Comment answer

I meant to say this in the last post:



Michele asked in the comments if the kids are waking earlier since I'm putting them to bed earlier. The answer is no, when we manage to get them to sleep earlier they sleep right through to their normal wake time. Fab, eh?



One word of warning. We've been experimenting with denying Pequita her nap in an attempt to make it easier to fall asleep. Huge success. But she immediately started having night terrors, half waking and screaming, crying, totally inconsolable. We went through this when she was a baby, so knew to take her outside into the night air, turn on lights, dunk her feet in cold water etc to wake her. My buddy Tif remarked in passing how her friend's son suffered from night terrors when he stopped napping. Uh. Whoops. The next two days I orchestrated naps all around chez Homestead and no more night terrors. It is a clear winner for me to trade an early, easy bedtime in exchange for the whole family not having to get up several times each night as Pequita cries. Let this be a lesson for all of you. It takes a village, clearly.

A Visit From Coxsackie

The kids got to bed really late tonight which is unfortunate because they have their first ever day of camp tomorrow. Or I hope they do - they have been suffering from the Hand, Foot and Mouth virus over the past week; worst is the canker sores on their lips and tongues. These caused much crying when they tried to eat or nurse. Lots of sleep disruption as well, with late-night application of Oragel to quell the screaming.

I haven't heard back from the woman who runs the program a bout them attending, but their doc said they are only viral for 3 days so they should be in the clear.

They are doing really well sleeping together except for an annoying compulsion on Pequita's part to bite her brother once he is drowsy or asleep. This behavior brings much joy to all as you might imagine. She did it again tonight and after calming him down I hauled her out of bed by her foot, assured Monito that I'd be right back and unceremoniously plunked her down on the desk in the office and glared in her eyes. I asked in a dangerously low voice WHY in heavens name does she bite her sleeping brother?!? Her barely audible answer was, "Bubba wake up have FUN". Ahhhh. That clears up that mystery.

Having just redecorated on Friday and Saturday, I put her to bed in our nursery's new version of solitary confinement, the stack of two crib mattresses in the corner that is the 'love seat' upon which to sit and read. It is much harder than the cozy double futon upon which her brother now slumbered alone, something she was quick to point out. I wholeheartedly agreed and commiserated but left her there. She was asleep in 10 minutes.

Now I just have to pack their little bags for camp and try not to cry. Yes, I'll be elated and feel free if it works out and I actually leave them both in the shadow of the yurt and teaching garden tomorrow. BUT. Monito has never been left with anyone ever. Pequita, at least, had playgroup once a week without me for several months last year. I am having pangs, people. I hope to finish prep work for the patio bulldozing tomorrow and maybe dig another row of post holes. As of Tuesday morning I'll be relaxing physically if not mentally while I try not to forcibly expel the 3 recently thawed embryos out of my nether regions by digging up boulders and sinking posts in my garden. How annoying to have to stop mid-fence like this. Back to my knitting I guess. Much more lady like and genteel.

Operation No Nap: Day 2

Last night was rough. Even with no naps, Monito was up until 8:30 and Pequita til 9:45. Tonight, I tried something that is so unintuitive I didn't believe it would work: I put them to bed earlier. They were both asleep by 7:45. This truly hasn't happened since they were infants. I'm all giddy with the possibilities of success with the tweaks I have planned for tomorrow night!

Four is a Crowd

Pequita is going through some kind of developmental shift. That is a kind way of saying that she screamed like her fingernails were being pulled out last night as I tried to leave her bedroom after an hour of reading, nursing, and singing. She scaled her crib twice when I tried to put her in it since she refused to stay laying down in her big girl bed. Finally I left her screaming "don't leave, mommy" in between great raspy sobs and went downstairs to where grandpa was holding her whimpering brother to try to put him back to sleep. I could hear her leave her bed, and the screaming stopped. I was hoping she was snuggled in a cozy place and not at the desk beginning her tell-all memoir. Homestead Mama went up to her 10 minutes later and found her on the top stair, having scaled the baby gate. I heard her tiny voice say "I big girl, Mama, no cry". Then I cried because the whole thing was so draining, and I never know if we're putting her through all this 'sleep training' for nothing. All I want is for her to go to sleep in her own bed somewhat by herself.



