The illusion of sleep

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Last night was the first night since June 26th that I slept for 7 straight hours without moving.  Well, perhaps I moved, but you know what I mean.  (Incidentally, don’t ever expect to get good sleep on your first trip away from your kids if you’re at a college reunion, sharing a house with 16 other people.)

I didn’t get up to pee.  Nor did I get up to change Zach’s diaper, put a pacifier in his fussing mouth, or rub his back and make sure he had his blankies just how he likes them.  I didn’t spend time rocking or holding him to get him to go back to sleep.  I didn’t spend 2 hours dealing with one of Eliza’s night terrors that begins with screaming cries of “MOMMY COME!”  And I didn’t have to take her to the bathroom (because now that she uses the potty, she doesn’t ever want to use a diaper).

Nope, last night I slept like a baby.  (What a laughable phrase.)  And it got me thinking about sleep in general.  I find myself continuously hoping my sleep life will revert to what it was at a certain phase in my life.  It’s like how you always look back and wish you could just get back to your college weight once you’re out, but when you were in college, instead of appreciating how great you looked then, you wished you weighed what you did in high school.

For example, the best, most recent phase of sleep I had was between when Eliza was 4-months-old, when she was sleeping through the night and my boobs finally let me do the same, and when she was 8-months-old, when I got pregnant and immediately began having to get up at least once to pee.  I have not slept well since then.  And I thought at this point, with Zach being 7-months-old, that I would be in sleep heaven.  But on any night that Zach seems to make it all the way through, Eliza seems to wake.  And on the nights she sleeps well, Zach inevitably wakes.  Of course, there are the nights when one of them is so loud it wakes the other up as well.  That’s even more fun.

What I’m coming to realize is that just like I will never weigh what I weighed in high school or college again, I will never sleep like I did in those years again either.  I am realizing that I’m chasing a pipe dream of sleep.  Here’s how I know: I might not remember waking my mom as an infant or a toddler.  But I remember being 5- or 6-years-old and being scared of the leaves on our tree out my window that looked like the profile of a scary old man.  I remember going to get her several nights, and her lying in my bed with me to help me get to sleep.  I also remember when I was a teenager and my brother and I would come in from being out, and I would hear her finally relax enough to sleep tightly, knowing we were home.  And now, as a grandma, she’s here visiting, and she’s up when I’m up, offering to help so I can get some sleep.

It makes me realize that by the time I’m done raising kids who keep me awake, I STILL won’t be well rested because I will have to get up to pee (like when I was pregnant), or I’ll have back pain, or Greg will be snoring much more loudly.  Take your pick and fill in the blank.

So, I’m on a new mission.  I complain out loud and in my head – a lot – about not getting enough sleep.  Instead of letting it get to me, I’m going to be glad that once a month, I seem to get 7 straight hours of blissful wake-up-in-the-same-position-I-was-in-when-I-went-to-bed sleep.  And perhaps there will be more and more of those nights.  At least until Eliza starts dating.  Which won’t be for a long, long time.

Potty training “backup”

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Potty training after the first week seemed to be going along swimmingly.  However, this past week was, shall I say, so challenging that every day Eliza brought me to my wit’s end after exhausting me mentally and physically.

She still loves to go pee in the potty and every time she gets super excited, squealing in joy, pointing at the pot and saying, “Mommy WOOK, Yaya pee peed in da poppy!  YAY!  (Clap clap clap).”  The problem arises when she has to poop.

You might recall she was hesitant to poop on the potty in the first place.  She held it in for hours the first few times.  The problem is this created a vicious cycle of being afraid it will hurt to poop, holding it in, and pushing it out after impacting it.  This – of course – hurts, and so her fears about pooping have been confirmed.  Thus, each time she feels the urge, she believes (and knows) it will be a painful experience.  She doesn’t want to poop at all now.  Not in a diaper and not in the potty.  Picture a two-year-old who cannot stop her tantrums for hours on end, as every few minutes she says in a whiny, scared voice, “Mommy, pee!  PEE!” while holding her tush and squeezing her legs together.  It culminates in crying combined with an expression of terror as it starts to come out against her wishes and will.  In a way, I feel bad for her, but in another way, I wish so badly I could reason with her.  (And those of you who are reading this and have older children who are not yet trained are probably feeling pretty justified right about now.  Go ahead, it’s okay.)  Nothing we say helps.  We try to relax her.  We try to assure her.  We tell her how happy all her favorite people will be if she will go.  We bribe her with chocolate.  None of it is working.

