Fun on a Saturday

Wow, I'm beat. We had an awesome day (for the most part), but it was exhausting. This morning Thomas, Meg, and I met my mom, sister, and brother-in-law at the farmer's market. We wandered around for awhile and bought a bunch of blueberries for Meg (she goes through a TON of blueberries). Then Thomas had to leave and the rest of us went over to the Italian-American Heritage Festival. To be perfectly honest, it was a bit of a letdown. It ran like 2 city blocks. There were maybe a dozen food vendors - all selling full-size meals for $5 or $6, not sample portions, like I'd hoped. Since we were full from the farmer's market, we didn't even get any entree-type food. We were there for all of 15 minutes. (I think they had more going on at night - maybe we'll try going in the evening next year). We did get cannolis. They were excellent and Meg really loved it.

We'd expected to spend more time there, so no one wanted to go home yet. We decided to go to Starbucks. We hung out there for awhile, then wandered outside and saw the water...thing. I don’t know how to describe it. Its part fountain, part endless pool. For the most part its a long stretch of ankle-deep water a couple feet wide. At one end, the water flows out in a waterfall (shown in the picture) and at the other end, it widens and gets progressively shallower. Basically, you take off your shoes and walk down the street in the ankle-deep water to cool off. Meg LOVED it. Mom put her next to the shallow end so she could feel the water and she immediately walked in further and squatted down to splash, getting her shorts (and the bottom of her onesie) all wet. I took the shorts off, then let her play. She got absolutely soaked and loved every minute. It was really fun spending time with my family, just wandering Des Moines.

1st picture: Meg and I at the farmer's market
2nd picture: Meg and my brother-in-law in the fountain

P.S. I had an extra outfit and diapers with me, so we changed Meg's clothes when she finished splashing in the fountain. It was so hot, the water evaporated pretty fast. My feet were dry within a minute or two of getting out. She dried off really quickly, too.

****Updated - I found some pictures of the fountain****

Seven Quick Takes

OK, I’m jumping on the seven quick takes bandwagon. I’ve resisted for awhile because I don’t even read the blogger who started them. Maybe I should. But I checked her blog out once and it seemed to be primarily about being a Catholic/Catholic mom. I’m not Catholic and I already read several Catholic mom-bloggers – including Arwen’s Faith & Family blog – so I didn’t feel like adding another. Does anyone know of any Evangelical Christian bloggers? Anyway, I hope she doesn’t mind if I start doing seven quick takes as well.


1. Apparently the reason my baby girl turned into a monster this past week WAS that she was overtired. I knew it! But there wasn’t much we could do about it, as, despite everything we tried, she wouldn’t sleep. But she finally broke down on Wednesday and took 2 naps totaling 3.5 hours of sleep at my mom’s house, then slept ALL NIGHT at home.

2. AND SO: She has been an absolute delight yesterday and today. I actually enjoyed being with her and am much, much less afraid of our daddy-less weekend. Maybe I WILL survive.

3. When I went to the grocery store this week, they had a display up of Halloween candy. At first I was confused. I thought maybe they found some candy leftover from last year? Is it really cheap? Then I realized, nope, not on sale, this is NEW candy. Halloween candy. In July.

4. Which tells me time must be running out for me to get on-sale back-to-school stuff. Every year, I kind of go crazy with Operation Christmas Child (we do like 6 boxes for our family), so I save a lot of money by buying school supplies at back-to-school time. I don’t want to miss my window!!

5. My favorite brown flats are getting quite worn. I love them, but I got them a year and a half ago – on clearance because the company had stopped making that style. Yesterday, just for fun, I searched for that particular style on eBay. I found a pair!! I’m really excited because they are (supposedly) brand new and were only $60 (they used to be $100 new).

6. I don’t know what to do with the old ones when my new shoes come. They’re worn, but not unwearable. Do I just throw them in the trash? That seems wasteful. But what else would I do with them? The inside lining is a little torn and the soles are worn down, so they just don’t look nice enough to donate to Goodwill or anything. But, then again, the outside looks great. Very work-appropriate. So I can’t help but think that someone who can’t afford nice-looking work shoes could get some use out of them. On the other hand, would someone who is in the position to need them think its demeaning to be offered noticeably worn shoes?
I’ve been wearing these shoes at least 4 days a week for the last year and a half, excluding the 2 months I was on maternity leave. I should trash them. But its just so hard to throw nice-looking shoes in the trash! I usually end up keeping them and letting them sit in my closet for years before I throw them out.

7. I have a full rant on this brewing, but here’s your teaser: remember how I was all “we like Luvs the best, its too bad we buy Huggies because they’re cheaper with coupons”? I TAKE IT ALL BACK.

