Sleep Deprived

This handsome little Moose refuses to sleep! Well, I should rephrase that, he refuses to fall asleep on his own and stay asleep once he is laid down alone.

 

He's an incredibly happy and easy baby with everything else.  He eats like a champ.  He entertains himself and plays well alone.  He loves his sister and laughs at all her crazy antics that mommy does not understand.  His snuggles can cure my grumpiest mood.  And that smile is like sunshine! But this kid does not sleep.  

I've been in denial about his sleep issues for pretty much his whole life.  My mom has been hoping and praying that I'd have a kid with sleep issues to pay me back for all that I put her through.  Well we got extremely lucky with Scoot.  I don't know what I did or didn't do, but she was a great sleeper.  She could put herself to sleep starting at about 4 months - just lay her in the crib and close the door - magic! She would wake up in the middle of the night, but as soon as I snuggled her or nursed her she was back out. And that usually only happened once a night around 4 am (after she'd already been asleep 9 hours).  By the time she was 10 months old she was sleeping through the night 7 pm - 6 am with 2 - 2 hour naps. It was a first time mommy's dream!

Now Mr. Moose, he's a completely different story! He has no self-soothing skills and needs to be cuddled until he falls asleep. Up until about 3 weeks ago, once you cuddled him to sleep, you could lay him down and he would stay asleep. But it has been getting worse. You never know what is going to happen when you lay him down.  Will he stay asleep? Whine and wiggle, but not really wake up? Melt down into total hysterics?  Maybe if that was happening at bed time around 8 pm and then he slept through the night I wouldn't have anything to complain about.  But he's doing that at 8 pm, 11pm, and 4 am. And he has been demanding to be nursed back to sleep in the middle of the night. 

Nap time isn't much better, but a nice 3 hour stretch of sleep in the afternoon actually seems like a win.  Whereas it feels like a total failure at 11pm. 

I'm desperate to teach him some self-soothing skills, but I have no idea how.  And my sleep deprived brain cant think of any way to fix this.

And if this makes no sense- just know I wrote it in 3 parts around the cuddling & nursing of an exhausted baby.  Which is pretty much the way we've been living life the last 2-3 weeks. 

pink painted flower box

A brand new Michael's craft store opened 2 miles from my house last week.  I'm in big trouble now with all that crafty goodness so close at hand!  It didn't help that on my maiden voyage to the new store I had a 20% off entire purchase coupon!

I got a bunch of random supplies for various projects I want to try.  And as a spur of the moment purchase I bought a little wooden box shaped like a flower for $1.  At Bible school earlier in the summer Scoot painted a little wooden bird house and she has played with it constantly.  She even has a little toy bird that she puts in there to go "nighnight." Its adorable.  And this girl seriously loves any kind of bag/box/purse that she can put treasures in. 

So today was the day that I decided to be brave and get out the paint.  Scoot has never painted with me before so I didn't know exactly how messy to expect it to get.  At first she was upset that the paint was getting on her hands and arms, but once she got over that, she went to town with that paint! She LOVED it!  Long after the box was as covered as it was going to get she was asking for more paint.  I must say that her box turned out pretty cute too.  I hope she has tons of fun playing with it and storing all her precious treasures in there!

A few tips on painting with a toddler...

*Contain the mess! - I put her in her high chair to paint and it worked perfectly!

*Limit color choices - She was just as interested in mixing the paint on her plate as she was putting the paint on the box.  We used 4 shades of pink and even though she mixed them all together, it turned out beautiful.  If I had given her 4 different colors and she mixed them all together it would have turned into a muddy brown color. 

*Strip 'em down! - She did get paint on her arms and belly which was fine since I had taken her shirt off before we started.  A paint smock would have worked too, but it was just as easy to take the clothes off at home.



When Scoot was born I was a first time mom and went back to work the day she turned 10 weeks old. 

This second time around I'm an experienced mom and I'm staying home now.  In other words, it should be a tad bit easier.  Granted I do also have a 2 year old fighting the 5 month old for my attention, but overall Scoot has been so super good.  She transitioned seamlessly from only child to big sister. 

With Scoot I breastfed exclusively until she was 10 months and then with formula supplements until 11 months.  I was working and had to pump at least once during my work day and once at night.  It was not easy, but I was committed.  It made me feel closer to this sweet girl that I left at the babysitters house 9 hours a day.

