Category Archives: Family

Here’s what we look like today.

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Three Steps Forward, One Step Back

Last night Elisha was down in 15-minutes.

The two nights before were only 35-minutes each, and two night-wakings (one each night– I was anoyed and convinced– because of whiny sisters).

Truly, he ate heartily both times, so it was probably needful.

He still hasn’t been eating many solids, and was actually getting a nursing blister for the first time since he was brand-new.

Down in 15-minutes last night. Utterly exhausted.

Then up at 3, and 5, and 6:30, and from there sleeping and waking on Daddy’s chest in the living room. (“You still holding me? Okay, life is good.” Zzzzz)

Elisha’s pushing his front teeth through swollen gums today. The meds wore off about 3 a.m. (I’m guessing) and we just weren’t able to get back on top of the pain.

He’s been comfort-nursing today more than he has in a while, and I really can’t blame him. Really, I’m glad to have something to offer him.

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General Update

We are (Lord willing!) coming out of a black hole of sleeplessness.

Natasha was having frequent night terrors, Elisha would wake 4-6 times in the night, and Melody would take forever just to get to sleep.

Melody still takes the longest of anybody to pass-out, but she’s generally quiet about it, and now that I’ve quit trying to shift the kids’ schedule earlier, Natasha’s been napping again and the terrors seem to be past.

For a week or two, I was attempting to nap the girls from Noon-2, hoping the earlier nap would help them sleep earlier at night. The mixed results (they would go down earlier, but wake more in the night) have since made it not worth the effort. The rhythm we fall into naturally seems to work much more peacefully.

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In other news, Melody has become the resident singer. She will join in whenever I start singing, and keeps singing even when she doesn’t know the words. ;o)

Natasha is more disinterested now, in general, but has learned all the words to “Papa’s Song” (the first verse of The Star Spangled Banner). She’d be interested in learning more verses if I knew them, but since we returned the picture book to the library before I memorized all the lines, I don’t have whole verses to offer her.

Elisha signs and says “All done,” now, and sometimes tries to use it when I’m changing his diaper. He loves to clap when we’re singing, and sometimes tries to sing along too.

He crawls everywhere, “cruises” along whatever furniture he can grab, and will stand independently for a brief time (he pulls himself up than lets go, grinning ear to ear before he plops back to his bottom).

We’ve tried to get him to walk with the toy hippo Gma H gave Melody when she was learning to walk, but I think the wheels are still a bit too fast for him. He ends up leaning forward until he’s walking on his knees.

Everybody is glorying in the warming weather, asking frequently to go outside (the girls) and dashing cat-like onto the front porch (Elisha) whenever the door is left open.

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Stablizing

Jay got home Tuesday from his 3-day snow-machining trip.

We did okay here, but I’m really glad my sister was in-town for the weekend. She helped with bedtime Saturday night then came back and helped with baths Sunday morning. She also joined mom in helping shine the house before Jay got home Monday night.

The tough parts were Elisha giving up solids (he hasn’t finished a jar since Friday, and he was going through 2-3 a day), and waking up a gobzillion times every night. It was hard on the girls too, culminating in night waking for Melody, and a long cry before nap for Natasha.

Jay stayed home Tuesday and Wednesday, so I was able to catch-up on some sleep and started in hard on “teaching” Elisha how to go to sleep in his own room Tuesday night.

This generally involves laying the child down over and over again and listening to a tired baby cry no matter where he is (in the crib, the rocking chair, etc.) because he expects to nurse to sleep, even though he’s not hungry.

We had about an hour and a half of him fighting sleep, and another half-hour of his giving-up before I was down about Midnight.

Four wakings that night, the last I was able to pat him back to sleep without taking him out of bed.

Last night we had about a third of that fight, much less vigorous, and three night-wakings, again, with one where I was able to rub his back to settle him again.

The marked improvement is very encouraging, and quite motivating to continue the exercise.

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Socratic Parenting

I just noticed this morning how many questions I use with the kids when I’m redirecting and/or annoyed with them.

When they’re mindlessly mouthing random objects:

Is that food? Does it belong in your mouth?

Seeing their use of books as stepping stones across an otherwise clear floor:

Are books for standing on?

Through squalls of desire for the latest must-have object:

Would you like a timer?

This is how an object changes hands. Sometimes the have-not will be so worked up and angry about not getting it *now* that she’ll screech No! and the result (her sister gets it even longer) just ramps her further until her focus changes.

They have both reacted this way, but it’s the best thing I’ve figured out so far, and when no one’s overtired it works really well.

Natasha will occasionally give the object to Melody because of the melt-down, so she gets enough reinforcement to try each time. I don’t really want Natasha to be less generous, but I’d really like to quit feeding the fire.

When one comes to tell me brokenly (and usually loudly) of her sister’s insensitivity:

Have you told her that makes you unhappy?

When the other refuses to modify her behavior:

Would you like it if she did that to you?