Family Fun

My sister has come to my rescue! When Thomas leaves at 3 pm on Saturday, Meg and I are heading downtown to meet my mom and sister and go to the Italian American Heritage Festival. I am excited. I may not have any Italian blood (I’m English/Scottish/Norweigan), but I have plenty of fat stores directly attributable to Italian-American food. My sister says there will be cannolis. I’m hoping there will be gelato. Real gelato. I’ve never had good gelato in America. Its quite possible, though, that I have no idea what I’m talking about. I’ve only been to Italy once and it was like 8 years ago. But we had gelato every day and it was amazing. Of course, now that I think about it, if they have gelato it will probably be from Chocolaterie Stam. They say they have authentic gelato, but it tastes like ice cream. And ice cream is not gelato.

ANYWAY, gelato or not, we are going to have a good time! Hopefully we'll get Meg worn out enough that she'll sleep Saturday night.

Separation Anxiety

I think Thomas is right. He read a bunch of stuff this weekend and decided Meg is going through a period of separation anxiety. Its just not exactly like what you normally think of as separation anxiety. She isn’t attached to one person in particular – like her mommy – she is just terrified of being left alone. When I drop her off at daycare, she’s fine. I stand by the door saying “Mommy’s leaving! Wave bye-bye to Mommy!” Half the time she ignores me and the other half she gives me a look that says “Fine, whatever. If you’re going to leave, just do it already. I’m too busy playing for all this bye-bye nonsense.”

But if we’re at home, she must have me in her sight at all times. If she’s playing and I leave the room, she freaks out and comes running after me. To reduce the likelihood of Mommy leaving the room unnoticed, she’s constantly clinging to me. She would prefer to be on my lap or in my arms at all times. If I put her down to, say, make myself lunch or even make her a bottle, she tries to climb my legs. If I walk away, she dramatically collapses on the floor and weeps about the injustice that is her life. Also, she wants 100% of my attention. She’ll sit next to me if I’m reading her a book, but if I give her a book to read to herself and start reading my grown-up book, she tries to knock it out of my hands.

If I’ve been at work all day, I can handle this for about 2 hours. But then I lose. my. mind. I’ve decided it’s a good thing I’m not a SAHM. The scary thing is, Thomas is going out of town this weekend (leaving Saturday afternoon, coming back Monday morning). I have made the executive decision that when mommy really really needs a break, Meg will be introduced to Veggie Tales from Netflix on Demand. Short of just dropping her off at my mom’s house, I don’t see another way to retain my sanity.

Power struggles: the toddler is wearing us down

This whole I-won’t-sleep situation seems to be “I don’t want to stop playing with my toys” taken to the extreme. Our little girl has always been stubborn. Very, very stubborn. My mom has commented how her first child (me) was not like this. I figured, yeah, she was maybe more stubborn than normal, but she is a toddler, so some stubbornness is expected. I still don’t know if she’s more stubborn than other toddlers, but I now know she’s way more stubborn than we wanted to have to deal with.

At nap time she is so clearly exhausted (because she hasn’t napped well in days and gets up before the crack of dawn), but she is furious – furious – that we would have the gall to think it is OK to put a person in a crib without asking. She is charge of herself! She is independent! She has made the decision she will play instead of nap!

She tries to boss us around all day. Feed me NOW! Not that – I won’t eat that. I want what you’re eating. Eww, I changed my mind, I don’t want what you’re eating. But I still don’t want what you gave me.

Let me DOWN! I want to walk myself. No, I will NOT hold your hand. No, I will not go where you tell me to, I will go where I want to go.

Pick me UP! I can’t see what you’re doing. Cleaning the counter? I’ll help. Let me have the cleaning spray.

Give me your phone! I want to watch Silly Songs with Larry on You Tube. NOW!

And, of course, the most annoying of all: You mean, mean parents can try to put me to bed all night long, but I will scream until I lose my voice. Because I am NOT GOING TO SLEEP. Sleep is for losers! I want to play! And, NO, you cannot doze on the couch while I play. I don’t care if its 5 a.m., you have to play with me at ALL TIMES.

She “speaks” in capital letters a lot.

I’m going to feel stupid if she’s sick or there’s some other “duh” reason she won’t sleep. If she suddenly wakes up with four new teeth tomorrow, I’ll feel bad. But she does not act like she is sick or in any pain at all when she’s awake. And it really, really seems like she’s just mad about not being able to make her own decisions about when to sleep (i.e., never).

More sleeping

Meg is still trying to convince us she doesn't need to sleep, ever. “Don’t you dare put me there,” she practically says. We don’t know what to do. This morning she woke up at 5 and never went back to sleep. We rocked her and put her back in bed twice. Then Thomas gave her a bottle, rocked her, and put her to bed again. Didn’t work. Then it was 5:45, the time she gets up on weekdays, and she was wide awake, so I figured there was no point to leaving her screaming in her bed. I let her up and planned to doze on the couch while she played. She didn’t like that plan. She kept shoving books in my face and pulling my hair. At 6:45, Andrew got up and let me go back to bed.

We’re both completely exhausted. Actually, all three of us are exhausted. Meg needs more sleep. I’m thinking maybe we need to put her to bed earlier. Maybe the old “if you put her to bed earlier, she’ll sleep later” thing will work. Who knows. But I get home from work at 6:15, so getting her to bed by 7 would be difficult. 7:30 is the earliest we’ve managed.

