irreconcilable globule

You know those spam messages you get with the really random subject lines? This was the title of one i received recently that i've been saving for just such a time as tonight-- i'm not near my calendar to tell you how old everyone is and i can't think of anything topical-- so irreconcilable globule it is.

I'm still dragging around this stuffy nose and hacking cough, but dangnabit, tonight was babysitter night so we went out anyway. Not only is having a regular babysitter gig good for JT and i-- it's fun for me because i get to dress up on a semi-regular basis. What with working at home and having two small children, i don't exactly have fashion on the top of my list. At least once every few weeks i put some thought into what i'm wearing and how i look. On that front, i have an achievement to document, although i'm befuddled about how it happened.

By the scale's account i haven't lost any weight since six weeks post-partum. I'm still carrying around about a baker's dozen of extra pounds. Tonight, i decided just to see if one of my pre-pregnancy skirts fit and voila! it does! I'm not talking stretchy waist-band skirt either. It's full, but the waist fit and that's nothing to sniff at. So i'm hoping that with my ramp-up in exercise and trying to be sensible about eating, i'll start to make more progress.

Silas is doing spectacular. He's so happy and animated and getting really into his toys-- at least the little toys on his bouncer. He grabs and swats at them so forcefully they wind up wound around the toy-bar like the swings at a derelict park. At night he likes to eat and get ready for bed pretty promptly at 6. By 6:30 he's in his crib and maybe fussing a little but quickly soothes himself to sleep. Last night he didn't wake up at all until 4:30 am, although most mornings by about 5:30 he's up and the last 30 minutes until breakfast at 6 can be tough.

Henry is seriously working on potty-training now. He's wearing underwear during the day and getting better about telling us before he actually needs to go. I downloaded a sticker chart to use with him and he was definitely psyched to start seeing those stickers marching along the path. He's still omitting articles and doesn't use many pronouns, but he's in the process of learning about plurality. He'll talk about one bird and two birds over and over again. He's also getting to where he's trying to speak in longer story-like sentences. He doesn't have all the words yet, but a typical exchange was yesterday night at dinner when he was telling me about his morning with Daddy: WEEK-Up, No Open, Close-- Daddy!, No, Daddy!, close, Daddy- WEEK-Up, eat! Translation, I woke up and my door was closed, i called Daddy, but nothing. I called Daddy again but my door was still closed. I called Daddy really loudly and told him to wake-up that i wanted to eat!

Laying Low

I know my posting frequency has been a little bit off lately, and for those of you salivating for Henry/Silas news, i apologize. It's just that between JT's trip and me getting sick again (wait did i ever get better?) it's been challenging to find time to post-- plus i don't want to sound like a downer. We had a very low-key weekend because my cold somehow started getting worse, and Henry was running a fever and had stomach troubles on Saturday. JT smoked brisket and pulled pork all night Friday in anticipation of a bbq we were planning but we decided with the pox on our house we should call the gathering off. Consider this an announcement to anyone in the vicinity that we have meat to spare-- just give me a holler and i'll fix you up a container.

We had planned to get together with Tab and her kids today to head to their super-fun pool. But between me and the thunderstorms, we called it off as well. So really, you could say things were kind of a bust. JT took Henry on a few walks today because after going to bed at 6:30 last night he was all better and rearing to go. Silas is a little stuffy but seems fine otherwise. I'm heading to bed now and will hopefully feel better in the morning. Thankfully i see a new herbalist tomorrow. Placebo or not, i'm looking to her for some relief!

Single Parenting

Thankfully JT comes home today after being out of town several days. I can honestly tell you that if was the single-parent of two small children i would a) be seriously sleep-deprived and b) not be a very nice person. It hasn't helped that i've been dealing with round two of the sniffles, but this getting up early thing is for the birds (or the Daddy as our case may be.) This morning Silas and Henry woke up at 5:30 and although i told Henry it was still the middle of the night and made him stay in bed, i don't think he slept anymore and he was definitely calling out for me by about 6.

Although i'm exhausted, Silas is doing pretty well on the sleep front. Two nights ago he went to sleep without a peep and only woke up very briefly at 1:30. Last night he cried a little bit-- about 15-20 minutes, but slept through until 5:30 before stirring. I'm thankful for that at least.

