Sleeping with the enemy

At the ripe age of 16 months, I thought Jackson would have this sleeping thing under wraps. He doesn't. As soon as things seem like they're about to turn, he sweeps the rug from under me. Here's last night's rundown:

11:10 pm: I am about to enter the world of fairies and rainbows, and I'm jolted back to reality with the unmistakable sound of my second born. Who, as you will see, is trying to make himself my last born.

11:15 pm: After 5 minutes of cries that convince me he's just getting started, I go into comfort Jackson. I rock him to sleep and put him in his crib. He screams. 

11:30 pm: Eric gives it a go. I hear an extended silence coming from the nursery and begin to relax. Then wails. It appears the transition didn't go well.  We let Jackson cry a while and every so often he'd take a break (maybe 30 seconds?). Let's compare this to a person hooked up to a low level voltage machine. There is no rhyme or reason as to when they will be zapped, so they live in a constant state of anxiety. Occasionally, they believe their torturer has had enough and the moment their blood pressure and heart rate has returned to its normal rates, ZAPP!!  Exaggeration? Probably, but you moms out there know that a baby's cry has an effect on the body unlike any other.

Midnight-ish: I go back in to the lion's den. Rock the cub to sleep. Place him gently down in the crib. The lion roars.

12:30 am: Eric takes Jackson into the guest room. Propped in front of the boob tube, Jackson is content. My body is not, and I'm unable to sleep, knowing that I'll be hearing cries as soon as Jackson decides it's bedtime.  Ready to put this situation (and kid) to bed, I take Jackson back to his room and instantly, he wiggles out of my arms. With his cute belly leading, he runs out into the hallway and back to the guest room. Resigned, I shut the door to the guest room. The last I see, Jackson is jumping on the bed. I meet Brady in the hallway and divert him back to bed. This party is already too big.

1 am: Despite multiple closed doors, I hear Jackson crying in the bed with Eric. He is happy to watch tv with him, but sleeping is a different story. I take him back to his room, nurse him, rock him, and put him in his crib. He is asleep. Until...

1:30 am: 10 minutes of silence and my blood boils again with howls from the bedroom. I give it a few minutes and concede defeat. A valiant effort, but I am no match for the beast.  I bring Jackson into our bed where he makes his goal to have his every single body part touching every single one of mine. I am all about snuggling, but as he lies on me cheek to cheek, stealing all the oxygen, it has gone too far.

2ish: I am asleep, I think.

5ish: Jackson awakens from his three hour cycle, and I try to pull him close to avoid an all-out crying fest. But I realize that Brady (where did he come from?) has acquired prime Mommy real estate and doesn't want to give it up.  The next two hours are an example of how being awake and asleep can be merged together. That's where I was, and where I often live when Jackson is in my bed.

7:30 am: Jackson "sleeps in" and as I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I hope the need for beauty sleep is a myth. If it's not, I'm having an ugly year.

Go Wallabies!

Brady had his first soccer game today. Not surprisingly, Brady wa most interested in the gear involved with the game.

The "game" itself was entertainment. Brady had 3 goals, I'm happy to report. Sad to report one of those was for the other team. He was in perfect position to defend the goal, but instead, decided to help out the other team.

The Wallabies have a ringer, and if someone were to be keeping score, he would be the reason we won. It's an under 5 league but this kid is the biggest, most skilled 4 year old I've ever seen.

Notice any discernible difference?

There were oranges and handshakes afterwards, and lots of smiles from Brady, so I'd say his athletic career is off to a great start!

"Diving" into bedtime.

I have documented Brady's "quirkiness" when it comes to his clothing, and as he has matured, so has his particular-ness.  His latest fashion rule is that he wants to match -- and for him matching means that if he wears an orange shirt, he must wear orange shorts (which of course, we don't own).  So we've been wearing a lot of all-black outfits, since that seems to make everyone happy.  Eric tried to reason with him this morning (he wanted yellow shorts with his yellow shirt) by explaining that matching doesn't mean everything must be the exact same color...and that was received as well as a diabetic receives cotton candy.

On top of that, of course, Brady must change into a jersey of some kind before nap time each day.  Its hit or miss whether he is receptive to changing back into his regular clothes for the second half of the day. Sometimes, its just not worth the effort.  And days like today, he wanted something completely different and I attempted to explain the concept of laundry...not sure it quite clicked.