I called the pediatrician and have started her on Miralax this morning, which will make it much softer and get rid of the pain, and in so doing (we hope) erase the fear of the act.  I will keep you updated.

In the meantime, I will count my lucky stars that she does still enjoy using the potty and has only had one pee accident in 12 days.  I’m going to try to focus on that when I am at my wit’s end again (which should be within the next few hours as she has been doing the poopy dance all morning already).

TV: My necessary evil

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Last week, amid potty training and puke, I think Eliza watched each of the 7 DVR’d episodes we had of “Dora the Explorer” 2-3 times.  She sat latched to me like a lap parasite for hours on end in a Dora daze.  I wouldn’t normally allow such a thing, but during a 104.3 degree fever, she can do whatever she wants.  And besides, it dawned on me that when I was home sick as a kid, that’s pretty much all I did.

Now I’m trying to wean her from the experience, because she thinks she can still say, “watch Doda” (she has the Latin rolling her Rs thing down) and she’s going to endlessly sit in front of the tube mesmerized.  Obviously, I don’t want her to watch hours on end of television every day, but I must say that it is a wonderful time buyer sometimes.

I remember reading that the American Association of Pediatricians recommends that toddlers watch no more than 1-2 hours of television per day.  At the time, I was pregnant with Zach, and I laughed at the thought, saying to myself, “Who allows a toddler to watch even THAT much?  Eliza only watches about 20-40 minutes.”  Once Zach came along, I knew exactly what toddlers watch 1-2 hours a day.  Or more.  Those with siblings.  (Or fill in the blank because I completely understand now.)

In my perfect world, I entertain my children all day long with educational games, puzzles, and toys.  We run around and chase each other.  We sing songs.  Zach sits still (safely) somehow while Eliza obeys my every command so I can get things done like cooking and cleaning.

In my real world, I have to prioritize because there is no way to keep a clean house, nurse a baby, entertain a toddler, plan and make baby food and healthy meals, have clean clothes, run errands, and tend to others’ needs 24/7.  Something’s gotta give.  Right now, it’s television.

First thing in the morning, in order to be able to nurse Zach, pump extra milk, and make some breakfast for Eliza, I put on an episode of Dora.  I don’t know how else I could do it (though I am all ears for suggestions).  We generally watch another episode sometime before nap in the afternoon because I need to buy more time to get things done.  After nap, we often watch another episode, usually while I’m trying to make dinner.  And I must confess that some days, like today when it’s rainy and wet out, we’ve already watched four episodes.  (I know I promised not to mention it, but Eliza has spent the past day and a half regressing in her potty training.  She is not sleeping well, either, so having to pee and poop and holding it in endlessly is really causing problems.  We’re back to her clinging to my lap, begging for boots and Isa and Tico and Benny and all her Latin TV friends.)

Does this make me a bad parent?  I know I’m not the only one who wonders that.  Last week I was at a friend’s house and she turned on Yo Gabba Gabba and confessed that sometimes she sets her two in front of it to get some peace and quiet.  Then she said, “I know that’s bad.  Is that bad?”  It was like I could tell she thought I would never do such a thing, and I would judge her for doing it.  And I said, “No that’s not bad, I do it, too.”  She was so relieved.

Why is it that it’s so hard to feel like a good parent when you can’t keep the card house from falling without a little help?  No, I don’t propose letting television raise your children.  We do play games, sing songs, read books, and chase each other.  But the dishes have to get done somehow, too.  And the cooking.  And the cleaning.  And the laundry.  I’m curious to know from other moms how much they think is too much.  And I’d love some tips on other types of distractions for young children.  Because I, too, can only take so much “Dora Dora Dora the Explorer, DORA!”

