Some days you win, some days you lose

Yesterday started off great.  The baby slept all night.  Kalena woke up happy.  I was on top of a healthy breakfast AND lunch.  I did the dishes.  I even started some laundry.  But then something happened.  It doesn't even matter what; it was nobody's fault.  Yet that one little incident made me feel like a total failure.

I know it shouldn't have, but it did.  I felt the way I used to feel in college when I would study and study and study and feel like I was ready for a test and then fail it anyway.  Like it didn't matter how hard I worked at it, I was never going to get there.  This isn't college though, there's no scheduled test date, it's just life.  Things like this are going to happen.  Days like this are going to happen.  I guess the best I can do is just pick myself up and move on.  I wish I had some eloquent "lesson learned" speech, but I don't.  I just hope tomorrow is a better day.

Last snow of the season. Maybe.

This is what we woke up to this morning.  What's that your asking?  Isn't it almost MAY?  And the answer is yes.  Yes it is almost May.  That means nothing to Colorado weather.  In case you can't tell, it was still snowing when I took the picture. 

It did make the air smell wonderful though.  Wet and cold and heavy.  The way snow tastes when you press it against the roof of your mouth.  Ah, I love Colorado.  

4 months

Will had his 4 month check up this morning.  Here are the stats:

Weight: 16 lbs (74th percentile)
Height:  24 inches (19th percentile)

So he's still short and chunky, but getting a *teeny* bit taller.  At 4 months Kalena weighed 15 lbs 5 oz and was 26 3/4 inches tall.

That's all I've got today.

It's because I posted about sleep yesterday

Last night was not so great.  Will woke up to nurse at 3:30 ish, went back to sleep for 10 minutes or so afterward (not enough time for ME to fall back asleep of course) and then woke up.  He fussed around and I ended up being up for about an hour.

What gets me with him is the unpredictability.  When Kalena started sleeping through the night, she slept through the night.  Just started one day and then continued.*  Before that, she had several weeks of waking once a night.  Will is all over the place.  Some nights it's once, some nights it's twice, some nights he sleeps quietly, some nights not so much.  Some mornings he's up early, some mornings he sleeps late, some mornings he nurses and goes back to sleep, some mornings he nurses and then he's wide awake.  I never know what I'm gonna get.  It's really throwing off any of my attempts at a schedule.  I'd really like a schedule.  I thought I was gonna get one there for a minute when he started napping at the same time every morning, but then that went out the window today too.

While we're taking about schedules, I'm trying to get Kalena on a better one.  And by "better" I mean "will maybe possibly sleep until 7 am or so."  So I got a Good Nite Lite.  I'd read about them before, and asked Kalena's pediatrician about them at her 18 month appointment.  The pediatrician said they're great (she used one on her twins) but recommended I wait until Kalena was closer to 2.  Well guess what kids- she'll be 2 next month!  Tonight is night #1, so I'll let you know in a few weeks how the whole thing is going.  You're all dying of anticipation, I know.

*Really I should not be complaining about random whole nights of sleep.  Kalena did do it all at once, but it was at 8 months old.  So any 8 hour stretches at 4 months are VERY MUCH appreciated.

Quitting the co-sleeping

I've been co-sleeping with Will.  There are lots of reasons, the biggest one being that it makes things easier.  When he was brand new, diaper changes were easier when he was already right there next to me.  It's easier to pick him up and nurse him back to sleep if I don't first have to get up, get out of bed, go down the hall, get him out of a crib and then nurse him.  Plus, MY sleep is at stake.  Getting up and out of bed to nurse means I'll take longer to fall asleep when I'm done, and I don't do so well without enough sleep.

Lately though, he'd been waking me up.  Lots.  He would wake up once or twice (usually) to nurse, but then for the last few hours of sleep he'd fuss around (trying to get out of the swaddle mostly) and that would wake me up every 20 minutes or so.  And that SUCKED.  So I decided it was time to move him to his own room.  The first night in his own room I tried some new swaddling techniques- arms pinned with a blanket behind the back, then a swaddle over that- put a fan in the room for some white noise and hoped for the best.  And the BEST is what we got.  He slept for 8 1/2 hours Thursday night.  It was AWESOME.  We haven't had another stretch that long, but I'm hoping we've turned a corner with the sleeping.  Maybe getting more sleep will make it easier for me to form coherent thoughts to blog about.  At least, I'm hoping this brain mush isn't permanent.