Related to sleep, we got new beds at the old homestead-- both for us and for the guest room. This should make staying with us more enjoyable-- or at least restful. Anybody have any need for a 20 year + full mattress and box springs? Yeah, i'd say we were due for an upgrade! We sprung for a Queen size bed and the additional room is easy to get used to. Now i can have JT, the cat and Silas all sleeping in bed with me and not feel like i have to be razor thin to fit.

4 Months, 4 Days/ 2 Years, 3 Months, 1 Week

I know i've been remiss in posting lately. I have a few ideas for things i'd like to write that will require me to sit-down and focus, and i haven't been able to come up with that time lately. Work has certainly picked up and we've been pretty busy on the personal front as well.

Because Chicago has a much longer winter than summer i feel like each weekend, nay each day, needs to have enjoyable summer activities planned into it. Of course we have to schedule laundry and grocery shopping in there somewhere, but we've been doing a pretty good job of accomplishing fun stuff. Friday we finally made it to the pool by our house and Henry got excited all over again about swimming. I've taken to heading there after i pick the boys up from Brenda's, because the baby pool area is completely shaded and it's not as busy as on the weekends. We only wind up with about 30 minutes before the pool closes but that's a decent-enough amount of time-- especially considering Silas would really prefer to start getting ready for bed around 6-- more on Silas and sleep later.

This weekend we enjoyed a really nice bbq at Tiffany and Mike's house and Henry FINALLY got to see "Mike's Dogs" as he calls Zippy and Josie. Even better, he got to play "Hide Seek" with Helen and Carys. A high point of the night for us was that Henry went to bed uncomplainingly on a pallet on their floor, and Silas slept in the pack-n-play without much fuss. Unfortunately neither of our kids have ever let us fulfill the "transferring a sleeping child to the car" scenario that i see in my minds-eye movie of parenting. Our children wake-up and stay awake-- looking dazed, all the way home. Henry always goes right back to sleep once he's in his own bed, but this move threw Silas off his game. And here's where i start to become consumed by sleep issues again...

On Saturday Silas took a 5 (!) hour nap and went to bed like normal right about 6:30. We woke him around 11 to head home and he didn't sleep great that night (which didn't surprise me). The next day however, he wouldn't nap for more than 30-45 minutes at a stint and would wake up absolutely crying. He couldn't be soothed back to sleep and in general seemed overtired and miserable. That night i worked and worked to get him to go to sleep for the night and he put up a fight to say the least. We decided that it was time to commit to sleep training the little guy. We went through this with Henry around this time and it was truly terrible.

I was feeling like it was almost worse with Silas because he was surprisingly stubborn when it came to sleep training. Silas has been and continues to be a happy mellow baby. Everything i've read about babies with mild temperaments indicates that you might have around 20 minutes of crying and you've got the whole thing whipped in 3 days. The first night Silas cried off and on for 2 hours. Most of the time it wasn't full-on screaming, but he was definitely crying and NOT sleeping. Last night was better-- i think he only cried 20 minutes when we put him down, but he cried quite a few times during the middle of the night. He hasn't eaten in the middle of the night for almost a month but he's very resistant to falling back asleep on his own.

I was feeling drained and vulnerable the way only an infant's incessant crying can make you feel so i re-read some of my sleep books-- in particular Weissbluth's Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. He helped me remember why we were "sleep training" in the first place and realize that this is short-term pain for long-term progress. After my experiences with Henry i do truly believe that good sleep habits are a crucial skill for babies to learn.

The only thing that caught me off guard, is that we're having to "teach" Silas these habits. I thought we might have lucked into one of those babies that somehow figure this out on their own. That's why the first night of crying was so difficult and unexpected. I'm hoping that with some good naps under our belt, and reduced crying at bedtime (and did i mention that 6 pm bedtime routine) we'll be on our way to solid-sleep habits for all of us. I'll let you know.