Today was a wonderful 2nd birthday for Monito. We had a nice group of people to celebrate with us, and the kiddie pool, sandbox, swingset, toys and yard were all in hot rotation. We ended the day with a family cook out, hot dogs and s'mores over the campfire. All day I was dreading a repeat of last night. I let Pequita have her village help her get to sleep - Mama and I stayed with her the whole time, and grandma read a chapter of Winnie the Pooh, and was followed by grandpa singing a medley of Stephen Foster songs. Both Pequita and Mama are asleep in Monito's toddler bed; Monito was asleep in his crib an hour ago. Why can't kids come with a manual? How can I allow a kid to need four adults in the room for her to go to sleep? [Insert sigh of futility.]

Sleepy

The kids opted to sleep in their big kid beds again tonight. We read and nursed in the big bed, then moved them into the nursery, tucked them in and went downstairs. At this point they both ran weeping to the gate at the top of the stairs and screamed and wailed. I sighed, looked longingly at my birthday cake waiting for me, and went upstairs. I grabbed my book and a flashlight and went in and sat on the chair in the nursery, not talking to them but just being present while I read; they got it right away and were ok with this new set up. They wanted to get in bed together for a while, and that really helped them calm right down. After about 10 minutes, Monito was all but asleep and Pequita chose to move back into her own bed. I stayed for another 15 minutes while she did her deep breathing, sang quietly to herself and really respected the fact that I wasn't going to interact with her. Finally she dozed off.

Then I snuck downstairs and had a big piece of cake.

Well

I removed the rubber sheets, chux pads and dropcloths from the beds and couches this morning. I think we have weathered the stomach bug storm with only Pequita as a casualty. Monito woke up last night crying in serious distress and I immediately assumed he was succumbing and scrambled to get a basin in front of him. Instead, after 3 wakings, much sobbing and grabbing at his right foot and we decided that he was having leg cramps because his jammies were too short. My 18 month old son has busted out of his 2T clothes, and is mostly in 3T. I guess selecting a donor who would help his gene pool be sturdy worked. After a little quick surgery, he went back to sleep for the night. *

*Heh heh - did you like my little joke? He went back to sleep for 84 minutes and woke up wanting to nurse. Wash, rinse, repeat. Sleep through the night. My son? Oh my, so amusing. He stopped crying, though, so it must have been the problem.

Naptime

Monito falls asleep in the living room to the strains of bluegrass music on the television [and right now, the intermittent pop of the nailgun as Dave works in the kitchen].

Pequita falls asleep upstairs in the master bedroom in her crib clutching this picture. It is slightly crinkled, but that in itself is amazing, as she's had it for weeks and clearly values it enough not to ruin it.

Operation Pequita Sleep: Day 8,456,902

To steel myself for another day of solo baby training, I vowed to have the most fun we could have all waking hours. I put a good spin on the day by putting our new CDs into the stereo - Pete Seeger, Raffi and Taj Mahal all singing kid songs shuffled for hours. We danced, played knock-down-the-tower-Mommy-built, and broke in her new shoes by playing chase Maya to much giggling and joyful screeching. For my own amusement I dressed Pequita in a hand-me down outfit from a distant New York City relative. French couture baby, can you imagine? I'll be selling the top after today - it is hand wash wool fully lined with silk. (I don't even have fully lined clothes any more.) Can you imagine trying to get hot dog stains out of that? The cotton jodhpurs we may keep, since she looks quite jaunty in them. By the time she is actually on a horse, though, I imagine she'll be wearing denim.

Pequita is getting better at going down to sleep. By that I mean she spends less time screaming herself hoarse and more time crying and tossing toys out of her crib. Since it seemed pretty clear after a week of crib training that she was waiting for us to return every 10 minutes, today (with Homestead Mama's cautious blessing) we have switched to full on CIO, no visits but with a folk lullaby CD playing in her room. I put her eye-rubbing, ear-tugging, yawning butt down for a nap at 10:30 this morning. She cried and jumped up and down for a half hour, then shifted to intermittent crying / listening for a response / more crying & jumping. I really hope our hand-me-down crib can hold up to extended angry 25 lb baby bouncing. Books, singing & rocking, and 60 minutes of crying brought us to noon. I pulled her out and we had a great lunch. She'll eat anything these days as long as we place it on her spoon and help her get it into her mouth. She grins each time - so proud of herself.

