Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Tuesday is Monday Mommy

Since yesterday was memorial day, today is techinically my Monday. Mitchell is back at work and the kids and I are alone once again to wage the war of parent vs toddlers and baby.


Mason is being quite tempestuous to say the least, one moment fearing the "Puma" from "Go diego, Go" and the next being sweet and pretending to be a butterfly. He also pulled the cord for the living room light, ate the frosting from his brother's cupcake, and crushed graham cracker into the carpet- again! I tried to talk on the phone and Mason screamed in my face in a way that made me think of that painting, you know the one. 2 1/2 years old and already bonkers.
Zander is being better today. He has spent a great deal of every day screaming, crying, and having tantrums. Even though he is now 18 months old, he had only 8 teeth until this past month. The rest are cutting in groups and giving him a heck of a time. As if that isn't bad enough, he gets frequent earaches and will be seeing an ear,nose, and throat doctor soon. A little extra sleep last night went a long way, and some cuddles and a hearty breakfast this morning and he is actually in a good mood. He loves the music playing and of course I will spend some one on one time with him, too. I am hoping to add one more sign ((sign language)) and a new word to his vocabulary.
Isabella is still in her growth spurt. She is still nursing very often, and is grumpy as heck when hungry. So I am going to place her in the sling today so I can nurse her plenty while tending to the boys' needs. I can't wait to find out how much she weighs, and see what the Dr thinks of her growth. She doesn't look like she could have been a preemie, that is for sure. We are doing frequent tummy time, which she loves, and she is so chubby! She was 5 weeks early, weighing only 5 1/2 lbs, yet she weighs more now at almost 4 months than her full term brothers did at the same age.
I have alot to do today, play with the boys, take something out for dinner, clean my bedroom and tidy the kitchen, do laundry and teach Mason to read one word and Zander to speak one. I also need to complete at least one of the several sewing projects I left unfinished.
Today's Solution is a new sticker chart for the boys and a time out chair. I have been fairly inconsistent thus far with discipline because the boys weren't very naughty. But Mason's behavior over the past week has been often unnacceptable. So we will test out this method for a while.
Bedtime deserves honorable mention, since putting a 2.5 and 1.5 year old to bed in the same room is no easy feat. For the past few days I have been sticking to my guns and putting them to bed the same way: wind down time, tuck ins, a short tv show, then music channel until they fall asleep. I do stay in there with them still, though intend to slowly stop that, also. It takes about 1 - 1.5 hours to get both to bed right now. I would love to shorten that but it may be that the amount of time they take is necasary. I find that when they fall asleep in their beds as opposed to being rocked or falling asleep on the couch, they sleep through the night, whereas they otherwise don't, and sleep very restless.
Ferber compares the difference using an example I liked. He says to imagine if you fell asleep, and then someone moved you from your bed. You would wake up, and get back into your bed, right? Well, Now imagine if they locked the door to your room. How easy would it be for you to get back to sleep? This is the comparison to allowing a child fall asleep elsewhere, and then moving them, or rocking htem and then laying them to sleep. Everyone wakes up during the night but typically it is so quick that we don't recall. but when a child wakes and finds themselves in a different place, they wake up more to find out why and then need to duplicate the scenario in which they fell asleep in the first place, meaning, now they must wake up mom or dad for help.
But if they fell asleep in bed on thier own or with minimal interactions, there is little or no changes in the enviroment and so they fall back asleep quickly.
Consistency at bedtime has kept me sane, even though it takes some time, I succeed: they sleep, and that is that. And I know they are going to sleep feeling safe and loved. Actually, Consistency is somethign I employ as much as possible with the kids, because I find that they behave better when I keep everything basicly the same.
So, off to my day, break time is definetly over, Ha Ha.

No comments:

Post a Comment