It's Friday!

I love Fridays. And here are some other things I love from this week.

1. Will slept for 8 1/2 hours last night. It was a beautiful thing.

2. Delicious slow-cooker chicken and sweet potato chowder for dinner on Monday. Weight Watchers recipe, so delicious AND healthy. Can't beat that.

3. When Kalena gets hurt and comes over to be comforted she'll hug me and then pat ME on the back, as if she's the one doing the comforting.

4. Bought a new perfume. Marc Jacobs recommended by some of the lovely ladies of the stylelush blog. Smells fabulous.

5. Nice spring weather for taking walks and playing in the park. I'm trying to enjoy it before it gets hot.

Any highlights to share from your week?

The zoo pictures

I promised pictures of the zoo, so here they are.

Kari with Will. He really didn't know what all the fuss was about.

Patrick and Kalena ride the train with Kirsta. That was a big hit. Who needs animals when there's a train?!

Riding the zebra on the carousel. I know it doesn't look like it here, but it was definitely Kalena's favorite part. She spent the whole ride with a big smile saying, "Wow. Wow." Fun to see. But, apparently, not so easy to catch a picture of. Oh well.

The zoo is quite a different experience with two kids. I spent considerably more time maneuvering the stroller than I did actually looking at animals. I guess that's life with kids eh? Also, we took some pictures of the animals, but I know you all just really want to see pictures of the kids right? I tried to get some of Kalena looking at the animals, you know, capture the excitement and all that jazz. Mostly I ended up with pictures of the back of her head as she looked at exhibits. The world's best photographer I am not.

The Lip

When Kalena is sad, (genuinely, sincerely sad, not faking it sad) her bottom lip sticks out before she starts to cry. It sticks WAY out. (Did she do this when she was a baby? Anyone in Midland remember?) Like, ridiculously far out. Far enough that it makes me laugh EVERY SINGLE time. I'm probably scarring her for life, laughing when she's truly sad about something. ANYWAY. I've never been able to catch it on camera, unfortunately. Not that I haven't tried. I have. But once her lip comes out, the crying is imminent. I'm never quick enough with the picture taking.

Enter Will. Will does the lip thing too. Pretty much from the day he was born. BUT. With Will, crying isn't always imminent. It's like his lip is a little happiness meter, and when it's out you'd better fix whatever is wrong. He will cry if you don't, but it's like he doesn't want to get worked up for nothing if you're going to fix it right away. So the other day when he started to give my mom "The Lip" I grabbed the camera and clicked away.

About to be sad.

He gave me a GREAT profile shot. It really does "The Lip" justice.

Makes me laugh just to look at these.

Too soon!

Kalena is less than a month away from 2. She is essentially potty trained. She climbs stairs and goes down slides by herself at the park. She sits next to Will and pats him when he cries. She tells me what she wants to eat, or play, or do, or read, or wear. Last night I heard her crying after she went to bed, so I went in to find out what was wrong. Why was she crying? Because she wanted to sleep in the bed, not her crib.

I don't think she's a baby anymore.

Sleepy

Did you know that for babies, sleeping for 5 hours in a row is considered sleeping through the night? That's right! 5 hours in a row. Also, waking only to eat is considered sleeping through the night. I guess that means, TECHNICALLY, Will is sleeping great. But, non-technically, waking up every few hours to feed him makes me a little, um, hazy during the day.

The worst part is that he used so sleep for 6 hours in a row. I should qualify that I suppose. He still does the occasional 6 hour stretch, it's just that he USED to sleep from 11 pm to 5 am. And if I can sleep from 11 to 5? I'm pretty much good to go for the day. Not so hazy. Now if he sleeps for 6 hours it starts at like 7 pm.

Kalena used to do that. For several weeks before she started sleeping all the way through the night, she would sleep from 7 pm until 2 am or so, wake up to eat, and go back to sleep. Of course, she was only waking up once during the night. Will is still waking up a few times. I've tried dream-feeding him at 11, but he's having none of that. If he's asleep, he will NOT nurse. No way. So, he eats when he wakes up and that's just life for now.

