Simple pleasures

Today is just one of those days. I've written four posts (this is the fifth) that I'm just not happy enough with to push that publish button. There is a lot of things going on, but I just can't find the right words to express exactly how I'm feelings. So, this list is my copout. Many of these would be better as tweets, but if I did that I wouldn't have a post today.


Here goes

• My neighbor died last night. She was a lovely woman who was loved by many. She was the mother of five children and many grandchildren. She died with dignity a mere 40 minutes after saying goodbye to her grandchildren. She had been my neighbor for only two years. I wish I had the opportunity to know her better.


• Sunday is the big Ryan's Christening/Sophia's Birthday Bash. Most of our family has quite a distance to drive to get to our house, so we decided to combine the two events into one big party. Oddly, we are very prepared for this party and I can't really complain about it.


• My cousin is coming in from Texas for the big bash this weekend. I haven't seen her since Christmas and I'm really looking forward to her visit.


• Our 11-year-old dog threw up her dinner last night all over the carpet. It was gross. Thankfully it happened after the kids were in bed. She is getting very old and I'm wondering if this means she's getting sick.


• I have only two more working days left until my vacation starts. But they are Saturday night and Monday, which makes my vacation look that much more appealing. We aren't going anywhere, just staying at home for two weeks doing housework and maybe taking a few day trips. Of course, we'll probably be doing a lot of bike riding because the new date for my new bike to arrive is this Saturday.


• Today marks my 8 year anniversary working for this company. Banners, balloons, cake? Nope. Nothing. Jon says people don't stay at one company for that long any more. I'm still trying to figure out what that says about me.


• This weekend, I think, marks the end of the busy season for our family. From here on out our weekends are free, so if you have anything you'd like us to attend, we are available. I think.

• We've been dealing with some jealousy issues recently. Sophia and Ryan have been attached to my hip. Both want my undivided attention and if I'm giving it to one, the other freaks out.

But then there are times when the two of them are just as cute at can be. Of course, Sophia is playing Mommy, but seriously, could they be any cuter?

Back to reality

So, we've been back from our couples-only retreat for 2 days now, but we've only gone back to work today and I'm exhausted. I should be well-rested and ready to take on the world, but I'm not because Ryan's teeth are coming in and they are not being nice at all.

Actually, I can't blame it all on his teeth because I can't be certain that's the only reason he's been waking again during the night. He started teething really bad around the time we took his bumper pads off his crib. The first night without the pads Ryan woke up. He pushed himself into the corner of the crib and, I think, he got stuck and bumped his head. He's gotten up every night since then and I'm about to lose my mind.

Sunday night he woke up and he wouldn't fall back to sleep. Well, that's not entirely true because he fell asleep twice after we picked him up, but as soon as we put him down he screamed. This went on for an hour until we took him into our bed where he promptly fell asleep on my husband's chest. Last night he did the same thing, but this time there was no way he was coming into our bed. We let him cry until he woke up Sophia, at which time we got him, gave him a bottle and after two attempts, we finally got him to lay down without him screaming.

Why won't this kid consistently sleep through the night? He was sleeping through the night. He did so for weeks in a row. But just in the last week, he's started waking again (it started before we left for our mini-vacation).

Last night I rubbed his gums with Orajel and gave him some Motrin, but he still woke up. Maybe I should put back on the bumper pads?

I'm afraid he's going to get into the routine of waking up at night again and I don't know how to stop it. I can't let him scream himself to sleep (not because I don't want to, but because I can't have Sophia wake up too. If she gets up in the middle of the night, she tends to stay awake) so I'm out of ideas. The only way we can get him to fall back to sleep is by giving him a bottle and rocking him.

I'm desperate at this point. We've been tossing around the idea of letting Sophia sleep on the couch or someplace else so we can let Ryan cry it out at night, but I think that will only serve to mess up her sleeping schedule.

What is a mother to do? Any suggestions would be helpful. I will try anything and I promise I'll let you know if it worked or not.

Daddy's magic stardust

Last week I was sitting up with Ryan at about 2:30 a.m. giving him a bottle thinking about how unbelievable it was that he was still getting up to eat in the middle of the night. It seems that once he starts sleeping through the night he gets sick and starts waking again.

I had been putting Ryan to bed because Sophia and her Daddy have a little bedtime routine that doesn't really involve me. I had actually asked him to take over putting her to bed when I was pregnant with Ryan because, at the time, she was a bit of a challenge to get to sleep and the night often ended with Sophia trying to sit on top of my belly and after a while I just couldn't take it. Soon after Daddy took over bedtime, Sophia started going to bed like an angel.

Does Daddy have magic stardust or did Mommy just get her through the rough phase? You decide, but whatever it was, it worked.

So after Ryan was born I just kind of assumed the responsibility of putting Ryan to bed. Except for the occasional night here and there, Ryan pretty much never consistently slept through the night. Ever.

