Photo Dump

These are just recent photos I’ve got lying around my desktop that haven’t made it into a post. I’ve shared most of these photos on facebook recently, so some of you have seen them, but I want them on this space so when I have blog made into a book, they will be here! Plus, my kiddos are super cute so you should always be eager to look through tons of pictures.

Last week, we took Jackson’s favorite walk—to the trains!

Belle was my laundry distraction helper this day!
{I had several people tell me they thought this was Jackson at first!}

Jackson climbed into bed with Belle after a nap one morning. Lots of giggles.

I took this picture at Chick-fil-a awhile back… Belle just loves to give kisses so much that she kept kissing the little boy on her placemat!       

I snapped these photos one day in class. Apparently even though I’m enrolled in Grad School, I still eat like a kindergartner.

I caught Belle in the act of her favorite activity—playing with the trash and recycling. Seriously… our home is flooded with toys. Why does she love trash?

This is the result of me telling Jackson to get on some socks so we could put shoes on to play outside. Not quite what I had in mind… but he did what I asked!

Cutest little Chiefs fan ever.

Jackson discovered himself on the security tv at Wal-mart. He was pretty captivated by seeing the boy on the tv do the same thing {dancing like a crazy person} as he was doing!

I traced the kiddos with chalk yesterday {much harder than you think!} Jackson added faces, shoes, and he drew a stripped shirt for the boy. Belle was in charge of the yellow. Pretty good! 

This was Belle today after church this morning. She fell asleep clutching the fork!

And two more pictures from this afternoon. I realized that I several pictures of Belle so I wanted to get another of Jackson. And this is why I don’t have as many pictures of the boy. While he said “cheese”, he didn’t look up from what he was doing. Belle on the other hand walked right up and said, “cheese” with a perfect little smile.

 

Whew! Lots of pictures. Lots of cuteness!

It has been a long week

It started out with a visit to the doctor because Belle's breathing sounded like Darth Vader. Fortunately, it was only head congestion and not in her lungs. But the nurse used a larger-than-life nosey-sucky thingy to clear her out, which she HATED and then gave us instructions to keep her upright as much as possible, which has made sleeping (sleeping-- she sleeps!? ...not at night!) challenging.

It all started because Jackson had a cold and he shared it. His congestion did travel down to his lungs, which causes him to vomit when he coughs at times. It's awful. So, we've been doing breathing treatments.

We have a good system-- he sits, and watches the Backyardigans and after the full treatment, he gets a peice of candy. 

Derek was teaching Julie tips on fighting. 

(disclaimer: he didn't actually hit her!)

Sunday night the terrible tornado hit Joplin, which is just a couple hours south from us. Derek spent the weekend down there and headed home just earlier that morning. We've definitely counted those blessings. We weren't really affected by the storms on Sunday night, but we had our own storms on Wednesday.  This is a view of downtown Kansas City during the storm.

Mom and I were headed to take Jackson bowling when Derek called to tell me about the tornado watch (in our defense... the weather had called for rain all morning and it never happened, so we just decided to go out!). I immediately tried to contact Julie to tell her we were on our way home and to take cover in the basement. My phone picked a great time to stop working and so I never got a hold of her on our fifteen minute ride back. I rushed in to find her crouched in the back corner of our basement, wrapped in a blanket, crying. Denmark does not experience this kind of weather, so hearing the sirens and after hearing the devastation about what had happened in Joplin while being home alone-- she was scared to death!! Poor girl. Fortunately it passed; the storm was over as quickly as it came in!

Funnel cloud over Belton 

We finally put Julie to work to cover her living expenses!!

Ha, not really. She was practically begging to mow. Have you ever seen anyone so excited about yard work??

Tomorrow we are going camping so we spent the evening packing up and getting ready. I am super looking forward to it. I think Jackson is gonna love being outdoors.

And here's hoping next week doesn't feel so crazy so that I can find time to shower before I end up going 2 and a half days without one. Ick!