The clip below is a standard bedtime conversation.  This clip shows both my children's current personalities quite nicely.  Jackson wants to jump off of everything and is extremely durable, thankfully.  A laundry basket is one the lower things he has found to heave himself off of.  And Brady, well you can see where his mind goes in this clip.  Or if its not clear, I'll explain it.  He wanted to wear his football jersey to bed and was reaching in his drawer to get his "football shorts."  But he blindly pulled out pants, which seemed like something a baseball player would wear, so he changed his mind.

He is currently wearing socks, pants, a baseball jersey and his glove and ball.  This is a new wrinkle.  When he's a football player, he slips with (not wearing) his football helmet and football.  When he's a basketball player, he needs his ball.  Please nobody introduce anymore sports in my house - at least not one with more gear.

And a cute side story for the night.  Brady has really been interested in reading his "Bible book" lately which has kid version stories of the Bible.  He's fixated on the "bad day" (ie the crucifixion) and always wants to see the picture of Jesus on the cross.  We show him Jesus' sad friends, explain that he was very hurt, but he died on the cross because he loves us.  Tonight, he asked, "Is Jesus going to dive into the sand?"  I was confused and trying to figure out where he got that from.  The ground did look a lot like sand, but I told him no, Jesus didn't dive into the sand.  Lightbulb moment: I realized that in Brady translation, "die" turned into "dive."  Don't sign me up to teach Sunday school.

Brady also knows that Jesus is in his heart (but also heaven...very confusing) and he frequently asks if Jesus is in his tummy.  The other day, Brady said he wanted to talk to God and I told him he could talk to God any time he wanted and God would listen.  If he was having a good day or a bad day, he could tell Jesus about it.  So he lifts up his shirt, looks down at his belly and yells, "Jesus, I'm having a bad day!"

I'm going to try that sometime.

Life with Brady: a test in mental stamina

Brady loves to talk.  Specifically, Brady likes to ask questions.  I love this, because it shows how his little mind is developing while he tries to figure out the world around him.  But, and this is a big but, I am generally around Brady from 6:30 am to 8:30 pm each day with a two hour break in the middle (what a glorious break that is).  So, 12 hours of question-asking can be emotionally exhausting.

Even when he has things in his mouth (food), his questions do not stop.  I think I made an error the other day -- we were at Eric's parents house and Brady pointed to the TV over their kitchen table and asked to turn it on. I told him that dinner was a time for talking with your family and finding out how everyone's day was.  So the other day at lunch, after a morning of being peppered with never-ending questions, I suggested we take a break talking and just eat. "But mom, eating at the table is for talking to your family."

Maybe I should have focused on the eating aspect of meals.

Eric had to work the entire day today, so I was on my own when it came to question answering.  Here's a typical conversation, and one that we had on the way home from the grocery store.

B: What are those in front of us?
Me: What are you talking about?  The cars?
B: Yeah. What's behind them?
Me: Behind them?  Our car is behind them.
B: No, their trunks, that's behind them.
Me: Oh, right, the trunks are in the back.
B: What's in them?
Me: In the trunks? I don't know. Maybe nothing.
B: Maybe groceries?
Me: Yeah, they might have groceries in their trunk like we do.
B: Did they go to the grocery store?
Me: They might have.
B: Did they go to the grocery store with us?
Me: No, we went alone.
B: Did they go alone?
Me: Yes.
B: Do they like to go alone?
Me: YES PROBABLY BECAUSE THEY COULD HEAR THEMSELVES THINK!

Ok, I didn't say that last part, but the rest is true.  I guess I should be thankful its not just "WHY?" all day long, but it really takes some mental stamina to listen what he's asking and try to answer in a way that won't bring about a slew of further questions (I fail at this almost every time).

There will likely be a day when I'm begging to gather information from a teenager who's day was fine and learned nothing at school.  So I'm trying embrace this curious stage of life.  But don't judge me when I crank up the music  in the car the next time we go grocery shopping.

Our house, lately

I'm not sure I could drum up one coherent blog post, so here is a little update of what we've been up to.  Lets begin with sports, an obvious starting point.

Football: Carolina had its first football game and we made it through the first half.  Brady brought his helmet to go with his jersey, but Coach Fedora did not end up needing his services.