This time I've been toying with the idea of quitting sooner rather than later.  Even though it should be easier this time.  I'm home and don't have to pump.  He's right here with me all the time so it should be easy to keep it up.  And since I've done it before I should be a pro by now. 

It has been easy, very easy.  But for mostly selfish reasons, I'm ready to be done.  At 5 months.  I want to take some of my meds that I'm not allowed to take while breastfeeding, but that make me feel better and more like myself.  I want someone else to be able to feed him once in awhile.  And I want my boobs to stop leaking all over the place any time I hear any baby cry. 

But tonight I tried to give him a bottle of formula before bed.....  and he would have NONE of that ridiculousness!  He's had a bottle many times before, but it's always been pumped breast milk.  So apparently I have some work to do before I can even think about weaning him to formula and getting my boobs back. 

All the technology that I've grown accustomed to using is ruining my in-person socialization skills! 

I'm super good at writing a witty email or chatting somebody up on facebook.  My text messages are friendly and funny. 

However, in person, I'm a blubbering, incoherent, not even mildly funny idiot. 

Not having the chance to edit myself scares me into silence.  All of the sudden I can't think of a single interesting thing that anyone would be interested in talking about for more than .6 seconds. 

I'd say most of this comes from having an introverted personality and being generally shy going back as long as I can remember.  But I certainly don't think that technology is helping me at all.  With my computer/phone/tablet I can sit comfortably at home and chat or not.  I can edit myself.  I don't have to feel the sting of embarrassment for being so quiet. 

Tonight, this all stems from a particularly bad experience from almost a year ago.  A year.  Really.  And I'm still thinking about it.  Truth is, I think about it a lot more than I'd like to admit to myself or you.  It started out well enough.  Dinner with my hubby, one of my best friends Robby, and his new girlfriend.  It sounded great until we got there and I suddenly remembered that I'm terrible at meeting new people because I just can't talk to them.  And I'm deathly afraid that they'll think I'm an idiot.  And every moment that I don't say something interesting and funny, I get more afraid of saying something stupid.  So I'm quiet.  And then this perfectly wonderful new person thinks that I don't like them.  Ahhh, it sounds so dumb when I write it out. 

Robby got engaged to his wonderful girlfriend tonight.  And even though we are good friends, we haven't hung out again since that dinner a year ago.  Because I did not make a good impression that night.  I did a terrible job at making a new friend.  Even though we have a lot in common and should have had a lot to talk about, I sat there quietly listening to everyone else talk.  It was not a fun night, and I really don't blame them for not wanting to hang out with us again.  (How in the world do I have any friends in real life?!)  I'm just sad tonight because I feel my 15 year friendship with Robby slipping away because I'm not good at making new friends and did not make a good 1st impression with his soon to be wife. 

Oh and guess what.... tomorrow I get to go to brunch with a friend/cousin-in-law who I have communicated with 99% of the time through social media!  Oh what fun.  Let the nervousness begin.... NOW!

I've got a creative itch, but I'm overwhelmed with choices and don't feel good at anything.  I have several quilt projects I want/need to finish, but it's too hot to quilt right now.  Especially with your a/c on the fritz and the insane humidity.  I would LOVE to try my hand at sewing some clothes for Scoot, but for some reason, I'm paralyzed with fear.

My ultimate goal is to find something that I can do to satisfy my creative itch that is also good enough to sell.  Something that someone else will want to pay their hard earned money for.  I'm to wishy-washy to commit to any one thing though. 

I have had a lot of fun making preschool busy bags for Scoot.  And I'd love to share them with other people, but they are so easy to do, that I don't see anybody paying me to do it for them. 

I've thought about making some kind of book bags for school age kids.  Putting together an activity bag based on a popular/quality children's book, but again, I'm afraid to start.  I actually keep myself awake at night thinking of activities to do with certain books and how I could put them together into a kit, but I just don't follow through. 

A big part of it is that I've been missing school/teaching.  With all the back to school stuff out and the commercials, I've been getting nostalgic.  I think about the kids I taught and the kids I'm not going to be teaching this year.  I want to get back to it, but I LOVE being home with my kids and I'm not ready to give that up either. 

Basically I'm a huge mess.  My brain is running in half a million different directions.  Without using my creative side, I feel like I'm missing something.  And on top of all that, I'm developing an addiction to online kids clothing resell groups! My husband and paypal do not approve!