My Dear Sweet Child

Oh, wonderful, sweet, contented son, where have you gone? Someone came in the night and replaced you with a stubborn, cranky, and down right ornery little boy! OK, so I know he is 2 (2 1/2 really), but I can't believe this is just an age thing. I think he must be sick. Sure, he's not running a temperature, he's not complaining of ear aches or tummy pains, he's eating like a champ, and seems well enough to run around at the park for an hour. But I still think he MUST be getting sick. That's the only explanation. I even gave him a dose of Tylenol, sure that it would improve his mood. Nope. The rest of the day was still full of incessant whining, screams of "Noooooooooooooo!" and many many crocodile tears. I can now admit that I am praying for my son to get sick, hoping for a fever tomorrow, a reason to call the doc and prove he has a double ear infection, just so I can exhale and say "See? I knew that was it, poor thing..." and not have to keep him in time out all day, every day for the rest of his toddlerhood. Here's hoping!

Daylight Savings Ended, where's my extra hour of sleep??

I have to say, I used to really look forward to the end of Daylight Savings and setting the clock back an hour. For some reason, that extra hour of sleep always hit the spot. I had no idea the impact a 1 hour time change would have on my children. Since Sunday morning, Ethan has been waking up at 5:30 instead of 6:30. Not only did I not get that extra hour, it almost had the opposite effect when I looked at the clock and read "5:35". It felt like I got an hour less. Now Salla, on the other hand, can't seem to shift her schedule either and is exhausted by 5:30pm. It's no fun keeping her up, she makes it impossible to cook, clean, deal with Ethan, talk, think, etc etc. Seriously, it's an hour! How hard is it to stay up a little later and sleep in a little longer?? I know, I know. The day will come when they want to stay up too late and sleep in too long. I'll be ranting then as well, I'm sure.

And, here's a question to anyone who's "Ferberized" their kids. When does the training period actually end? I've been doing it for weeks now and Salla is doing very well at night, almost always no crying going down and only every so often more than 1 wake up at night. But she still cries for nearly every nap. Do I just always do the progressive waiting (checking in after 5,10, 15 min) every time she cries before sleep? I feel like she will be "in training" forever...

Ok, that's it for tonight. Hubby is still working, so I'm going to crawl in bed and watch Ugly Betty on the DVR until I fall alseep! night night

Much Ado about Nothing

I seem to be in a bit of a "rantless" state at the moment. I suppose that's a good thing, no real complaints. But I feel like I've been neglecting my blog this past week! I figured, if I just started typing tonight, I could probably come up with something.

Let's see, what did we do this week?

Last Sunday, we hopped in the family truckster and headed into Pensacola for the "Big Fair". We paid $5 to park 1/2 mile away, $10 to get in, $12 for ride tickets, and waaaaay too much for standard "Fair Fare" (i.e. pizza and ice cream), but it was all worth it to see Ethan have so much fun! He rode on his first rides , a train ride with Daddy and a car ride with Mommy. The car would zip around the corner real fast and he just laughed his little head off on every turn. We left smiling and thinking about how much more fun it will be for him next year when he's brave enough to ride some bigger rides (Lord knows he's already "big" enough).



Halloween was fun. We went trick-or-treating with our next door neighbors and Ethan was a pro. He knocked on doors, said "trick-or-treat", sometimes said "Thank You", and stayed with our little group even though there were hundreds of people out in the neighborhood. Really, I've never seen anything like it! It was like a block-party. Salla got to get a bit of fun in too, though, sleep nazi that I am, I was in a rush to get her home and ready for bed close to her normal bed time so as not to undo all our hard work for one night of fun! I think Ethan's favorite part was being outside in the dark. The next couple nights he wanted to go knock on doors. We'll do it again next year baby, I promise...

I got my act together this weekend and painted Salla's room. FINALLY. We moved in in, what, February? But I suppose I should give myself a little break, I mean I was very pregnant and then, you know, had a newborn and stuff. So I guess now is an appropriate time to do it. It really does look nice though. I was going for a muted light blue and ended up with more of a periwinkle (the difference in lighting in Salla's room vs. Home Depot). The color is Behr "saltwater" and I think it's perfect. I finished with some cute flower and bug wall decals to add to the garden theme. I will post a picture when I think about it.

A brief update on the Salla Sleep Front. She's doing AWESOME! We had one rough night this week when she woke up a couple times early in the night and then and wouldn't fall back asleep on her own for about an hour. I eventually chalked it up to teething, gave her a dose of Tylenol at 2am and didn't hear from her again until it was time to eat around 4. On most nights I don't hear from her until sometime between 2 and 4. I am still feeding her once per night, because I think it's appropriate even though she's plenty big enough (over 18 lbs now!). Naps are still very short, BUT she is falling asleep on her own with almost no protests (unless I push it too long and she's already crying). Needless to say, it's a vast improvement and Dr. Ferber is still my best friend.

Oh, and I did make it back to the gym a couple times this week. I figure 3 or 4 times a week is worth it and much better that nada! Thanks to everyone who's congratulated me on getting that part of my life back. It really does feel good to take that time to take care of myself....

Ok, I'm pooped and gotta recharge for this week. Seth has classes on Friday night and all day Saturday so it's a 6 day work week. Wish me luck!