctious very-soon-to-be 3-year-old brother too. She's learning more everyday when to smile and laugh, when to scream for help, and when to fight back against his antics. I think these two will be the best of friends someday.

And TJ is a fan of anyone who will let him make fart noises on their arm, so Lola is A-ok in his book.

Lola is not quite walking yet, but does pull herself up on anything and everything - including people, dogs and curtains. She's also become quite the adept cruiser along the living room furniture - any day now she will be toddling around the house and life will change just a little bit more.

She still enjoys her bottles (onto whole cow's milk now, and doing great), her baby food (she loves the vegetables!), and oatmeal in the morning and before bed - but with a mouth full of chompers (including 4 molars!), she eats food from our plates at mealtimes and has been downing Cheerios and other kid-diet-staple cereals for months now.

What's that? How's she sleeping? Well...in my humble opinion - like a champion! 10-12 hours a night straight through since she was 8 months old, and she's still taking 4-6 hours of naps everyday. I seriously won the sleepy kid lottery! Maybe that's why she's so happy all the time - she's well rested!

Happy Happy First Birthday to the most cheerful sweetheart of a baby in the universe, we made it a whole year!

I'm Trying to be Really Nice to the Dogs In Preparation for When I Hate Them in 5 Weeks.

We have two dogs. There is Stockton, Tom's 11-year-old pug and our resident senior citizen. And there is Miley who is my sweet little lady mutt rescue wonderdog.

I heart our pups.

Until I have a baby and I hate their guts.

Two years ago before I had TJ I loooooved my little Miley and Stockton. They slept with us in the bed every night, we went on daily walks no matter how gross or crappy it was outside, we cuddled and played, I dressed them up and bought them toys and covered them with blankets when they were cold, and there were many evenings when Stockton would lay on my chest and Miley would lay on my legs while I was reading or watching TV. At the time I seriously could not imagine loving any living thing more than I loved these dogs.

And then I had a baby. And the dogs were like three times his size. And they became public enemy #1A+.

GIANT DOGS, tiny baby...and Stockton winking at the camera as if to say, "This kid is going to replace me on the throne of greatness? We'll see about that..."

Why public enemies, you ask?

Well, first and foremost there was the barking...Oh My G, the barking.

EveryTIME T was sleeping somewhere in the front room area, one of these two assholes would decide to bark at something, usually imagined, and T would, of course, wake up. Just, no.

I was not afflicted with any sort of post-partum depression difficulty when I had TJ, but you would never have known that if the only time you saw me was when I was around these dogs. They were always in the way, they were always barking, they always needed food, or water, or to go outside, or to breathe.

And then, of course, there was the shedding. They. Shed. Everywhere. Making the environment FILLED with contaminants and dander that could harm my child's breathing functions and I hated them.

I wanted to kill them, in fact. I wanted to open the door, let them run outside, and then lock the door behind them. Or drive to the middle of a field, let them out of the car, and then drive away. Or stuff them in the bathroom and make them live in the tub forever.

So in preparation of all of those feelings returning in 5-6 weeks, I'm doing my best to be nice to them like the old days. I'll be honest, Stockton is just too smelly anymore to lay on my chest and be allowed to breathe/sneeze directly into my face, and it's just too big of a pain to take them for a long walk EVERYday, especially if I have to do it all by myself with a two year old, AND pick up the poop (a weird no-no during pregnancy).

So there you have it. A confession of negativity. A chink in the sunny disposition.

Stockton and Miley, I love you...for now.
Christa

My Kid is Pretty Great

And I'll tell you why, but I won't make a super long sappy deal about it. It's funny too - I promise. So continue reading, my kidless friends who are sick of hearing child-rearing friends talk about their kids.

Last night was one of "those" nights. And I don't mean in the evening when we were hanging out around the house playing trains, eating jelly bread and drinking bubbas. I mean during the sleeping hours...big trouble during sleepies time.

There was a pretty big thunderstorm in the Chi-town area last night and it kept waking T up. Usually he's a good little sleeper and lets out a holler or two before rolling over and dozing back off when something wakes him, but not last night. He must be in the middle of a growth spurt or something because every time he was awakened by thunder he cried, screamed and yelled the names of different foods until I went in and got him.

It seriously sounded like Will Farrell yelling for his mom to get the meatloaf in Wedding Crashers. But without the F-word.

Side Note: Yes, I purposely used the clip without the F-word at the end so I wouldn't get hate mail from my Grandma.

The "meatloaf yells", unfortunately, were a constant occurrence last night between the hours of 1:30 and 5:00 a.m., which is quite unheard of for my child who has slept through the night with regularity since he was 4 months old.

So you can imagine my sleepless state of being at around 4:30 a.m. when a deafening clap of thunder shook the walls and a minute later I heard the piercing sound of my baby crying.

This was followed closely by my own tears. Not even kidding. I started to cry. Because I just wanted to F-wording sleeeeep, and I had already gotten up and tended to the child THREE TIMES. So I waited. Listening to him holler "Momma!"......"Momma!" hope-hope-hoping he would quiet down and get back to sleep on his own.

But then his phrasing changed slightly.

"Momma!"....

"Mommaaaaa!"....

"Momma OR Dadda!"

"Momma ORRRRR Daddaaaa!"