Uncle Phil

No, not the stern, middle aged, large black man that Will Smith went to live with in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air... Our Uncle Phil is a little white guy. He's only 29 and doesn't have butler.

Phil graduated last weekend with his Master's in Health Administration from UNC. My parents drove out for the ceremony and he hitched a ride back here to Kansas City so he could meet Belle and hang out with his little buddy before he starts med school at the University of Virginia next month.

Jackson had fun with Uncle Phil today... but not while riding up high on his shoulders! He got scared and wouldn't let go of Phil's forehead.

Phil and Belle both enjoyed a nap... and I'm fairly certain they both enjoyed the cuddle time!

Both kids headed out with Phil to go up to my parents house for the night. We spent the evening at Julie's choir concert and it's just so much easier (and enjoyable) to go to those kind of things without kids in tow! Unlike everyone else in this house, I didn't get a nap today so I'm looking forward to a full night's sleep tonight!

The family bed

After Derek left for training in July, I remember commenting that our king sized bed just felt so big and lonely sleeping in it by myself. When I was anticipating Derek coming home knowing I wouldn't have to sleep alone anymore, this isn't what I had in mind. Refer to Exhibit A. Our bed has become the family bed. And it's not something that Derek and I are all that thrilled about. In fact, if I could comfortably sleep in Jackson's little bed, I would sleep in his room. Truthfully, I'd probably have more room in his toddler bed than I currently have sharing our king sized bed!

Exhibit A

This is one of the different variations of how the bed sharing takes place. I cuddle Belle because the spoiled sweet little thing goes through phases of only sleeping when held. But on the rare occassion that she does allow me to put her down and give my arm a rest, I can put her in the corner of the pillows and go back to the middle to make sure she doesn't get rolled on or smothered with blankets or pillows. Then every night at varying times Jackson makes his way to our bed. And when we take him back to his bed, it's only a matter of time before he's back again. And of course,there are pillows on the other parts of both sides to prevent child-falling-off disasters. Since I generally have Belle, he goes to Daddy's side. Jackson sleeping style is as follows: on top of you or on top of pillow (as pictured above).

There are of course several variations of the sleep arrangement with special consideration to avoid having Jackson and Belle not sleeping next to each other because I'm fairly certain Belle wouldn't make it out alive.  There are times though when Jackson's on my side, in the middle, or just all over the bed actually. Derek woke up two mornings ago in what he called a kid sandwich. He was squished in between both of them and he couldn't get out until I moved one!

That leave Derek and I with about as much room as a twin bed would offer. There's room to lay straight and that's about it. Sooooo not comfy.

I came upon this comic in the interwebs this week. I totally laughed outloud. 

I went to my 6 week post-partum check up yesterday and she didn't happen to mention this form of birth control. I guess she didn't have to! And hey, this method doesn't even require a co-pay! Derek and I don't plans for another child anytime soon... and these kids must feel the same way!

(I do realize that we could insist on having no kids in our bed, but that involves battles that occur in the overnight hours. Once we can get Belle on fewer, or none, nighttime feedings we may have the energy to make her sleep in her bassinet. And also take Jackson back to his bed several times and deal with the screaming that ensues. But for now we will take the greater amounts of uncomfortable sleep than the lesser amount of comfortable sleep. Though, I will still complain.)

ZZzzzz's

Ohmigosh... it's been SO cold here lately. And it's making me so sleeeepy all day long! The fact that I have practically camped out in front of my fireplace for the past week may or may not be contributing to the sleepiness.... The content of today's post is really about Jackson and his sleep though.

While having Derek home was simply wonderful, it wrecked havoc on Jackson's sleeping habits. BIG TIME. We were out of schedule, he was way over stimulated. Night-time and nap-time were horrendous feats for the first couple of days (He'd be up 6 or 7 times a night and he would cry so much he'd vomit!). I sought advice from friends who've dealt with deployments/homecomings and toddlers. I even emailed a fellow blogger that I've never even met. Desperation!