With kids, you fix a drip and bust a leak

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I wouldn’t have believed it if you had told me last weekend that the potty training was really going to work.  It seemed like all we had done was torturous, tear eliciting exercises.  Eliza didn’t want to sit on the potty.  She seemed to be clueless about when her bladder was empty.  The book didn’t address how to deal with the road bumps we hit.  And yet, I sit here writing to say that our big girl has not wet her pants, not even with a drop, since Tuesday.  Despite an awful virus causing a 104 degree fever, vomiting, coughing and a nasal drip on Wednesday, I managed to resist the very strong temptation to put her back in diapers.  And the girl, after not peeing all day, peed into a cup on the potty at the pediatrician’s office for me.  I wanted to cry I was so proud.  And though she’s still adapting to going #2 on the toilet, she’s accident-free in that area as well.  (Hey, it might take 45 minutes to get it out, but at least it’s ending up in the pot and not on the floor.)  I guess the one part of the process she does seem to still have difficulty with is putting her pants back on after going (as she seems to enjoy being half naked).

The thing I’m learning about parenting is that no training ever seems “finished.”  It’s exhausting for someone who loves the feeling of completing projects!  You just seem to go from one challenging phase to the next. With Zach, I’m so glad he’s nursing so much less frequently now.  But the introduction of solids presents a new set of feeding responsibilities and another checklist of items I have to remember to bring when I want to get out the door.  With Eliza, now that she knows how to pee on the potty, I don’t have to pack diapers in my bag for her, but I have to remember spare panties and pants.  And speaking of pants, I have to invest in ones that are completely elastic around the waist without buttons, snaps or zippers so she can easily pull them up and down until she gets really good at dressing herself.  I have to make sure I have contraptions on-hand such as toilet seat covers and a “car potty” so when nature calls, I can be prepared.  And praise God that I don’t have to clean up poop diapers anymore, but I still have to wipe her butt.

This leads me to my final poop thought, and then I promise to switch gears away from potty talk the next time I write.  The book we read for training (which I will now say I recommend) says that unless your child is confined to bed with diarrhea, you should not put diapers back on him.  So for all the mothers out there who have been through it – am I in for my own torturous, tear-eliciting exercise when she gets the runs?  (I just want to prepare myself mentally.)

For those who are waiting with bated breath (the potty training update)

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Today things went even better.  Eliza only had one real accident, and otherwise pottied herself with much less whining and crying than yesterday.  She is getting better at the parts of the process that are more difficult for her, such as physically walking to the potty in the first place and pulling her pants up and down.  She is very proud of her new skills!

The big news, however, is that she got her #2 into the potty for the first time!  She wasn’t happy about it, but after several tries of squatting and whining, she managed to relax and make it happen.  And then she couldn’t stop pointing at it in there and squealing, “Mommy WOOK!  YAZA POOP IN DA POPPY!!!”  (Translation: “Mommy, look!  Eliza pooped in the potty.”)

I must share my two secrets with all of you:

1) She did it when we were outside and she was in her bathing suit.  She could not bring herself to go in the suit, unlike in her training pants where it just fell right through them and down onto the ground.

2) It happened after several tries when I finally got her distracted and relaxed enough by combining blowing bubbles with telling her how proud all of her favorite people would be with her if she pooped in the potty.

As soon as I can get away to do it, I’m taking her for a special trip to the store to pick out some Dora underwear.  I think adding them to the equation will give her a sense of pride and help keep the doo doo where it belongs.

This was day three of “Toilet Training in Less Than a Day.”

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Yes, you read that correctly.  Did you catch the irony?  Greg spent all of Saturday and half of Sunday following the guidance of a book with the above title.  It’s the book my mom used to potty train my brothers and me and she says it worked.  It makes it seem like all you have to do is put in 3-4 hours of focused training between breakfast and nap time and, voila, your child potties herself.  However, either we’re missing something, doing something wrong, or Eliza is a poor student.  Or some combination of the above.  Regardless, we have so far failed.

The good news is that she peed twice in her potty today and only wet her pants slightly twice.  Yesterday, she went in the potty probably eight times, but also wet her pants eight times.  You can see the progress.  She is learning bladder control and when it is full and when it absolutely needs to be emptied.  The bad news is she seems terrified of pooping in the potty and thus has chosen to do that act “elsewhere.”  As soon as she gets better at pulling her pants up and down, we’ll add underwear into the equation.  My hope is it won’t be as comfortable to do that into underpants.  Especially if they have, say, Dora on them, who definitely doesn’t like to be pooped on.  (Thanks for that idea, Molly!)