This latest still means nothing to Melody, but Natasha seems to just begin to understand it. I’ve only said it a couple times, but she has looked cowed, obviously seeing it that way for the first time, and has usually changed her behavior.

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We’re in Chaos Here

…but at least I can still feed them well.

We had ham and chix chowder for dinner and homemade choc ice cream for desert.

While finishing up in the kitchen I had fun thinking about the different things being said around our front room (one of them was me, and one was Jay. The rest were Natasha. Melody is currently on a nodding kick, where she seems to be resisting our family’s tendency to use words so much).

  • “Respect her ‘No,’ Dad.” (Melody wasn’t in a mood to be teased and said so).
  • “Give her time, she just woke up.”
  • “Play Fives…with the pickle.” (“And the tickle?”)
  • (“Ew, yuck, I don’t like that.”) “That’s not something you can say to your mom. you can only say, ‘Thank you, very much!’ And eat it all up.”
  • Please don’t break your neck. That would make me very sad.

Natasha has begun to invent in her conversation. She told us all about her telephone conversation with Uncle Benjamin while we ate dinner. Bet you didn’t know he’s got three kids (he hasn’t told her their names yet) and he broke his arm last night.

How did he do that? Well, there was this tree, with spiky things sticking out of it. And Benjamin wanted very much to hug his mom, and was running toward her very fast and banged into the tree… and his arm fell off.

(This injury was why he didn’t have time to list the names of his children.)

But he was very happy to see his mama, and hugged her anyway. With his only-one arm.

Yeah, it might have been messy, but he was getting it taken care of. That’s why he couldn’t talk on the phone long. And his kids were staying with Abby and Hannah while he got fixed up.

We are just going to have to start recording dinners. It was a total hoot.

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Fine-tuning our Sleep-plan

We are *so* not buying brand-name Children’s Motrin again. The generic tastes so much better.

I’m looking today, and if we don’t have any generic in the house we’re going shopping this morning. Elisha’s learning to resist medicine, and that wasn’t the case before. This stuff is nasty, and I hope we can train him back to accepting the good stuff w/o a struggle.

*sigh*

In other news, he slept six-hours together withe the Ib/disposable plan from last night.

Bad news is he only slept 6-hours. He woke at five and hasn’t stayed down yet.

Note to self:

  • Change his diaper anyway
  • Give him medicine anyway
    • So what if it isn’t pain? You don’t know that it isn’t; he’s not going to OD. And if it is pain, do you really want to stay up the extra hour to find out?
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Well, he’s sleeping *longer*…

Elisha was up three times in the night (I can’t remember what his top-wakings number was– that phase was an understandable haze).

But thankfully we seem to be at the next phase of sleep teaching.

(The first, if I forgot to mention, at its worst had him up nearly every 45-minutes. That was doubled maybe once or twice per night, and never in the day).

I did a slog of training to get him used to his bed. We didn’t do cry-it-out with him because it’s become apparent he has Melody’s temperament in this. Natasha at this stage was a breeze: 5-7 minute of sleepy (or occasionally 9-minutes, or loud) crying, she was out comfortably, breathing quietly.

Not so with the younger two. Stories for another day.

I’ve also bought a variety of types of baby food (under the tsk tsking of some church moms who pointed out the expense). These I open one or two at a time and see how much I can shovel in before he gets completely distracted by his sisters’ popping over to entertain him.

The full tummy I think is helping him get more of his calories in the day so he doesn’t need to cry for them at night. Having a variety of foods keeps him engaged longer.

Telling the girls to leave him alone seems to be like telling them to sit-still or keep their volume down.

Their brains only remember for so long– and I haven’t wanted to make it a (physical) discipline issue yet, because the reason they come back is they adore him, and they don’t want to be away from his delighted smile.

That’s hard to get strict about.

Anyway, he’s above/around ~ 3 hours at a go, which (thankfully) allows me a few sleep cycles as well. I have been functioning perceptively better in the last few days.

But I am still thankful for the lunch-hours Jay comes home and gives me a short nap in the middle of the day. Does so much to strengthen me for the afternoon and dinner-time. (Nap-time doesn’t match on a daily basis right now).

Anyway, best I could tell, one of the wakings last night was because his pain med ran out (there are either two or four teeth trying to push through. I’m not sure), and one was because he was soaked (he hates being wet in a way the girls never have).

We might try going to disposables at night and see if that make a difference, and do ibuprofen instead of Tylenol– since it lasts longer. (I usually do Ib anyway, only I couldn’t find the open bottle last night).

I like having specific ideas to work with. Having something specific to change gives me hope for improvement.

I also like being less tired and having a more-positive approach beyond simply surviving.

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Hot chips

Jay bought two varieties of Dorito chips while we were out shopping yesterday. Both of them spicy.

Our girls love doritos, so when Jay opened a bag tonight he gave some to each of them. Poor things! They wanted so much to eat them but they were too hot. Jay said they’d take a little nibble, then guzzle down their water (or milk) and ask for more.

They got through about a chip and a half this way, before they gave up.