Goodbye Miles

When Jr. is older we will tell him all about Miles, his daddy's first baby. Yesterday we had to put Miles to sleep, he was old, tired, in pain and not getting any better. It was the toughest decision ever. We are going to miss him so much.

In dog related news, Jr.'s first word, we are calling it, is "Woof". "Woof" is what he called Miles and calls dogs in his books or the dogs outside that bark. Selma is either "Woof" or "Saaabaaa".

The kid loves dogs.

Tired

Crazy pants monkey boy Coleman has been getting up in the middle of the night again to party. Last week was good, this week bad. I am too tired to say much more than yesterday he was 11 months old, we have less than one month to plan the big one year birthday blowout.

Hardest best year of my life. I am just now feeling like I can move around again. For the longest time, I felt like my feet were glued to the floor in my house with a busy baby boy in my arms. Last year I was super pregnant and so excited for him to come, now he is here and everything has changed. I laugh when I think about what my ideas and expectations of being a mother would be like.

He is blowing bubbles under water in the bathtub. We can't go to swim lessons until his cough clears up. Thursday is the last lesson, don't think we'll make it. Oh well. We can take them again this summer.

Cry It Out

Let me just say that I cannot write anything about this last week without being kind of judgemental about the Cry It Out method of teaching your kid to sleep. I HATE IT. But we did try it. Friday night we were at our wits end with crazy kooklamlooka Ed Jr. and partying at 10:30 at night after being asleep for 2 hours.

It could have been daylight savings time, it could have been Cissie's absence, it could have been the new tooth (#3 on the bottom), but sleeping for little man this week sucked. It seemed like all of the good work we had done, and the progress that we had made was gone out the window.

Normal scenario. Let me just say that there is no such thing as normal anymore, but this is what was pretty predictable. 1.5 hour morning nap, 1.5 hour afternoon nap, bed at 8ish and asleep until 11 - 12 at which time he was moved to our bed for the remainder of the night and gets up between 7 - 8 AM. Not too bad. Plus it seemed like he was sleeping longer and longer in his crib at night and eventually, he would just sleep in there all night. Not SO!

It all started last Friday night while his Nanna was babysitting. He woke up around 9:30 and decided to stay up and watch TV with his nanna until 11 when his parents got home and tried for an hour to put him back to bed. He thought that it was such a fun schedule, he would keep it up for the rest of the week, and naps, FORGET ABOUT IT. 20 minutes - 40 minutes, that is good enough. UG it was so frustrating. I started online research and picked up a book that I should have tossed in the garbage 10 months ago. Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child. The Dr. who wrote it is a pretentious crapbag. So Saturday night, we let him cry for 30 minutes. It was just so wrong. Wrong for him, wrong for us. Plus it didn't help his sleep. Ed still had to go up there and put him to sleep.

The best advice I have ever gotten about being a parent is find people with similar values and listen to their advice, drown out the rest. That is what I am doing. I am returning to The No Cry Sleep Solution. I am going to know that as Ed Jr.'s mom, that I am the expert on him. I also am going to chill out, ride this wave, and keep working on helping him sleep longer and better, not chicken out and cry it out for promises of quick solutions.

Its fun to swim at the Y M C A

Photos from our swim lessons.

We are practicing blowing bubbles under the water.

Scooping toys out of the water.

Floating on our backs while kicking.

Snowshoeing Baby

We have been talking about cross country skiing all winter. It seems like when we have snow, it is FREEZING or we have company, or we are out of town. It was a lot of excuses to avoid what we were really worried about, me falling down on skis while wearing Jr. on my back. Although I am really confident in my ability to ski with him on my back, I always have some reservations. Our solution was to buy me a pair of snowshoes - thank you tax refund. Ed already had a pair from his timber days. With that, we were off.

We went to Mac Pass and snowshoed on the X-C trails. Yeah, I know. Major no-no, but we stayed to the side of the groomers and as soon as we could get off the trails we did. We saw a couple of the Swix Hat wearing skate skier a-holes, but they ignored us. We think we found some other places to try out my new gear.

The sunshine was awesome and it was great exercise. Jr. had a blast too. Unfortunately, he took his afternoon nap on my back and woke up when I tried to unload him into the car. The unfortunate part was that the nap was only 1/2 hour.

Oh and P.S. I did fall down once on snowshoes, but it was no big deal. Jr. barely even noticed.

Waiting

Cissie leaves in May. I am getting a TON of pressure to come back to work more hours starting in April. That spells daycare. Ug. I hate the thought of it.

I have started calling around to the daycare facilities remotely close to our home and work and now we are on several waiting lists 9, 10, 12 people deep. I guess the only daycare centers that have openings are out in Montana City or the valley. Personally I would rather leave him in the care of Miles and Selma all day.

I feel a ton of anxiety about this, the same anxiety I felt one year ago when he was on his way into the world, and I had NO childcare lined up for him after my maternity leave was over. I was just kind of hoping that something magical would happen and I would get to stay home with him. Well, the next best thing worked out and we got Cissie. She was an excellent present from my friend Tina. Tina interviewed her and couldn't use her, so she passed her along to us. She has been amazing and Ed Jr. LOVES her.

We can't afford a full time Cissie, so if it isn't daycare, it is leaving him with a SAHM. Stay At Home Mom. There are always a couple of them out there looking to take in an extra kid to make some cash. I think to myself, why don't I do that? Stay at home all day with Ed Jr. and another bebe? I mean, I really don't like my job, but taking care of someone elses kid, is that what I want to do?

Today we are going to check out a daycare center who can take him in afternoons. Great, so looking forward to ear infections, chicken pox, respiratory viruses. . . All of my friends who have babies in daycare have sick babies all of the time and KNOCK ON WOOD, Ed Jr. is one healthy little horse.

I guess whining about it on the Internet isn't going to solve my problems. I will pass along one wish. I WISH my dad and Sheree would hurry up and retire so they could take care of Ed Jr. all day. WISH!

I will say that I have been VERY lucky to have had this last year to stay at home with him part time. I can't imagine putting him in a daycare at 6 or 12 weeks. We have had one incredibly blissful year of sleeping in, playing in our jammies all morning and having a nice lunch with daddy every day.