(I'd like to add here that Sophia has ALWAYS slept through the night. She started sleeping 12 hours – 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. – through the night at one month old, but around four or five months old she decided she didn't want a bedtime. Once she was finally asleep, she was out for the night, but getting her to fall asleep was the challenge. Ryan, on the other hand, has zero trouble going to bed at night, it's just after five or six hours he decides it's time to eat and starts crying, and if we let him cry it out for too long Sophia wakes up and when she gets up she does not go back to sleep. That means two babies screaming at 2 a.m. One who will fall back to sleep after two or three ounces and another who will be up until she falls asleep in the car on the way to daycare. Would YOU let Ryan cry for long? We don't.)

After six months of interrupted sleep, I was at my breaking point. I needed a full, uninterrupted night of sleep. So, I put my ego aside and begged my husband to sprinkle his magic stardust on Ryan and I would assume the responsibility of putting Sophia to bed. He wasn't thrilled about breaking up team "Daddy's Little Girl," but he understood my desperation and took one for the "Mommy and Daddy" team.

The first night my husband put Ryan to bed he slept through the night. Night two, he slept again. Night three, four, five and six, he was quiet all night long.

Saturday night, I asked Jon to put Sophia to bed and I would try to put Ryan to bed.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm up for the challenge," I answered.

I put Ryan to bed and he slept the entire night; however, he woke up with a runny nose.
Will he continue sleeping through the night or are we back to middle of the night feedings? It's the cliff hanger of my life and I'm sure to find out soon.

The greatest compliment

When my kids are screaming and crying in public, I can look around and see the faces of bystanders and know exactly what they're thinking. They don't need to say a word, I know, my kids are acting out and causing a scene. But when my kids are really well-behaved, it often means they are dropped off the radar and no one reacts to them. However, last night I was complimented on their good behavior -- twice.

As a woman, you may be complimented on a variety of things, "Nice shoes," "I love your hair," "Where did you get that bag?" all of these serve to make her feel good. But honestly, as good as I feel when I'm complimented on something like that, I swell with pride when I get a compliment about Sophia and Ryan. And nothing feels better than that.

Last night, my husband got done work early and met me at daycare to help pick up the kids and go out to dinner. It was a bold suggestion to go out at the end of the day because the odds that the kids would be tired and cranky were infinitely greater. Plus, it was high dinner time (between 5 and 6 p.m.) and usually when we go out to dinner we try to go early -- like 4 p.m. early -- because most restaurants are not busy then and if the kids are bad there are fewer diners to bother. But we really need to go food shopping and I didn't feel like scraping together leftovers for dinner so we went out anyway.

When we got to the restaurant, the hostess seated us at a table … in the center of the room. All eyes were on us as we settled into our seats. We were surrounded by couples who were expecting the worst, I could tell even the waiter was anxious about us. Right away he asked if we wanted drinks, so we ordered Sophia's meal with our drinks and asked him not to wait to bring it out with our meals. So applesauce and macaroni and cheese arrived promptly. It was fast enough that she didn't have time to get bored with coloring the kids' menu. Ryan sat in a highchair and I fed him his dinner while we waited for our meals.

Dinner went smoother than we could ever have imagined. Sophia was pleasant and didn't yell or scream to get out of the booster seat and Ryan didn't cry once. Midway through our meal, the couple sitting next to us got up to leave and the man came to our table and said we had beautiful children. "Your children are beautiful," he said. "Excuse me if I was staring, I can't believe how beautiful they are." OK, I'll admit it was a little creepy, but if they were screaming and crying, they most certainly wouldn't be beautiful. Besides, he is right, they are adorable.

An older couple was then seated at the newly empty table. As we were finishing our dinner and packing the leftovers, the gentleman looked at us and said, "Your children are so well-behaved."

You can't believe how proud -- and anxious -- I was at that very moment. With two compliments under our belt and an hour in the restaurant, I thought it was best to get out while we were ahead. The tide of good behavior can change quickly and I didn't want to risk the meltdown I was sure would happen if we stayed a minute longer.

We left without incident. After we put the kids in the car, my husband high-fived me. Yup, we rule, our kids were awesome and we couldn't have been happier.

Positive attitude

I'm pretty sure my kids are too young to fake being sick to get out of going to school, but some days I'm not so sure about that.

On Friday I took Ryan for his 6 month check up and, as expected, he got a bunch of vaccines. Well, Friday night and Saturday, he had a fever, diarrhea and vomiting. On Sunday he had one more bout of diarrhea and this morning he seemed just fine. When I dropped him off at daycare, I told them about our big weekend and they told me they have a virus going around with the same symptoms. Oh, boy.

As soon as I walked in to work and put my pocketbook on my desk my cell phone rang. It was daycare, Ryan was projectile vomiting. One of his teachers said he should work in special effects because the puke just kept spewing. So I turned right around and walked out. My boss hadn't even seen me come in, so I didn't bother announcing my arrival. I was gone in a flash.

When I picked him up, I was handed his puke-covered clothes and when I went over to Ryan's crib to pick him up, there he was, smiling away like he was going to the fair. His eyes looked bright and his smile was huge. What a big faker!

