Nighttime, Unplugged

It happened accidentally. Mathias woke up during the night (a regular and frequent occurrence) and I turned the monitor volume off so as to let Hubby sleep (he was sick), fully intending to turn it back on again once I was back in bed so that I would not miss the next wake-up cry. But it didn't happen. That is, I forgot to turn the volume back on and what a blessed mistake! I'm not sure if Mathias woke up sometime between 2:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., but I know I didn't! To top it all off, nobody suffered significant trauma because I didn't wake up to feed him after the arbitrary 5 hour minimum between feedings (only at night, of course).

There is no point in using a baby monitor at night if the baby is sleeping right across the hallway, right? We didn't use it at night with Anna. Instead, we left her door cracked and ours open and let her wake us up when she really needed something.

I chose to use a monitor with Mathias because I wanted to keep him from waking Anna up during the night. A noble desire, I am sure, but it meant that Mathias was waking me up 3+ times a night, which can be difficult for someone as dependant on sleep to be a happy person as I am. Because of my "mistake", I was actually able to sleep for a decent length of time.

Practically giddy with success and sleep, I decided it was time to go completely unplugged. Last night, the baby monitor was consigned to the kitchen table and we just left our door open so that we could hear Mathias' cries when they became desperate. And you know what? He only woke up once last night. At least as far as I know. I was asleep.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Saturday was a very special day in our home, so when Hubby mentioned that it was supposed to be a nice day (at least in Seattle terms), I knew just what we were going to do. Not far from us was a simple hike to view Twin Falls. We hiked there last year just before Mathias was born and really enjoyed it.

And it was a beautiful day. The trees were just starting to turn green, the weather was perfect for hiking (not too cold but not to warm), and the whole morning was very refreshing. Anna did a great job and managed to walk most of the way to the point where we turned around to go back, so at least a mile.

 

 

 

 

Ah, the outdoors! Just have to love it!

Words of Wisdom: Inanimate Objects and Cake

Life is something to be learned from, right? Well, I've decided that I have experiences in life that everyone could learn from. Granted, you probably have already learned these lessons, or are not stupid enough to need to learn these lessons, but I will happily ignore that fact and procede with boring the masses.

Lesson: Don't fight with inanimate objects.
Story: Our freezer is a mess. I like to buy things on sale, mostly meat, chop it up and stick meal sized bags in the freezer for future use. I also will make extra when cooking, like pizza sauce or pesto, put it into meal sized bags and freeze. But when all we have is a teeny, tiny freezer on top of our fridge, problems evolve.

Yesterday, I had to dig some items out from the depths of the freezer and, once again, the door was unclosable. I had a choice; I could either rearrange the freezer while Anna whined and Mathias screamed for my attention or I could use the "slam the door" technique, which will sometimes allow the freezer door to seal and keep the contents of the freezer contained. I opted for the latter. However, the door did not want to seal and I became more and more frustrated. Finally, I went in for the final blow. Arm back, I used all my force to slam the door shut. Lucky me, my palm hit right on the edge of the door and I spent the next minute leaning against the freezer trying not to curse. I tried to take a picture of the bruise, but it is rather deep and doesn't show up all that well in pictures. So, don't fight with inanimate objects.

Lesson: Don't make a cake unless you will be feeding it to at least 10 people.
Story: I made a Cream Torte with my mother-in-law this last weekend and ended up eating over a forth of it. All by myself. It is a good thing I'm nursing.

Wonder of Wonders

Sometimes miracles do happen. Let me tell you about our most recent one.

Last week, the last impediment to moving Mathias from our bedroom was removed, literally, thanks to Craig's List. With the prospect of Oma and Opa coming up for the weekend and needing to sleep in our room (Opa just had back surgery), I knew we had to get Mathias out of our room and into Anna's so that we could at least have some time to get used to it.

Here's an image to describe how I felt that first evening: Imagine you are swinging on a rope towards a large solid object, like a rock. Time seems to slow down as you approach and you tighten into a ball as much as possible, a cringe on your face as you anticipate the crunch of your bones on the rock face. Yes, that is how I felt. I could just imagine the sleepless nights as Mathias woke Anna up when he got hungry and Anna woke Mathias up because she was awake and had nothing better to do.

However, the rock was not a rock but rather a nice soft cushy pillow (perhaps like this one, he he). That's right. The anticipated difficulties have yet to arrive. That first night, Mathias woke up 2-3 times and each time Anna peacefully slumbered on. And it has been the same each night since.

Yes, I know that there will be times when the night will not go so well, but for right now, the transition has gone miraculously smoothly. I just hope that having Mathias sleeping in another room will help him to sleep through the night.

A Challenge and a Change

I believe I've already proven myself to be a geek, but if you are looking for further proof I am prepared to provide it.

You may have noticed there has been a change to my blog. This is a change I've been wanting for a long time. I was tired of the monochrome look created using the limited features of Blogger. I wanted something different that would help me to express myself better. So I looked around.

Sure, there are plenty of places online where you can find free blog backgrounds, but they don't quite cut it for me. There is nothing wrong with them, really, but I don't like how they don't scroll with the rest of the blog. A personal preference, but a severely limiting one.

And so began my search for instructions on how to change the html of my template to get what I wanted. See? I'm a geek. I did google search after google search, but didn't really find anything. To make an extremely long, boring, and geeky story short, I finally realized that my friend Liz, who has a background that moves as you scroll, had gotten her background from Smitten Blog Designs. So I checked them out. In all my searching, I never found any blog template so accessible as these.

But, being the geek that I am, none of their templates really fit me. Instead of using one of their templates, I studied one to see what changes they made and where. From there it was "easy". Now I'm off to create a new heading using Paint, Picasa, and any other free program I can use. Wish me luck!

Mathias and the New Trick

On Monday, Mathias had his 6 month check-up. He weighed in at 19 lbs even, 29 inches long, and is a very healthy little boy. But the best (worst?) part happened after we got home.

Here he is this morning, after having a little time to practice his new trick.



My goodness, these kids grow up too fast!

Oh, and Anna got her first haircut on Monday. Granted, it was only a little trim of the bangs so her hair wouldn't be in her eyes, but it is the first time her hair has been cut in her whole 2 and a half years of life. I'll post a picture when I get a good one.

Little Nurse Maid

I've always wondered what Anna thought of how I feed Mathias. Sure, she ate the same way at that age, but like she's going to remember that! And for the longest time she would try to have her doll drink from her sippy cup. In nursery at church she rushes for the doll bin and collects all the dolls and all the bottles, and feeds them. I really don't know where she figured that one out since Mathias has only used a bottle once in his short 6 months of life.

Yesterday, we had a break through. My breastpump was lying out on the counter drying and Anna pointed to it and said "I need to punk." What? "I need to punk, Mommy. I have lots of milk."

Today was even better. I had just finished nursing Mathias and changing his diaper and came out to the living room to see this:

 

If you notice, she had to nurse on both sides (because, she told me, she had a lot of milk) and very properly burped the baby when she was done. I tell you, just seeing her gave me warm fuzzies.