He doesn't look like he wants me to be tired all day, does he?

The swaddle dilemma

Will has learned how to get out of his swaddle. It doesn't matter if he's swaddled in a blanket or one of those special "swaddle blankets" with the velcro (actually those don't work as well as a normal blanket) he can get out. If he really tries he can get out in a matter of seconds after he's swaddled. Normally I'd think, okay, time to lose the swaddle. BUT. He will NOT sleep unless he's swaddled. Like, there are times in the middle of the night that all he needs is re-swaddled. Doesn't nurse, just needs to be wrapped up.

So, what to do? I'm really not a fan of waking up every few hours to re-swaddle. Especially since my middle of the night swaddles are not the best. But I don't think he would sleep at all if I quit swaddling. Am I missing something? Is there a better way to do this? Can I train him not to need it somehow? The worst part of all this is that I don't remember ANYTHING about when we quit swaddling Kalena. Don't know when it happened, or how she did, or what brought it about. Nada. It must not have been a big deal, (I'm pretty sure I'd remember if it was) so I guess I didn't feel the need to blog about it. Lesson learned. Blog about EVERYTHING. You-- Please don't. Anyway, more talk (read: complaining) later about how Will USED to sleep for 6 hours at a time and now he's back to 3 or 4 hours. Sad.

A glimpse into her future

Sure, in the future she'll be on her bed not the living room floor, and that will be a cell phone, not an old cordless, but still. There it is.

For not talking much about potty training I sure am talking a lot about potty training.

Some days I think potty training would be easier if Kalena were a little older. She's not very verbal yet, and although she can sign "potty" and sort of say it (sounds like pah-ee), she can't REALLY tell me yet when she needs to go, so there's a lot of guessing involved on my part. Also, she doesn't have the physical coordination yet to pull down pants or underwear, so I get to do that too. It's not hard, but the times when I have to quit in the middle of nursing and put down a screaming baby and go help Kalena, I really wish she could do it on her own. Especially when I do all that and it turns out that all she wanted was to sit for 3 seconds and then go back to doing whatever she was doing.

That said, I think there are definitely benefits to doing it when she's this age. For one thing, it isn't a fight. She's not old enough to realize she could refuse to go in the potty. She hasn't reached the stage of freaking out about trying new things. (At least, I hear that's a stage. Maybe some kids are just less likely to freak out?) And one of the biggest benefits (in my opinion) is that when she gets more verbal, and can work the pants/underwear on her own? She'll already be trained! I am very much looking forward to that day.

P.S. I totally won the $100.

Zoo time

My mom and I took the kids to Denver over the weekend. Kari and Jonathan came up with Amelia and we all stayed at Kirsta's house. For those of you keeping track, that's 6 adults and 5 children in a 3 bedroom house. Because we were feeling either very brave, or very stupid, we put Kalena and Patrick in the same room. It actually worked well, amazingly enough. Good thing too since the three babies woke up plenty.

We went to the zoo on Saturday, a first for Kalena (and Will, obviously.) She enjoyed it. Her favorite part was the carousel of course. Why would she care about the animals when there was a carousel? Anyway, I'll have more pictures when I get them from Kari, but it was interesting to have both my kids at the zoo. It was interesting to see how different their temperaments are. Kalena LOVES to be out. No matter how tired she gets, she won't sleep when she's out. She's always been that way. She doesn't get cranky though, she just stays wide awake, taking everything in. And when the outing is over, she is DONE. The zoo meant no nap for Kalena, and she was fine the whole time we were there, but as soon as we hit the parking lot, she was out.

Exhibit A: Asleep before we got to the car.

Will is NOT that way. He gets overstimulated and then he cries. And cries. And CRIES. And then he won't go to sleep. He gets really bad if it goes on too long. So with him, the zoo was one long, constant effort to keep him from getting overstimulated. Of course, the BEST way to keep him from overstimulation is sleep, but, ironically, he won't sleep if there's lots going on. He did finally go to sleep after eating, being swaddled, and then laying him down in the stroller with the sun shade up and a blanket over the top so he couldn't see anything. It's strange though to have two kids who handle the same situation so differently. I might think it has to do with age, but Kalena has always been like that. I'll be curious to see if Will stays this way too. Which camp do your kids fall into?