This perked my ears and brought a smile to my face. And then it got even better when he started yelling...

"Guys!"

"Come here guys!"..."Come here guys!"

"Guys!"....."Where are you!"

"Come on guys!"

And that made me laugh. Laugh out loud, in fact. And my kid is pretty great because somehow in the midst of a sleepless night, as I was about to lose it, he managed to put the smile back on my face. In the middle of the night. The middle of a sleepless night.

Gold star for T.

...And Now This is Happening.

Remember the last time I blogged sometimes? Sure you do. The year was 2010, and I started this blog (memoir from here on out - blog is disgusting) called Stockon's Gonna Be a Big Brother to keep family and friends informed and mildly entertained as TP and I prepared to join the brotherhood of first-time parentdom.

Whelp, in spite of my best intentions I let the blog (memoir) fall by the wayside after our firstborn, and heir to our vast fortune, made his appearance. Sorry about that, but in my defense, I was a tid-bit busy with a shiny new baby, a full-time job, and a less-than-ideal house situation. Specifically, we were living in a one-bedroom home with no dishwasher and no washer/dryer. Unfortunately, this is no joke. When I think back to those days, I can only laugh. What stupid idiots we were! I was a sleepy-eyed weirdo with crazy hair, no make-up and deoderant on the front of her wrinkly, Febrezed shirt with ZERO time or energy to write things down in a cohesive and organized manner that anyone in their right mind would care to read.

But we're in the zone now! What a difference a washing machine makes, and boy do we have a LOT of great stories to tell.

And what better reason to get back on the blog (memoir) train than that we are expecting once again!

Yep. That's me six days ago. We are 23 weeks along and growing. Not to be confused with glowing, because for those of you who have never had a baby - that "glow" is nothing more than oily sweat slick all over your face. And now you know - you're welcome. But as my face gets shinier, so does my hair, so that's a plus.

To be clear, I don't intend for this to be a mommybabyparentsblah blog (memoir), per se, though. I have a vast amount of knowledge to share, and several really important things to say that the entire world needs to know. No one should be spared the wonder that is Christa, so stop in often...and be dazzled. And for those of you who think I'm serious, please hold up your left hand, smack yourself in the face with it, and continue reading.

So since we're already talking about babies, we found out our little one's gender yesterday. Wanna guess what it is? I'll give you a clue...actually, here are 11 clues. 50/50 shot, good luck.

Tip of your life: Never do a Google Image search for "pigtails" when you are preparing to bring a sweet, innocent baby girl into the world. Trust.

Welcome back to my memoirs...let's do this!

Hey! I'm Back!

Oh man, has it been forever! I have missed blogging! Three months, 2 weeks and 1 day into this craziness I feel like I FINALLY have enough of a handle on this parenting thing to say we have established the all-important routine. Let's catch you up on the last three and half months, shall we?

The first 6 weeks after Thierry's birth I was on maternity leave. And it was AWESOME. Tommy was in his brother Dan's wedding on August 21 (6 days after bebe made his appearance) and left for NY on the 18th - the same day my parents arrived to meet their grandson and hang out while baby daddy was away! When he was 6 days old Papa Mac took Thierry to his first baseball game (outside the womb, that is, he had been to approximately 50 games while in utero). Tomas returned to us unscathed the day after the wedding and we met him for a much-anticipated reunion in San Francisco. After meeting Tommy at the airport we spent the day at Pier 39 and enjoyed a birthday lunch (for ME) at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. We left mom and dad, er, excuse me, Gramma and Papa in San Fran and returned home to Motown as a family once again!

Tom's parents Ken and Connie (aka Yaya and Poppie) came to Modesto about a week and a half after TJ was born for a delightful visit that included lots of laughter and an awesome rib barbecue at our house. My mom came back for a double dip and overlapped her visit with Ken and Connie's so they could meet each other. Shar-Bear stayed for a week and was an enormous help with the baby and around the house! Anytime you wanna come back ma, you're more than welcome :) After the visits were over the days blissfully ran into one another, we didn't get much sleep, and took lots of walks around the neighborhood with our baby boy for the remainder of my maternity leave.

Buuuuut, those long days of delightful relaxation and hanging out with all of my babies came to an end and I returned to work in October. Fortunately my boss has allowed me to work part-time from home and my schedule in the office is only 8:30-1:30 everyday until we return from our Christmas holiday break in January.

At 11 weeks TJ started sleeping through the night and he has been a ridiculously amazing baby since we brought him home. He's incredibly strong and very easy-going. He doesn't cry too often, rolled over for the first time when he was 7 weeks old and loves to hang out with mom and dad. He's also content spending time with himself, and at just 3 months likes sitting in his bouncer or laying under his mobile and just checking everything out. One thing he does not particularly like is sitting in one place for too long, and he lets us know it! He's starting to recognize words, is smily and giggly and absolutely fantastic. I could seriously gush about the kid for hours!

Being a parent is completely surreal. I can't even describe it. But I know that I love it. Over the next couple of weeks I'll catch up on some of the fun adventures we've had since welcoming Thierry, and do my best to keep up with everything that's coming up. For now, here's some pictures of the boy...welcome back to blogging MOM...bahaha, so surreal :)

This is What We Were Doing August 14...