Playing catch up

How long can you go in between posts and still call yourself a blogger? I think I'm going to find out.

I've noticed during the last couple of weeks that the less I blog the better I feel about my parenting skills. Maybe it's because I'm not analyzing every move I make, or maybe it's because when my kids are bad, I forget about it instead of writing about it.

Yeah, that's the ticket. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Having said all that, so much has gone on that I'm not even sure where to start, so I'll start on the toilet. Quite literally, Sophia has decided she wants to use the potty. She still isn't telling us when she has to go, but she's using the potty when we ask her if she has to go. To be fair, she did tell us one time on Saturday that she had to use the potty, but it hasn't happened since.

Regardless, I am thrilled at her enthusiasm for the potty and I'm feeding into it as best I can, so much so that Ryan has decided he should sit on the potty whenever Sophia does. It's actually very cute, he just plops his little butt down on her little potty after she's done and claps. Maybe, if I'm lucky, Ryan will be potty trained by the time Sophia is and I'll have both kids out of diapers by the summer.

Good luck, right.

The other major thing happening at home is Sophia (again) has decided she can't stay in her bed. Bedtime stretches for hours (if both parents are home, of course). Supernanny would be appalled at how long it takes us to put Sophia to bed. We've tried everything, from Supernanny techniques to sleeping on the floor next to her bed. Nothing works … except ignoring her. I hope I'm not jinxing myself, but what has been working is when she gets out of bed after we tuck her in, we go upstairs and put her back into bed without saying a word to her. She's an attention grabber, so she doesn’t enjoy this one bit. Some days she screams louder, other days she goes back to sleep.

It's a crap shoot, really. One day she'll go to sleep.

Sigh

When she does go to sleep, we've noticed at about 11 p.m. every night, Sophia wakes up screaming. I think she's having a nightmare, but I can't confirm that since she doesn't really understand what a dream is. I've resorted to comforting her and giving her whatever she wants to calm her and get her to go back to bed.

My kids aren't spoiled one bit, are they?

Enough about the kids, you want to know about me too, right? Yes, I know, I'm used to playing second fiddle when my kids are around, but, damn it, you're going to hear about me too. This weekend beautiful weather crept in and we took advantage of the 60 degree weather to go for our first bike ride of 2009. It felt so great to get back on the bike and out of the gym, it better have, because this year we have quite a few miles to train for and I'm so nervous and looking forward to it at the same time.

This year, in addition to the MS 150 City to Shore ride we did last year, Jon and I are going to do the Dutch Country ride in July, which is two 100 mile days (ugh!) and we are hoping to do the Livestrong Challenge ride when it comes to the area, which is another 150 miles. All together that's 500 miles for 2009.

I hope my legs make it.

In exactly three weeks, my husband and I will be boarding a plane and flying to Cancun. I am so excited about this trip because 1) it's a warm vacation spot in the middle of crappy weather season, and 2) THE KIDS ARE NOT COMING! I love my kids to death, but is it really a vacation if the kids go? Hmmm, you can decide that for yourself.

This week's lesson: Yet to be learned

Not every weekly lesson can be learned without a little help. Not every lesson is specifically about me, so here is the lesson I'd like to learn this week:

We all have horror stories about our kids. Currently, my horror story is about how Sophia is refusing to eat in the kitchen. My last situation, so to speak, was when Sophia was sick and refused to sleep alone. It was an awful two week for the entire house. Both Jon and I were up at all hours of the night trying to comfort her and Ryan when she would cry loud enough to wake him. But it only lasted a week.

During those two crazy weeks, I shared my story about Sophia not sleeping well with a friend and that's when she told me her horror story. Her 15-month-old daughter simply refuses to sleep on her own. My friend was complaining that she hasn't slept in the same bed with her husband since her daughter was born.

How sad, I thought. But, it gets worse. I saw her yesterday and she asked me how Sophia was sleeping. I told her she was sleeping fine, but it was hard breaking her of the habit of waking in the middle of the night. She then proceeded to tell me that her daughter is still not sleeping on her own and has developed a nasty habit of making herself throw up after being put to bed.

How awful. I feel terrible for this poor woman. She says she "knows it's her fault" but she doesn't know how to stop it. So, my friends, anyone have any suggestions? I did a quick Google search on the topic and found lots of parents who are suffering in this same situation, but I haven't found any real answers to the problem.