After lunch, we tidied the house until Monito was tired. I put him in a sling where he promptly fell asleep & took Miss Pequita outside, where she slogged around the too-tall yard (nice and exhausting with short legs) trailing after me as I pruned our fruit trees and baby maples. The dogs frolicked around her & she played with their toys. After a respectable amount of fresh air and eye rubbing, I brought her back inside, decanted Monito into his bassinet for the rest of his nap, and started again with Pequita at 1:45 pm. Book/ song/ nurse and into jail, then I retired down to the living room to blog, which ends up being my best emotional outlet these days. She's managing to get some of her larger items tossed out of the crib; each time the crying pauses I hear a loud thud above my head. I assume the entertainment is good for her. At 2:22 pm the noise upstairs stopped. Dare we hope? I crept up and peeked in.Totally sacked out in a lump on her shearling. Clearly, some of her alone time was spent shaking her milk onto the floor below the crib before tossing out the bottle. And how she got her pants off I don't know - they are the black corduroy lump on the floor.

Goddess help me if I'm ruining her. I've already decided to write a letter to Vanguard Investments asking if they can make a Roth IRA that allows for tax-free withdrawal for college OR therapy.

Thank you

You all have been really supportive and present during this crib-training sleep regression period. Each each email, blog comment, phone call and mid-morning latte drop-off has made the process easier and less lonely. It has meant the world to me to not go through it alone, and as small as a gesture might seem, when I am at my wits end and happen to see a kind email or one sentance comment with a joke to crack me up, it totally helps. That some of you have written multiple well thought out paragraphs sharing your own experiences and suggestions, well, I loved it.

Thank you!

Operation Sleep: day who-the-fuck-knows

Monito woke me up four times last night, but a few minutes of bouncing on the yoga ball was sufficient to get him back to sleep. There was no long 5-hour stretch of staying awake. And Pequita has slept well at night. She is, however, still struggling to nap in her crib during the day. Homestead Mama put her through the crib-training paces this morning, and ended up bringing her downstairs again after an hour of no-sleep-just-screaming, which is what we agreed to do. After that, we kept her awake all day, and I took both babies to the local indoor play space from 3:30 - 5:30 pm for a change of pace, and to give H-mama some quiet time to herself in the house (she lets me sleep in each weekend mornings when possible). Pequita was asleep in the car within 2 miles, but I woke her exhausted butt up once we arrived 6 minutes later. She played hard and with excitement for two full hours on no naps at all; by the end she was coming to visit and lean on me more and more. Monito stayed awake and engaged the whole time. Then we went home for the yummy pork loin in lemon garlic sauce that H-mama cooked while we were gone. Homestead Mama took the night shift of putting her to bed at her regular time, 8 pm. She nursed her with a book, and carried Pequita barely awake into her crib. a couple foot kicks and Pequita was out. She's still down 90 minutes later. Monito was awake for a long time giggling, playing with me and being his new mature self. He's asleep now, and I'm going up to take advantage of it shortly.

As an aside, I am going to love the indoor play space this winter when the playgrounds are all covered in ice and snow. It is a large gym that has many stations - two slides, a big play structure with tunnels, a fleet of ride-on vehicles, and a large area with diverse smaller toys. All the climbing structures and the small toy area are on top of 2" thick gymnastic mats. Pequita proved that her spacial relations are still not quite developed, as she made a big to do about stepping up the 2" to get on a mat, and instead of walking off the other edge, she would approach it with trepidation, kneel down at the edge and spin around, doing the dismount backwards on her hands and knees. This is how she now gets off the couch, the window seat, all high things. The 2" of the mat clearly concerns her. It is really funny to watch. Hopefully I can get it on tape before she learns to do it differently. All this from the girl who after two supervised times on the 4' high slide did it over and over again by herself. Up the stairs, walk along the top edge holding on to the railing, sit down at the top of the slide and jettison to the bottom with enough speed to fly off the lip and bounce a couple times on her butt on the floor. Each time this happened, she would sit and clap for herself for a few seconds, then get up and rush off somewhere else. That's our girl.