I love the picture below of Brady sharing his sucker, because it illustrates how great of a brother Brady is (always willing to share) and Jackson's personality (will freak out until he gets what he wants).



Swimming: While Brady doesn't actually know how to swim yet, don't try to tell him that.  He's become very confident (overly) which is a change from last month.  He's gone down a few different water slides by himself and he loves to jump (bellyflop) in to the water.

 

 

 

 

 

Just a little nude basketball thrown in

 

Boating: I don't think this is a sport as much as a leisure activity, but we did take the boat out over Labor Day and Eric got in his skiing fix.  We got to stay with Eric's parents and Brady was as excited about this as Eric was about the boat.

Soccer: Tonight was Brady's first soccer practice.  He was fired up.  We went to the fields, played for 5 minutes, and were ushered off the fields due to thunder.  Lots of build up for very little time.  But in the time they did spend on the field, the coach and the players were sitting in a circle, playing a game to learn everyone's names.  Brady tolerated it for about a minute, but left the group and went to shoot on the soccer goal.  He was encouraged back to the group and declined... lets just say he was focused more on the "soccer" aspect of soccer practice.  Hard to blame him, I guess.

Here's a video from yesterday:

Sleep: Not technically a sport, but equally exhausting.  I recognize the irony here.   Jackson teased me for about 2 weeks but has regressed.  In some ways, its worse than before, because the second time he wakes (any time from 4 am or later), he has zero interest in going anywhere except my bed.  Which would be no problem if he just fell asleep next to me.  But he usually spends an hour tugging my hair, clawing my face, and all together smothering me before falling back peacefully to sleep.  At which point, I am adequately awake and agitated and Brady's usually waking up. 

I was close to my snapping point a few nights ago, so I brought out a method we've used several times with Jackson.  Its called the "closed door strategy".  Here's how it goes.  I close Jackson's door and I close my door.  The end.  Lest you think I'm an awful mom, I can still hear him crying, but its much softer (to my ears, even when he's wailing) so its easier to let him cry (lower blood pressure and heart rate) and remain in a semi-dozed state.  Here was how it went last night:

10:15 pm - wake up and cry.  Not a normal wake up time...I knew the night wouldn't be easy.  Let him cry... done in 2 minutes.

12:30 am - wake up and cry.  Again, early for the first wake up, which usually doesn't come until about 2.  So I let him cry.  I think he cried about 10 minutes.  Close door method helped here...I fell back asleep quickly.

2 am - wake up and wail.  Brady hears it, wanders in to our room to sleep. I went in Jackson's room, nursed him, put him in his crib, he's back to sleep.  Go back in my bed and hear Brady say, "Pump up the ball" in his sleep.  2 minutes later, laughter.  Must have been a good dream.  I go downstairs to get an apple. I need sustenance for this night.

5:30 - wake up and cry (Jackson, not me... although I'm tempted). I pretend I don't hear, but realize sleep is probably over for the night.  After 20 minutes of on and off crying, I go in to rock Jackson for 5 minutes so he knows his mom didn't completely abandon him.  He's nice and relaxed until I put him in the crib.  Then, he lets me and all the neighbors know how he feels.

6:10 - I go back in to a sad baby and nurse him, hoping that will help him sleep.  Here the air conditioner kick on, causing the semi-closed door to slam, causing Brady to wake up, causing him to come in to Jackson's room while I'm nursing him, "because he doesn't want to be alone." Eric happens to be gone this particular night, so I promise him I'll be back.

I put Jackson back in the crib and again, he let me know how he felt about that.  Return to bed, Brady is awake for the day (but thankfully, content to lie in bed for 30 minutes).

6:30 - Jackson gives in, sleeps soundly until 7:30.

So the good news, I stayed strong and Jackson did not up in my bed.  Bad news, see above.

Preschool: Brady had his first full day in the 3's class.  On Tuesday, we went for an hour to meet the teacher, and Brady was apprehensive to walk through the door.  But then, in the dress-up corner of the room, he spotted a football jersey and football helmet.  And the year was saved.

When I asked what he did at preschool today, he said, "The bad guy was trying to get the purple bird and it was not good." I laughed, which apparently was the wrong response.  "No don't laugh," he said very seriously.  "It was not good.". But thankfully, school is good and Jackson and I can make up for the bonding time we're NOT having at 5 am.



 

That might be wishful thinking.