But this is a classic example of my unrealistic expectations.  I am the queen (remember I’m Type A) of setting a goal, putting together a game plan for getting there, following it, and getting the expected results.  (This is probably why I enjoy cooking and baking.)  Children in general don’t work this way.  I expected Eliza to be a super student who followed the book example.  I expected her to be instantly great at all parts of the process – realizing she needs to go, walking herself to the potty, pulling down her pants, pottying, wiping, pulling up her pants (so they cover ALL of her butt, not just some of it), taking her pot to the toilet, dumping out the pee and tissue, flushing, and replacing the pot.

Instead I have a little girl who has mastered about half of the steps.  But I am learning that is okay.  In fact, it’s more than okay.  She’ll get there.  I have to focus on how much she’s learned so quickly.  A random woman said to me the other day that our daughters won’t walk down the aisle without being potty trained.  One of the reasons people postpone and avoid potty training is because it’s a pain in the butt.  It’s one of those parenting moments (whether swift or slow) that everyone talks about and remembers for years to come.  What I want to remember about it is that amid all the training, she and Greg started playing a new game where she runs away from him giggling and then runs back at full speed and pounds into him in the most massive bear hug she can muster.  She blessed me with a round of it today.  And I savored every moment, even though in the back of my mind I was thinking about whether doing that would make her pee herself.  (Hey, eventually I will learn to let go.)

And the book?  Well, I would neither enthusiastically recommend nor fervently steer you clear of it.  If you’re interested, the authors are Nathan H. Azrin, Ph.D. and Richard M. Foxx, Ph.D.

Kids say the darnedest things. How should I respond?

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Eliza’s current state of curiosity has her saying some interesting things.  For example, she loves to kiss things to show her love, whether they are inanimate or not.  As she talks about her favorite people, for example, she’ll talk about kissing them.  But she’ll also hear a helicopter overhead and say, “Kiss el-i-pop-ter” or she’ll hear the jingle of the ice cream truck and say, “Kiss eye keem truck.”  Along those lines, our dog, Abbey, poops in the backyard.  I have to clean it up daily so we don’t step in it while playing outside.  Eliza walks around with me to help me spot the piles, and at every one, she says, “Eat poop.”  And I say, “No, Eliza, we don’t eat poop.  It’s gross.  Dirty.  Yucky!”  She’ll repeat me, but it doesn’t stop her from saying it day after day.  Nor has it kept her from sticking her fingers in it sometimes, just because, well, probably because I don’t want her to and it’s so darned interesting.

Now fast forward to this afternoon, when I was changing Zach’s diaper.  She’s really intrigued by his private parts, and I can tell she’s not quite sure why they’re there.  I’ve used the word penis with her.  So she was trying to wipe his penis off with a wipe today, and I said, “I think he’s okay.  His penis is clean.”  And she said, “Eat penis?”  And I said, “No, we don’t eat his penis.”  And then she said, “Kiss penis?”  And I said, “No, let’s not do that either.”

Am I just a loser at coming up with the appropriate things to say to her?  Should I have never used the word penis with her?  I want to call it what it is.  It seems like a waste of time to teach her it’s his “pee pee” only to make her learn a new word for it when she’s older.  And I’m sure she just as easily would be saying, “Eat pee pee” and “kiss pee pee” if that’s what we called it, which doesn’t fix the problem.  She’s entering that, “kids say the darnedest things” phase, and I have to say – I really love it!  Now if I could just figure out the right way to respond …

I get by with a little help from my friends. And Greg.

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This weekend was exactly what I predicted – magical.  But it almost didn’t happen.

Last week Eliza got what I thought were bug bites right along her diaper line.  They continued to get more red and actually enlarge, such that on Thursday, I started drenching them in Neosporin.  On Friday, the ointment didn’t seem to be doing much to help.  Also on Friday, I decided not to budge when Eliza didn’t want to eat what was in front of her.  So, when she didn’t finish her eggs for breakfast, I offered them – and only them – to her for her snack and lunch as well.  She refused to eat.  I told Greg we must not give in to her strong-arming antics.