All bets are off

Monito isn't sleeping, so I'm not sleeping. Hopefully it is a short-lived vaccination response and not his new m.o. We were up from 2:30 - 6 am last night. He doesn't seem the worse for wear, but I'm wasted.

I'll sign off before the cursing starts to seep through.

Yeah, two moms

Momma Penguin commented, "What to do when there are two Mums? I foresee some trouble ahead, [my partner] is MUCH softer than I am... "

Yup. Homestead Mama may be the 'tough' one at her job, carry a gun, employ a curt and no-bullshit communication style, and seem like a wall of firmness and resolve, but I am the disciplinarian in the house. Her heart is very big, and she hates to make anyone unhappy. Me? If it for the greater good, I'll make everyone miserable.

We have a weird division of labor/ childcare. The second kid really created two teams, each of us acting as primary caregiver for our own spawn. This will lessen as Monito becomes able to sit up, walk, etc. At this point, Homestead Mama comes home and takes over with Pequita, because she misses her, P is more fun to interact with at this stage, and also because after 9 hours straight with her, I am ready to not see or hear her for a little while. Monito is still breastfeeding almost exclusively from me, so I get him. For now, we each have very specific ideas about how things are to happen, how to parent. I assume that straight couples have to work this out too, but it is trickier when you have distinct input on how someone else is breastfeeding. I will have to ask mothers of twins if they had a similar (wo)man-on-(wo)man defensive system. They must.

Momma Penguin also had an excellent point the other day. Better to do all this sleep training before Pequita can get herself out of her own bed. That, my friends, would be an endeavor of nightmarish proportions.

Operation Pequita Nap: Day 2

Lest I forget what I'm doing all this for. (The loving, not Monito farting. The boy really is full of air.)



We had a good day today. I put Pequita down for a nap in her crib at 10:20 am after 4 books, a bottle and some rocking, and she cried for 3 return comforts, then slept for 45 minutes by herself. Success, I say. The afternoon was bungled because she slept on our outing- the car was in the garage for an oil change and I took a walk in the rain with the babes asleep in a toxic plastic shell in their stroller. Sadly, they slept. I arrived back home after 90 minutes (hey, I needed the walk) wet and exhausted with two perky awake babies. Bad planning. At 7 pm they slept in the car on the way to fetch the other car from the garage, and it took her 10 minutes of screaming - top volume & high anger - to fall asleep. I think that me pushing her boundary/ setting a boundary is causing her to fight more on other fronts. Good. Have at it. This is something I can easily follow through on for all our sakes. Ok, easily is pushing it but at least I am committed. H-mama is less inured to the sound of her daughter getting hoarse with vocalization, but I talked her through it.

(We discovered a huge dent in the car trunk/ hind quarters upon picking it up. I will phone tomorrow morning to let them apologize and tell me the new trunk lid is already ordered. God help me if they deny responsibility.)

update

After three visits upstairs, I went up with the boy to sit in the room with her for comfort. This backfired. I got Monito set up on our bed - pacifier, balloon to look at - and pulled Pequita out of her crib, I nursed her in case she was hungry, and she fell asleep off the boob in four minutes flat.
I don't know if I failed her and this process I'm trying by putting her to sleep in my arms and then setting her down in her crib, but worse would have been no nap, H-mama walking in the door and nursing her down in seconds flat. She needs to have a ritual that is with me that I can maintain while still attending to Monito's needs. Sigh. I've read the whole sleep section at Ask Moxie and tonight I start reading The No Cry Sleep Solution. Then the Jay Gordon book.

In my free time.

This part of parenting sucks.

Sleep the sleep of angels

We bought a mattress yesterday - a nice new organic latex, wool & cotton, no off-gassing mattress. The one we are on was a hand me down, and since we are de facto sleeping in a 'family bed', and all leaning into the sinkhole that is the middle of the bed each night, we decided it was time. And since we are all in there together, we wanted something as healthy & comfy as possible. Did you know that (at least our brand) of natural latex mattresses come with a 20 year warranty, and the expectation that they will last at least that long with no significant changes to the comfort & fit of the bed? I can't wait. I feel all giddy. Both Homestead Mama and I feel old each morning with the aches and pains. I have high hopes that we aren't, in fact, aging as fast as it seems and that we can blame much of this on the ancient mattress and boxspring. In 5 - 7 weeks, I'll let you know.