Playground

Wow! Guess we haven't been to the playground in awhile! Today JT was going to be a little late getting home from work, so Henry and Silas and i stopped off at the playground. I sat and fed Silas the rest of the bottle he hadn't finished at Ms. Brenda's, and Henry very independently and very assuredly played on the playground. Just the last time we went to the playground a few weeks ago Henry still wanted me to stick close to at least the equipment and he wanted help doing things like going down the slide. Tonight not only did he repeatedly go down the slide on his own, he crawled UP the slide like it was no biggie. I also saw him scampering down this climbing incline thing and with only a little boost from me he climbed up two steps of an open chain-link ladder. Seriously, has JT been secretly taking him to toddler boot camp or something?

All of this bodes well for my plans to enroll him in a gym class this fall. I'm in the process of trying to determine if the (much cheaper) Parks district class is any good or if we should bite the bullet and shell out some bucks for the Little Gym or My Gym class. At least now i think we stand a fighting chance of him engaging at least a little with some of the activities-- and maybe i should even set the bar higher.

Silas is just moving along in his babyhood. It stands to reason that he *can* roll because if you put him on his back he rolls to his side and at other times he'll roll from his side to his stomach, but he's not doing full-on rolling much that we can tell. He is very excited for his jumper and has paid more attention to those toys than anything else to date. He's also starting to watch Henry more and seems fascinated by what he sees. I've been trying to draw Henry's attention to Silas when he's doing this so that they can start to develop more of a relationship. I think it won't be long before Silas is demanding Henry's attention and Henry will be excited for his big-brother role.

17 Weeks/ 2 Years, 3 Months, 1 Week

I think Silas' personality is starting to develop in a more robust way recently. He's still very mellow but he's also quite social. He'll coo and gurgle until he gets you to look at him and then he flashes this HUGE satisfied grin. It's fun to see him discovering cause and effect and nice that he's chosen honey rather than vinegar to test things out.

Although Henry was quite the happy baby by this time, i seem to remember him being much involved in his hands and his toys than Silas is. Give Silas a face to smile at and he'll choose it over whatever flashing, musical doo-dad you're trying to show him.

Henry is really into giving kisses now. He has been a good hugger for a long time but kisses have taken awhile for him to figure out. For the longest time if you asked him to give you a kiss he would hold his cheek out for you as if OF COURSE you meant that you wanted to kiss HIM. With coaxing he would occasionaly hold his mouth still and have it hover near your cheek, but in the past few weeks he has taken hold of the kissing sound and now asks to give someone a kiss whenever he's saying good-bye or good-night. It's very, very sweet.

Childcare Fall-Out

So Brenda is great, Silas is settling in wonderfully and Henry is as excited as ever to go to daycare. The only downside is the onslaught of immune-system busting colds that Silas is now getting and passing on to me. Before any one posts a comment or calls and says something like "wow, you're ALWAYS sick!," let me mention that this is akin to insulting someone's spouse. Of course they do annoying things and of course you personally are free to pontificate at length on these issues. It's not okay for someone else to talk trash about your significant others. Same thing applies here. Yes, i have the immune system of a Victorian invalid-- but don't you go rubbing it in my face.

So this all means that i'm sick with a relatively bad cold. Unfortunately it meant cancelling most of our weekend fun plans and having to really try to lay low while i get better. I had a doctor appointment today (unrelated to the cold) where the Doctor verified that mothers of small children are essentially always sick. He said the good thing was that my immune system would be stronger for it and in the long-run i wouldn't get sick as often as time goes on. That's great, but i'm dreading winter already and searching out a Chinese herbalist closer to home, as the one i had good luck with before is a tad far away.

The weekend wasn't all sneezes and misery though, Saturday we babysat Kerala for a few hours and attended the annual block-party for our street. Henry missed the bounce-o-line (naptime called) but did get WAY excited for the fire truck that came to visit. He got to sit in the drivers seat but was a bit freaked out, so no pictures of that. He was excited to examine the big tires at length, and i'll try to post pictures of that soon. They opened the fire hydrant for a bit and now Henry finally associates firetrucks with water as opposed to referring to all emergency vehicles as boo-boo trucks. (Actually he will call a police car a boo-boo truck and when you correct him he'll say "no, no, no, no" doing the tsking motion with his finger. At some point i think we mentioned that policemen tell you when you're doing something wrong.)

Silas' sleep continue to boomerang wildly. He no longer eats at night, but is still waking most nights off and on.