I know, slow and steady and all that.

This whole losing weight thing is a little tedious. It's fun at first, seeing the number on the scale go down, but after awhile it gets boring. I just want to be done already. (Apparently wanting to be done with things is a theme in my life.) It probably doesn't help that both my sisters got the "I'm breastfeeding so not only will I lose all my pregnancy weight in like a week, I can eat whatever I want all the time and STILL lose MORE weight" gene. Both of them have complained about being too skinny. I, on the other hand, got the "I'm breastfeeding so my body holds on to EVERY SINGLE calorie I consume. You know, in case I need all those fat reserves" gene. Fun times for me.

It's not that losing weight has been particularly hard this time around; Weight Watchers does what I need it to. It's the time it takes that gets to me. I'm averaging about a pound a week (give or take) which is good. That's a healthy amount to lose. BUT. It means that the next 25 lbs I want to lose is going to take me 25 weeks! That's like forever! Okay, not forever, but still. A long time. A really long time when I want to buy new clothes. Every time I clothes shop I think, "Will this still fit when I lose another 10 lbs? Should I wait a few weeks before I buy new jeans?" It's annoying.

Of course, I'm writing this post after having had dinner at Red Robin and ice cream for dessert. What? It's my sister in law's birthday tomorrow. We were celebrating. Food doesn't have calories on birthdays, right?

Anyway, I'm hoping the warmer weather will mean more walks, more time at the park, more time in the yard, and less being parked on the couch. Maybe all that will speed this whole process up a little. Maybe not eating at Red Robin will also speed it up. We'll see.

Thank you Sesame Street

I went and bought Kalena some underwear at the start of this whole potty training deal. And I found the whole process to be a little frustrating. Of course I wanted to get her some character ones, to make her more interested in them.

Here are the movies Kalena would recognize characters from: Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc, or The Incredibles.

Here are the characters Disney puts on girls underwear: Fairies or Princesses.

If it were a t-shirt or something I'd just get her one from the boys section, but it's just not the same with underwear. Also? There were NO Monsters Inc underwear, boys or girls. What's up with that Disney? I also found that underwear is apparently sized differently than clothes. Kalena is just starting to wear a 3T, but according to the size chart on the underwear, her weight puts her squarely in a 4T. AND, if you buy the Disney underwear in the toddler section it's $1.50 more for a pack of 7 than buying a the same pack of 7 from the girls section in a size 4 (as opposed to 4T. They're the SAME. I checked the size chart.)

So anyway, I'd like to thank Sesame Street for making girls underwear with Elmo. It's probably a marketing ploy to sell underwear that goes along with Elmo's Potty Time DVD, but WHATEVER. Worked on me.

I don't even think Kalena cares. *Sigh*

This won't last forever

I have to keep reminding myself of that these days. I would like potty training to be over. I KNOW it's going to take awhile (probably a LONG while) before Kalena is completely potty trained, but I can wish, right? It's sort of like wishing for a whole night's sleep when you have a newborn. You know you aren't going to get it, but that doesn't stop you from wanting it.

I'm not going to say much about potty training because, even though she's not even two yet, she deserves a little privacy. I don't want her hating me years from now for things I posted on this blog. I will say it's going well. We started Thursday and I went with the hard-core method-- naked for 3 days. No more diapers. She caught on quickly and she is having more successes than accidents, so that's good. It did put a damper on taking Easter egg hunting pictures though. As cute as she looked in a sweatshirt and tennis shoes, I didn't think she'd want that particular moment captured forever.

I feel a little stuck at home while we do this which is weird. I don't normally feel "stuck" even though I'm here with no car every day. Also, I have taken her out a few times (pull-ups for outings); I guess I just feel like she'll get the hang of things sooner if we stay here more. We're going to Denver this weekend, so I really hope that doesn't undo all the progress we've made. (Please tell me it won't.) Well, no turning back now.