On the way to the airport, and I mean, FIVE MINUTES from being dropped off for my weekend getaway, Eliza made a bit of a choking noise from the backseat, so I looked to see what was going on.  She had puked spinach and cheese omelet combined with milk all over herself and had tried to breathe in during the process.  It just kept coming.  When she was finished she whimpered, “Towel?  Towel?”  I grabbed napkins from the glovebox and tried to reassure her as she wiped herself off a bit.  And thus began the downward mental spiral.  “She has a stomach virus.  That’s why she hasn’t wanted to eat all day.  I’m a bad mother for forcing her to try to eat her eggs.  She must have been nauseated all day and I am the jerk who kept trying to make her eat.  How can I leave her at a time like this?”  We pulled up to the curb and Greg cleaned up the mess while I tried not to freak out, especially about missing my flight or leaving them in their predicament.  I knew Greg would have to come home and wash her car seat straps and cover.  Eliza felt hot.  She was going to have to ride home in a diaper.  And I just said, “Greg, can I go now?” in an annoyed voice.  I was afraid he would say, “You’re really going to leave like this?”  But instead, he just had me put Eliza in the car so she’d be safe and off I went with Zach, beginning to feel nauseated myself.

I spent the entire flight thinking I was coming down with whatever stomach virus Eliza had, making sure I had a barf bag at the ready.  I imagined Eliza yakking all over herself on the car ride home, and Greg trying to take care of her, and her crying out for me, the mom who had deserted her in her time of need.  How could this happen exactly when I was supposed to get a weekend off?  I sent Greg a text when I landed, and I didn’t receive a response.  I immediately assumed he was dealing with a hysterical child who was severely ill and could not be consoled.

We finally talked later on, and he told me Eliza hadn’t gotten sick again and was sleeping well.  He said her butt, though, looked awful and he was guessing it was a staph infection that was spreading rapidly.  My mind jumped to the worst.  I have a friend whose son has had a handful off staph infections in the past few months, and he has had multiple surgeries on them.  It has not been pleasant, to say the least.  In this moment, instead of being rational, I immediately got more concerned again, thinking she would need to be rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night and have emergency staph infection removal surgery.  Greg actually got annoyed that I was being so meddlesome because he was in control and was going to take her to the pediatrician in the morning.  I continued to wonder how I could be such a horrible mother, leaving them both at such a time.

Missy offered to drive me home, but I knew that was irrational.  I kept praying for God to protect Eliza and take care of her.  The next day, after getting seven straight hours of uninterrupted sleep, dropping Zach off to be babysat by a friend’s mom, and receiving a call from Greg confirming Eliza had impetigo but was being treated and in good spirits, I began my magical day.  I was finally, FINALLY, able to relax.

Why is it so easy as a mother to feel so guilty about leaving your children when you know you need the break?  Why did I immediately assume the worst when Eliza threw up?  Why does it seem so wrong to expect anyone other than myself to clean up barf, deal with sick kids who can’t sleep, or make doctor visits?  Why does it turn my insides out to imagine my sick child calling for me but for someone else to answer that call?

I needed that trip to remind me how to “let go and let God.”  I must remember, always, that taking a break doesn’t make me a bad mother and I can’t allow the guilt to creep in for needing “me-time.”  I can’t say nor believe bad things about myself because I am not perfect.  Because I have to tell you, this weekend was really awesome.  And Eliza’s impetigo is healing (praise God).  And this, too, shall pass.

How do you feel like “you” again? (And do you ever?) I might know.

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Because I went from being pregnant, to nursing, to being pregnant and nursing, to being just pregnant, and now to nursing again, I am currently at 2 2/3 years without having a “normal” hormone level.  I’m not really sure if there will be long-term repercussions of living like this (and I have no idea how Michelle Duggar has survived!), but I can say that I struggle daily with my identity as “Christine” and not just my identity as “Mommy” or “housewife” or “maid.”  So sometimes, no, often times, I find my sanity comes from doing things that I did before kids.  I must say that these little mini-breaks are my current life preserver.

