Rock A Bye Matthew...

I fell asleep last night at 20 minutes after 8. Even at my most exhausted moments, I do not fall sleep early. I just keep dragging myself from thing to thing that needs to be done. Last night, it just was not going to happen. It was like the 1st trimester all over again. I just laid my head on the pillows and was clicking between NCIS and American Idol and the next thing I knew I was greeted by people being berated on Hell's Kitchen and the bright dining room light shining in my eyes. It was 9:45p. I got up, stumbled to the kitchen, got a glass of water and got ready for bed. Kevin said Matthew was asking for me until after 9:00pm.

My son. Does anyone have any answer any longer about how to get a three year old to go to sleep in a timely manner??? We start his "bed time routine" about 7:15-7:30p every evening and seriously it is a hellish procedure from then until around 9:00-9:30p every night. We are convinced that the only reason he finally goes to sleep is that he is OMG actually tired and has just passed out.

He drives us batty through the process. He does not just play quietly in his room before going to sleep. No, no. He yells and cries. Whimpers and moans. He is a mad man. It is like bed time brings out the beastly beast in my son. For three years, we have been dealing with this and in ten-ish weeks or so, this process will seem even worse. I will not have the energy for a bit and my time will be taken up with - er - other things like providing nourishment to a newborn.

I have come to think of Matthew as one of those kids that is a bit of night owl BUT he is also a morning person. OMG, he is my dad...

Nothing works with him. We tried renaming bed time nap time because naps are such a breeze. You put him down for a nap and he kisses you sweetly and bang he is out. WHY OH WHY CAN THIS NOT BE OUR BED TIME ROUTINE? Not that I would want the nap thing to change to get his bed time down but still...

Really it comes down to feeling like a failure in this department. I was a huge wimp with him as a little guy. We gave into his whims because we wanted to hang with him. At one point when he was much younger he was staying up until 10-10:30p just because we did not say 'no'. We finally realized what a monster we were creating and OMG we were flipping tired it was mostly too late. I am grateful he goes in his room at around 8:30p & does not come out but even that makes me feel tired. I want to rest, decompress from work and life, watch the latest bad reality TV shows and maybe even go to sleep on time.

Random rant, I know but man I feel for Kevin who will have to take on this monstrous task in few short weeks because there will no longer be two sets of hands to deal with it.

On an unrelated note, we still have not come up with a baby name. We sort of think we know the middle name but only if it ends up going with the first name. Someone told me that the hospital will allow us to go three weeks without naming our baby. Do you think it will come to that???

Shiny happy people

A spaghetti squash! That is supposedly how big Princess pancake is this week. Mmmm, I like spaghetti squash and that just makes me look forward to working on the garden over the coming weeks. As well as welcoming Spring in especially after contemplating the idea of building Noah's Ark the past two days! I have no idea how much rain we had. We did not get near as much as locales in MO but enough for me to contemplate an ark...

Oh and here is this lovely and exciting thing to look forward too (?) from Babycenter.com: "Being interested in the differences between girls and boys is a normal part of growing up. Try not to react with shock or horror if you find your child in the midst of an anatomy check with another child. Just let both children know that penises and vaginas are kept private and steer them toward another activity. They'll probably be relieved, since they may already have some sense that the game they were playing is taboo." I keep trying to think what might be more fun to deal with THIS or the birds/bees talk?!

Moving on... Yesterday ended up being a bad day and I kept thinking whose karma did I mess with anyway!? I mean seriously this indigestion, reflux hellishness... it is no fun. I went home yesterday for two hours to take a nap and napping was not even an option because lying in the semi prone position made me even more ill. I ended up sleeping propped up at a 90 degree angle. BUT I got a nap in which was much needed.

Besides the massive stomach pains, I STILL cannot sleep. And 3 hours a night makes me a little teeny bit out of sorts. Like you know SOBBING in front of my boss out of sorts. WEEE... I called my midwife and she told me no more Tums. Try Mylanta and if all else fails try Pepcid or Zantac. I am kind of head strong about medicine when pregnant to the point where that little head cold a few weeks back probably lasted longer and was worse then it should have been because I just did not want to take any medicine for it. I am trying the Mylanta and holding off on the Pepcid but I am still in a ton of pain right now so tonight before bed I am planning to try the Pepcid per the midwife's advice. K said I probably have an ulcer - hmm, way to make the paranoid pregnant wife feel better, hon!