This whole thing is particularly frustrating, because fuss-it-out has always worked for us. Meg has always been a tension releaser. Since the day she was born, she’s been a great car sleeper. But she has never, not once, fallen asleep in the car without crying. If we’re in the car and she starts crying, I guarantee you she’ll be asleep within 5 minutes. At home, she sometimes, but not always, cries a for a couple of minutes before falling asleep.

When Meg was 3 months old, she started sleeping with us, because I was back at work and that was the fastest way to put her to sleep. I think we both needed some co-sleeping as a transition between being home and going back to work – Meg and I missed eachother a lot and it helped us to be together at night. (Although, even in bed being comforted by us, she fussed for about 5 minutes every night before going to sleep)

By 4 months, Thomas started pushing to try cry it out. He hated co-sleeping. He claimed he never slept because he was worried about rolling over onto Meg. I didn’t want to do it. I can’t let my baby cry! Plus, I loved having her near me. But my mom and Thomas worked together to wear me down. When we finally tried it, it worked immediately. It was like she just wanted us to leave her alone. The first night, she cried for 30 minutes (we went in every 5 minutes and soothed her without picking her up), the second night for 15 minutes, and after that she started doing her 1-2 minute release (like she’d always done in the car), before falling asleep. All of us slept better. Much better.

She’s obviously had several transitions and periods of bad sleeping since she was 5 months old. We give her what she needs (Tylenol if she’s teething, lots and lots of soothing/rocking if she’s sick), but when she’s better, she sleeps wonderfully again. This anger at being put to bed is a totally new thing and we are truly at our wits end.

I’m thinking about taking her to the doctor, just to make sure she doesn’t have an ear infection or something. But I don’t think she does. Laying down doesn’t bother her if she’s laying on my lap. She isn’t tugging her ear at all (and she always has when she’s had an ear infection).

I’m just hoping it’s a phase, hopefully a short one, and will be over soon. We don't know what else to do and we're losing our minds from the lack of sleep.

We're trying something new tonight. Thomas took his pillows and comforter* in her room and is laying on the floor, trying to get her to fall asleep next to him. I wanted to do it, but he refused to carry the futon mattress up from the basement. I think it would be much better than sleeping on the hardwood floor and don't understand why the two of us can't get it upstairs. Whatever. If he wants to sleep on the hardwood floor, he can. I pray this works.

*We have two comforters on our bed, one for each of us

Sleeping

Today was just One of Those Days. Actually, yesterday was too. Meg has been slowly giving up naps for awhile at, unfortunately, quite a young age. My mother tells me I did the same thing. Apparently by the time she was pregnant with my sister (who was born when I was 23 months), I didn’t nap anymore. She got morning sickness and lost naptime at the same time. Ugh.

Anyway, Meg hates to take naps and she doesn’t always need one. If she starts the day well rested, she can go all day without a nap. She’ll probably need one the next day, though. And will NOT want to take it. She has become more and more stubborn the older she gets. At this point, she’s actually kind of insufferable. She wants what she wants, and SHE WANTS IT NOW, DAMMIT. Fortunately, my baby doesn’t actually swear. But she gets her point across quite nicely. Our biggest problem is that she can’t talk. She is very, very insistent when she wants something (roughly every 2 minutes), but she can’t tell me what she wants. She gets frustrated, I get frustrated, and no one is happy.

She has also taken to screaming at the top of her lungs if we so much as walk by her crib. Apparently, the crib is the worst form of torture. If it was just naptime, we could handle it. But now, she screams bloody murder at bedtime, too. An “I am NEVER going to calm down” kind of scream. Cry it out does not work, because she is not simply winding down. She is pissed at us for daring to put her in bed and, no matter how tired she gets, she will remain on her feet screaming through the sheer force of her rage.

We have tried everything. Sometimes we let her scream and go in every 5-10 minutes. Doesn’t work. Sometimes its so obvious that leaving her alone is not going to work that I sit there rocking her for an hour or more. She’ll sit there, but she won’t go back in her crib no matter how long we’ve been rocking. Sometimes we let her get up and play longer. So far, that works best. We are very seriously considering pushing her bedtime back to 9:00. But that leaves us practically no time alone and, on workdays, she has to get up at 6 am. I just don’t think that’s enough sleep. And since she has a firm “I hate naps” policy, I think she should get as much sleep as possible. BUT, she hasn’t been getting to sleep until at least 9 now (her bedtime is 8). However, I’m worried that if we start putting her to bed at 9, she won’t be asleep until 10, and then we’re really in trouble.

Wow. This post was supposed to be about TODAY and it turned into ramblings about sleep.

Short version: she hasn’t been napping and she doesn’t talk yet, so even when she really, really wants something (which is all the time), she can’t tell us, SO she has been a terror the last two days and even with TWO parents today, we couldn’t handle her. Today kicked our asses.