Today’s time to myself was a visit to the salon for a cut and color.  There is something super-restorative about having someone else figure out how to make you look amazing and then do it for you.  I have the BEST stylist in the world (Holly, you rock!), and every time I get my hair done, I leave feeling like it has never looked that good.  And the process – OH THE PROCESS – of getting a head massage, and sitting and reading (yes, US Weekly or People, and no, I’m not sure why because now it seems like every page is full of “stars” I don’t know), or sitting and knitting (which I also did), is pure bliss.  Someone else was feeding and playing with Zach.  Someone else was entertaining Eliza’s constant chatter, demands for attention, and temper tantrums.  And I was doing … whatever I wanted to do.  It’s a flashback of what life was like before kids, and I would be institutionalized if I didn’t do this.  Some women have endless supplies of God-given mommy patience; some get medicated; I get a babysitter.

The point is that we all have to find what makes us tick and then make those things priorities.  I try to schedule a hair appointment for every 9 weeks, get regular pedicures, and go shopping with a friend once in a while.  But more often, I find respite by getting to the grocery store alone, or taking a bath at night, or having Greg take the kids for 2 hours while I run needed errands by myself.  This weekend, I’m taking a trip to visit my college roommate while Eliza stays back with Greg.  We’re taking a cooking class and going to tea, and having a babysitter for Zach while we do these things.  And it is going to be magical.

I know that I am a better mother when I get breaks from my kids.  My life changed forever nearly two years ago when Eliza was born, and though my hormones might not be the same (and I probably am a different person now), I take every chance to return to “normalcy” that I can.  What do you do?

Document life’s funny moments so you can remember them.

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It’s really hard in this information age to feel like I’m doing enough to document all the greatest, fleeting moments as they’re happening.  Never before have we had such easy access to photos, videos, blogs, etc. to mark milestones.  So far, I’ve found a few things to be helpful.  For example, I actually kept a calendar on my refrigerator when I introduced Eliza to solids so I could mark what days I introduced each food to her.  Of course, I did this to keep track in case she had an allergic reaction to something, but also because, remember, I’m a control freak, so I wanted to introduce her to every fruit, vegetable, meat, bean, herb and spice I could think of between six months and a year, and there’s no way to remember if your child has yet tasted, say, cardamom or kohlrabi.  (Maybe I was only that adventurous in my memory, but whatever.)

So, I haven’t had a calendar up yet for Zach, but I’m going to go get one now for sure.  It’s nice to have a record of food introductions that’s easy to read.  But the other reason to keep a calendar handy is that it makes it super easy to jot down the dates of first teeth, first steps, first words, first anythings, and of course, funny moments.  (My mom suggested this.)  I have not been using a calendar for these things (yet!), but rather several different tracking devices.  My problem is I am a perfectionist, which is a really paralyzing disease because I end up waiting to do a lot of things until I have time to do them exactly as I imagine I should do them.  What this leads to is inaction.  I’m trying to get better about this, so I have a nice journal I use to record my favorite moments.  But I also have a couple of random notebooks around in case I can’t find the journal or am afraid if I wait until later I’ll forget.  Shoot, if I were at a restaurant, I would use a napkin to document the moment and just put it in my filing folder later.  (I’m cured!)  And I’m okay about not having everything in one neat and tidy place because all I really need to know is that someday, if I wanted to make a perfect scrapbook or baby book, I’d have the resources at my fingertips.  And finally, I have Zach and Eliza’s e-mail addresses.

Just after my children were born, Greg set up an e-mail account for each one.  I try to send them notes whenever I think about it (sometimes every few weeks, sometimes every few months) to tell them how they’re doing, or describe their milestones, or their personalities, or just how much I love them.  E-mail is so nice because it automatically time stamps your thoughts, so someday my kids will know exactly what I was thinking on a particular day in history.  We decided on Gmail accounts because the messages won’t ever be automatically deleted.

So, don’t get paralyzed by perfectionism.  The important thing is to keep a record – somehow – of the truly important stuff.  If you have ideas on tracking your kids’ greatest moments and milestones, please post them!