She also offered up relief in the form of Unisom. Okay talk about a freak out thing to take when pregnant for me but I tried it last night because I am totally unbelievably desperate for a good night's rest. I need to sleep. For me, for M, for K. For my poor boss as if she does not have enough to deal with... HALP. I slept last evening. I was up once last night to use the bathroom and went right back to sleep. And lo, I woke up refreshed. I am going to use the Unisom only when totally desperate so tonight I will try again without it and see how it goes. I am hoping the Unisom helped to break the wake up and lie in bed awake till the wee hours of the morning cycle.

On a fun note, Miss Pancake likes to kick in the evening around 10p and I will generally invite Kevin to feel the kicks. Up until last night he could not feel much. Last night he could feel it all! K just had a look on his face of sheer delight! Love that! She is also a mover and shaker in the morning around this time. And finally just after lunch. SO she likes to eat and stay up late. At least she and her brother will have that in common from the get go ;)

Another silly thing, M wakes up from time to time in the night or early morning. He will shout for one of us (thankfully K popped up at 5:30a to tend to him this morning) and M will tell us tearfully that his arm or leg is "shiny". Now at 1st I was like shiny wha?? I mean his arm/leg looked perfectly normal to me - no shine at all! Finally we figured out that his body parts are asleep as in tingly from being slept on for hours. Because this kid can find some amazingly acrobatic positions to sleep in. Every evening we have taken to going in before going to bed ourselves and checking on him. I absolutely adore doing this. It is just sweet to see his little mouth puckered up and his arms and legs flung all over, blanket in hand. SO yeah shiny... we told him the word was tingly but he likes shiny so there you go.

Elusive

I have suddenly turned into brain dead not so smart pregnant lady. I mean seriously. I have been struggling, mentally. A LOT. SO if you see me around blankly staring off into space with a slightly confused expression on my face & I look like I might also lose my balance, I have not been drinking - I am just pregnant. I think I need one of those word shirts - 'not drunk, just pregnant' so the poor people I run into with my shopping cart at the grocery store or step on their toes at Target (both are real stories...) know I do not mean it - it is out of my control. I am just pregnant.

Also, sleep. Novel concept and a great idea in theory. I mean I would love to say I go to sleep at a responsible hour due to the pregnancy and the perpetually cranky toddler, sleep through the night like I was tired and pregnant. Then wake up refreshed at the appointed hour I need to be up in order to get ready for work, make my lunch, eat breakfast, feed my child, get him dressed, spend some QT with him and get off to day care & work.

Rather I sit in bed at night until I finally force my index finger to depressed the red off button on the TV remote when the glowing (evil) red alarm clock blinks midnight, curl onto my Snoogle and lay there feeling my sinuses fill up with gook. I finally drift off only to wake up at 2:00a, 3:00a, 4:00a to lay there. Staring at the wall. Wondering WHY I am laying there awake? What woke me? What can I do to fall back to sleep?

Last night was the 1st time I reminded myself that if I was awake I should just get up because I know that I will not "just fall back to sleep". What did I do you ask? I just laid there, feeling sorry for myself, petting Santana's bald back. I will get up next time because laying there is just stupid. Think of the things I could do. WORK! LATE NIGHT INFOMERCIALS! WARM CUPS OF TEA (caffeine free of course!) A WORKOUT! Yeah all those sound appealing at 3:00a, right?! Oy.

The life of a pregnant lady is grand! We sure live it up!

Why is it that we are still talking about sleep?

Matthew is 26 months old - soon to be 27 months old. And yet we still struggle with sleep. That has always been a "major" issue in our household. We did not have that perfect angelic child who slept through the night from day one. Naps are a snap but bed time is/was/has been H-E-L-L through out the past 26 months.

I hate that time of day when we start talking about getting ready for bed - or as Matthew asks "time for napping?" It makes shudder to just think about bed time right at this moment. It is a battle of the worst kind. We have tried everything known to toddler kind, literally. I mean it. Kevin & I both have theories and ideas about how to make bed time easier. We try them, exchange ideas, see if they work and dump them out after several weeks of frustrated attempts to keep things status quo, to make sure things work. We have simplified, done quiet time, tried crying it out, compulsively made the routine routine, we have tried snacks, bribery, begging, screaming at the tops of our lungs... ah hem, I mean... er, we have tried everything. It sucks quite frankly.