I'd like to count my blessings that both my kids are generally happy all the time. Even when Ryan was in the hospital with RSV he was laughing and smiling at the nurses. The nurses at the pediatrician also comment, "oh, I remember this little guy. He was the one who was so sick but still so happy."

I don't want to jinks myself, but sometimes it's not such a good thing that they are so happy because it's hard to tell when they're really, really sick. The doctors always say that you can tell how sick your baby is by the way he or she is acting. This is not so for my kids.

When Sophia even gets the slightest cold, she gets a fever that spikes to 103 or 104. Always, without fail. She will be laughing and playing and it's not until I pick her up that I can feel how warm she really is. It's frustrating because I end up always dropping my kids off at daycare and then they're always being sent home sick. I think Ryan's going for a record number of sent homes. We must be well past six for this year alone.

I guess I should just stop complaining and be thankful I have happy kids. I just wish they were always healthy, too. Oh, the picture of Ryan in this post is of him sitting next to me as I type this. He looks way sick, doesn't he?

The restaurant scene

After being stuck in the house and feeling sick last week, we decided to go out Saturday. No one was feeling 100 percent yet, but my husband and I were desperate to get out of the house. Between the sicknesses and the snow, we had a severe case of cabin fever. So we packed up the babies and my stepson and invited my aunt to meet us at a restaurant for an early dinner.

It started off very well. Sophia was well-behaved and actually eating and Ryan sat happily in his car seat, but this lasted for about 10 minutes.

Before our food even came to the table Ryan had enough of sitting in the car seat. I picked him up and he ate a little, but before long he was tired. He still wasn't feeling great and he was ready for another nap.

From the beginning, we've been very consistent that when Ryan is tired, we lay him down so he can fall asleep. We don't rock him to sleep and we don't feed him to sleep. Because of this, he's generally good at getting himself to sleep. (We're still working on getting him to fall back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night, but we're talking small victories here)

Anyway, in the restaurant, Ryan is tired and letting the entire restaurant know that he needs a nap. He doesn't want to be held, he won't take a bottle and he didn't want baby food. If we stood up with him and walked around he'd quiet for a bit and then start screaming again.

He wanted to lay down and go to sleep. Nothing else would soothe him.

When our food got to the table, one of us shoved some food in our mouths while the other held the baby. With the addition of my aunt and stepson, Sophia was kept occupied and my aunt helped hold Ryan. But this doesn't fly for very long out in public.

After about 10 minutes, I'm sweating, nervous and really ready to go home. I feel like we are making a scene. I just want to leave so that all the good people around us can eat in peace. I take the baby from my husband and stand up, knocking the car seat off the chair and onto the floor with a loud bang. A nice woman at a table next to us ran over to help pick up the car seat.

Now I know we're making a scene and it's time to go.

But we still have to pack up the kids and pay the bill, so my husband puts Ryan's jacket on and takes him outside. At this point, Ryan is screaming uncontrollably as the hostess seats a nice family on either side of our table.

With Ryan outside I can think. I look up and see Sophia standing up in the high chair trying to climb out.

Like lightening, we put on Sophia's coat, grab our stuff, pay the bill and race out the door. As soon as the car is on, Ryan stops crying.

If we were at home, we would have put Ryan in his crib and he would've fallen asleep and we would have had a peaceful dinner. So, we'll be eating in for now, until cabin fever sets in again and we forget how bad it really is to take the kids out to dinner.

Terrible mommy moment

Sometimes I feel like the worst mom on the planet. Most of the time, it's because I did something, or didn't do something, that most moms wouldn't blink an eye at doing. Today, it's the flu shot.

I've never gotten a flu shot. Most people I know who've gotten the shot get the flu anyway. Plus, I'm relatively healthy, so what's the big deal, right?

Sophia gets a flu shot every year. I was told that Ryan couldn't get one until he was at least 6 months old, which meant he wasn't getting one this flu season and my husband and I had to get one to help protect our little guy.

Well, we never got one, so of course, I got the flu.

It started last week with some aches and pains, chills and a fever. I ignored it. On Wednesday, Ryan was sent home from daycare with a fever. By Thursday, he and I were both so sick that I made doctor's appointments for both of us.

If you've ever gotten a flu test, you know that it's reason enough to get a flu shot. If you haven't, I'll tell you that the doctor sticks this tube up your nose and rubs your sinuses to collect mucus and then tests it for influenza.

It hurts like nothing I've ever felt before. It's a sharp pain that makes your eyes water and your nose run and bleed.

My test came back positive, which, according to Ryan's pediatrician, likely means my little guy has the flu too.

Ryan has done pretty much nothing but sleep, cry and sometimes eat for the last three days. I feel terrible about it. I'm taking Tamiflu, which helps me get over the flu faster, but there isn't anything we can give him. Only time and Tylenol to help with the fever.

I am sick. Really sick, like I haven't been for a very long time. And I feel terribly guilty knowing that all this suffering could have been prevented with one simple trip to the doctor for a flu shot that I didn't have time for.