Things that make me happy

I feel like I'm often posting negative things here.  I write for commiseration (or suggestions) from others who have gone though the same thing and also to just complain and get it out of my system.  It does help, most of the time.  But, man, I've been a downer lately.

Part of the problem is that I can write about hard days in detail (and then she did this, and THEN she did THIS, and then she wouldn't sleep!), but I have a harder time writing about fun days.  This post from Saturday was hard to write.  No matter what I did, I couldn't get the "fun" to come across.  For me, at least, the post does not come remotely close to describing how great the day really was.  It sounds flat and forced and makes me feel like a terrible writer (not that I ever thought I was a good writer).

To be honest, I only forced myself to write it because I wanted to remember the day.  I wanted to have it written down so someday I can tell Meg that occasionally we did go out to community events and have fun instead of sitting at home.  I wanted to have it written here so maybe some day when I'm losing my mind and have to get us out of the house, maybe I'll remember the fountain and decide to go there.  I wanted to write it so this website doesn't make it seem like her babyhood was a big pain in the neck.  I did not write it because I felt like writing about it.  Maybe that's the problem?  Some posts I spend hours composing in my head and by the time I write them, I generally say exactly what I want to say and am happy with it.  That one I did not start composing in advance (probably because I was dealing with Miss I-won't-nap).

I feel like whiny, cranky posts are my strength and I hate that.  Everyone deals with sleep issues and I'm sure you all don't need to read another blog post about someone whose kid won't sleep.  It gets old fast.  Sometimes I feel like I'm playing the "how many different ways can I write about the same thing" game.

SO, to try to change the tone (for today at least), here's a list of things that made me happy today:

1.  Having time away from Meg, then having both of us be SO HAPPY to see eachother at the end of the day.

2.  Playing with a happy child (who took a nap at daycare).

3.  Dancing to our Veggie Tales CD!  (Meg's a great dancer)

4.  My job.  I really do like what I do and I enjoyed my work today.

5.  Co-workers.  I've been working on an audit by myself for the last week and a half (and I LOVE working alone), but today I had someone working for me and I really enjoyed it.  We spent far too much time talking instead of working, but these are the kind of days when I think I could never, never quit my job because its so nice just chatting all day.

6.  Cookies!  I made iced sugar cookies this weekend and, although my waistline doesn't like them, I am loving them.  Probably too much, but whatever.

What makes YOU happy?

Grandma is magic, Mommy is not

The one thing Thomas said when I told him I wanted to start a blog is that he didn’t want it to be a forum for husband bashing and/or a list of everything he’s ever done that annoyed me. I hope he doesn’t think yesterday’s post was me complaining about him. Because it was more me complaining about Meg. Or, more accurately, about her sleeping habits. (By the way, she is currently napping at my mom’s house while I am at work, because she will sleep anywhere but at home.)

So, my post yesterday was a bit snarky. But I was at the end of my rope. She flat-out refuses to nap at home. She’ll nap at daycare. She’ll nap at Grandma’s house. But not at home. And when she doesn’t nap, she turns into a monster (and doesn’t sleep at night).

All the fun we had on Saturday totally wore her out. She was soooooo tired. But I laid next to her in her room for an hour and she wouldn’t nap. She was a whiny, cranky, tired baby. The rest of the day was terrible. But! When I wrote about our day Saturday night, I left that part out! Because I do learn from past mistakes! (sometimes)

It took forever to get her to sleep that night. At some point (I have no idea what time it was), she woke up crying. I went in there and spent the rest of the night sleeping on her floor (we did bring the futon mattress upstairs and put it in her room, so whenever I refer to “sleeping on the floor,” I really mean sleeping on a mattress on the floor).

On Sunday, she still wouldn’t nap. She fell asleep in her highchair while eating dinner. The highchair was in the kitchen while I made my own dinner and all the sudden, I heard her snoring. It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I had high hopes she’d take a full nap, even though it was already 6:00 and that would screw up bedtime. No such luck. She woke up after twenty minutes and started screaming. She didn’t stop screaming for the next two hours. I was sure there was something wrong with her.

She’s been chewing on her fist a lot – does her mouth hurt? I gave her Tylenol. When she didn’t finish a bottle that morning, I put the remaining 5 ounces in the fridge and gave them to her later. Did I cause her to have a stomachache? I didn’t think that was it. Ear infection? Don’t think so. She's just so tired. Could I put her to bed right away? NO. I tried many different things. I really thought she was sick or hurting somehow. She finally gave up and fell asleep two hours later. She was fine all night – although she slept lightly and kept waking up and half-crying before realizing I was already with her and snuggling closer. This morning she was fine, but still tired. I really think the only thing wrong with her is lack of sleep (and maybe a little teething). The poor thing is beyond exhausted.

The only place she’ll sleep for me is in the car. Other than taking her on a two-hour car ride (which doesn’t sound attractive), I don’t know what else to do. I’m just really, really glad Thomas will be home by the time I leave work today. The sleeping thing still sucks, but its so much easier to deal with when you can take turns.


P.S. I sleep with her a lot of the time now. I’d love to do this in my own bed, but it doesn’t work. She wiggles and rolls around and repositions and sits up and lays down and, if she’s being naughty, crawls to the other side of the mattress. It takes her quite a while to fall asleep and I spend the whole time terrified she’ll fall off the bed. When we sleep on the mattress on the floor in her room, I can let her wiggle and roll as much as she wants without being worried she’ll fall and hit her head the second I close my eyes. Plus, either Thomas or I get a good night’s sleep while the other sleeps with Meg and we trade off nights.

***********************************************************************

I'm home now and, wow you guys, the difference in this child when she has had a nap is incredible.  She's actually happy and fun to be around!  Maybe I will have to take a long drive on Friday when its just me and her all day.

A word of caution

If your baby is going through a “phase” wherein he/she refuses to sleep, like, ever, under no circumstances should one parent (lets call him/her the “abandoner”) leave the other parent (the “abandonee”) alone with said child for two days and two nights. Especially weekend nights where the return of the other parent coincides with the start of the work week, so its not really something to look forward to.

Should this happen, the abandoner should be prepared to find on his return that the abandonee has dropped the baby off at her parents and checked herself into a mental institution, driven insane by the baby’s refusal to sleep and subsequent overtired wailing. The abandoner would then be a single parent and one weekend away is not worth it.

Just so you know.

P.S.  I am, of course, kidding (about the abandonment part).  I would never have wanted Thomas to miss this weekend (which has been planned since April).  And, lest we forget, I will be abandoning him come November, whether she is sleeping well at the time or not.  BUT, I will say, before Meg finally fell asleep tonight after crying for TWO HOURS STRAIGHT (with me laying beside her), I was this close to googling "how to check yourself into a mental institution."

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.