Sleep (and the potty)- if only I could conquer these issues... I would then perhaps consider having a 2nd baby even!

Let me just say that it is not keeping my son asleep at night that is the issue (OMG pounding on the wood so as not to jinx us...), it is the act of actually getting Matthew to sleep that is the issue. I was happy to hear yesterday other moms (and dads) stating they have similar issues - not because I am happy they to are frustrated but because we are not alone in our issues. That always helps - misery does love company, you know?!

I am all over that - "omg yeah my son totally does that too." "oh you had to move the toddler bed back to a crib too!?" I can hardly contain my excitement to find others who have similar issues. It is suckalious to talk to parents who tell me that they have never had this issue or that - it makes me feel lonely. I want to cry at my failure as a parent to not be able to guide my young prodigy(because we all know he is brillant, right. Right?!) to learn to go to sleep. by himself. in a real bed. AFTER HAVING GONE POOPY AND PEE PEE IN A TOILET - ah but that is another issue all together.

I search in vain for the answer and even with all that company I am still miserable at the end of the day (haha, I am SO punny...) One of my favorite searches turned up on eHow (and if you have never looked things up on eHow - try it, it is fun and amusing all at once...)

" Be patient. If your toddler has trouble getting to sleep, that doesn't necessarily mean he has a sleep disorder ' it may just reflect the fact that being awake is so much fun. Work on the sleep routine at a rate your child can handle, and everything should be OK."

Yeah okay what about working on a sleep routine at a rate that mommy and daddy can handle because we are looking at the year 2010 before Matthew actually gets his routine and goes to sleep without a struggle! Ah and good to know he does not "necessarily" have a sleep disorder...

" Keep him busy during the daytime. Most toddlers have lots of energy and enjoy going to the park or playground to work some of it off." - I love how it is implied that our toddler stays at home with someone so he can go to the park or playground to burn off his energy. Grrr... nothing like alienating the working parent! Yeah so I was thinking about this part of my post and I am being a bit sensitive, I KNOW, but still... I mean come on!

Oh and this is promising: "It is a disturbing myth that a gentle sleep plan is slow and a cry-it-out plan is quick. The TRUTH is that either method can bring quick results. But in most cases, either way, cry or no cry, it will take weeks or months before a child is going to sleep easily and sleeping all night every night. Just like teaching a child to walk, talk, or use the potty, there is no one-day solution. And there is no simple one-size-fits-all solution."

As she runs from her computer screaming, in tears and her co-workers are left to wonder "what?"

This person - Elizabeth Pantley - who wrote The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night which I tried to slog my way through when Matthew was a wee tot wrote a great book. She has excellent advise but not if you are (extended) nursing. Matthew was just an aggressive nurser - I wonder how the hell I will handle nursing with a new baby and a toddler (mostly if I will be able to go for any where near as along as I went with Matthew - again another story, another time...)

She offers helpful advise on this go around (and I rather like Liz has a came to think of her back in the day...): "The best bedtime for most toddlers and preschoolers is between 6:30 and 7:30 PM; it's a biological thing. If we don't listen to the biological call we miss bedtime and then a child gets a second wind and is up until 11 p.m.

First, make sure your child isn't taking a long, late nap. For example, some people let their child take a dinnertime nap, which with a little nudge can become an early bedtime.

And an interesting thing I learned: When I surveyed children about sleep, a surprising 97% of kids gave the same answer to the question, "How do you know its bedtime?" The answer was "Mommy tells me." Or "Daddy tells me." This gives parents more power than they realized. They may have never realized that setting a bedtime is as simple as setting a bedtime!

So create that peaceful bedtime routine I've been talking about and set an earlier bedtime. It really, really helps if that routine takes place for an hour and is quiet, peaceful and dimly lit. Bright lights and noise prevent tiredness."

Kevin & I have discussed that some of the "getting Matthew to bed" issues may include the length of time Matthew naps, the fact that Matthew is so excited to be around us at the end of the day, the fact that he thinks when we put him to bed it is equal to us leaving him at day care during the day and, finally, we have solo bed time routines now a days. Both of us do not assist. Having both of us involved seemed to get him revved up rather then quieted down. I think we just need to tighten things up in terms of bed time routine and hunker down and know that eventually Matthew will get a bed time down (and it will be before he turn 16 and by that time OMG let's DEFINITELY NOT go there...)

Holy long post batman. If your still hanging with me, have a lovely day filled with hopes for a good night sleep!