It basically ended up that I did all of the bedtime/naptime stuff, trying to keep it as normal as possible... and really, the only way for Jackson to get any sleep at all was to rock him completely asleep and put him down. every. single. time. It was time consuming and frustrating (I mean, didn't we jump this hurdle back when he was like, six months old?!... oh yeah, that was before he could climb out of his crib and open doors!), but I just couldn't bear to let him just cry it out. I feel so sorry for the little guy for all of the big things going on/about to happen in his life.

Because Jackson can successfully (and does) climb out of his crib, we introduced his toddler bed before Derek left. It doesn't have anything to do with the baby coming soon since she doesn't even have a room of her own for the crib to go! The father-in-law is actually coming over to take down the crib and we're (he is) moving it to the basement.

We didn't make the switch right away. I continued to rock him and pulled out the tricks used to sleep train little infants- put him down almost asleep, but still awake so he can learn to fall asleep in the crib. Progressively moving further away from his crib while I sang him songs until I was eventually out of the room. I may have given him a cup of milk a few times (gasp) in bed with him a time or two. He was even bribed with tic-tacs. I always make a BIG deal when he falls asleep on his own, without crawling out of his crib. His sleeping habits are improving.

We talked about his big boy bed at times and he explored a little bit. I checked out Big Boy Bed books from the library. And a few days ago he actually asked to sleep in his big boy bed. He's done okay with the transition. I've been sitting with him until he falls asleep each night. The first night he stayed in it all night. Last night he came to sleep with me for a little bit.

I am really considering my options (as if I should try a cry-it-out method or to work with slow progress getting him to go to sleep on his own). But I feel like he's dealing with so much that he deserves to be babied a little bit in this. Of course, my only fear is that it still takes an hour for bedtime once the baby comes and I simply can't offer that! I'm going back and forth....

But for reals... Jackson is in a big boy bed. Why is he growing up so fast?!

Sleepless in South KC

I am looking for advice, tips, suggestions-- anything, please! I've been in a general state of tiredness all week and Jackson has decided he just doesn't need to sleep all that much anymore.

First off, Jackson has always been the kind of kid that when he gets super tired-- he sleeps less. He does not make up for sleep; he just continually gets less and less, which is what's happening here. Second, he's always napped more than the average kid--last week he would have gotten around 11 hours of sleep at night with anywhere from 3-4 hours in naps during the day, at almost two years old.

It all started with a busy weekend and a messed up nap schedule. Sunday night he was up in the middle of the night for over two hours, but only took one nap on Monday. Since then, he's only taken one nap a day and I have just assumed it was time for that adjustment.

The thing is, is that he still needs more sleep than he's getting. I've tried moving his naps to later in the day, but he gets cranky around dinner time and stays that way until bedtime (has always been 8:30-9ish). And then, this morning he was up at 5:45am (his normal is 7:15ish). For the day. During the five o' clock hour. This is my indication that he needs more/longer naps. He has gotten progressively less and less sleep each day this week and I just can't handle him loosing anymore sleep. Last night he got 9 hours of sleep at night and if he naps like he has been this week, the nap will be 2-3 hours.

We went from 14-15 hours of sleep a day to 11-12 hours in a matter of days and statistically speaking, that's quite a bit. While for some kids, I know that's totally normal, it's just not Jackson's normal. And I would think this change might be okay if he wasn't showing signs of tiredness throughout the day.

And since he's able to climb out of his crib, I've lost a bit of the power in just putting him down and letting him cry himself to sleep.

Is this no sleep thing a phase? Is he just exploring his freedom of escaping the crib? Does it ever end? What's the best way to adjust to one nap (and to make it count!)? What can I do when it's 5:00 and evidently tired and cranky but we still have hours until bed time? HELP!