Grandma and Grandpa visit NC!

My parents came to visit last week and they brought their beautiful Iowa weather with them. Shorts and t-shirt weather in February makes me one happy mama. 

Posed pictures are challenging with children, but the natural shots are more entertaining anyway.

 

The kids made sure grandpa's visit was not too relaxing.

 

 

 

We spent one morning at the Museum of Life and Science.

 

 

When my mom comes to visit, she usually takes care of all of the things I've neglected around our house and yard. Actually, she doesn't visit long enough to take care of everything (I'm fairly neglectful) but she did clean our porch and do some yard work. So nice to be able to enjoy our warm clean porch in February!

And my dad dismantled our rotten picnic bench which we used as firewood. Nothing like Smore's around the fire pit!  

 

 

Come back and visit us soon Grandma and Grandpa!

Mother-of-the-year

That mom-of-the-year award you were planning on nominating me for? Just hold off on submission, it's still early in the year and I have some rebuilding to do.

Avery has been doing "better" with her sleeping. I only spent two nights on the third floor and my recent "plan" had been feeding Avery one time a night and let her cry the other time(s). This has been fairly successful, and she usually cries for only about 10 minutes or so and puts herself back to sleep. Two nights ago, she woke up at 11 which is pretty standard. Going in to comfort her has proved disastrous so I listened to her cry for about 10 minutes and then we both fell asleep. She woke just before 5 (a great stretch for her) and when I walked into her room I was accosted with the smell of vomit. After taking a closer look at the vomit that was in her hair, on her PJs, and covering her blankets and stuffed animals, it was obvious that this was not fresh vomit. Poor girl had been sleeping covered in her own puke all night. Cue the mommy guilt. 

So I nursed my smelly girl and stripped her down (while Eric took care of the crib). Her hair was so caked with puke that I had to give her a bath. She screamed bloody murder, even when I got in with her. To add insult to injury, when I got back in my own bed, I realized by bed companion (Brady) had peed. If only Jackson would have pooped his pants, we could have had a trifecta!

Avery seemed fine the next day except she didn't want to eat much (not much different than normal life). I took all three kids to the grocery store the next day and we weren't even out of the produce section when Avery started flipping out and wanting to get out of the cart. This is fairly common, so instead of getting her out and carrying her (which makes shopping a challenge), I doubled down and strapped her in. And she doubled down on screaming. So I got her out, my inner rage pretty high due to the fact that I had a total of one thing in my cart and already I had a screamer. And then she puked everywhere. Sorry Avery. Sorry Kroger shoppers.

Again, please withhold submitting your mother-of-the year nominations until my kids aren't sick,  I'm better rested, and Donald Trump is no longer our president. Please let all of those come before 2020.

ZZZZ

I haven't talked about Avery's sleeping habits lately and I wish that meant that things were fine.  It doesn't, it means I'm too tired to blog about it.  Avery continues to be terrible in the sleep department.  Her typical timeline goes something like this:

7:30: go to sleep.
11 - wake up
1: wake up
3: wake up
6: wake up

Every. damn. night.  And just about every wake up, I am nursing Avery because its the easiest damn way to get her to go back to sleep.  Earlier in the week, I put my foot down when she woke at 3am and had already been fed twice.  I sent Eric in, she cried.  We let her cry a while, then Eric took her to our guest room bed where she just hung out for 20 minutes.  Then he put her back in the bed where she started a new crying session.  So at 4:30, I ended up just giving in and feeding her which resulted in even less sleep and extra annoyance for even trying to resist.

And that's when I decided that the third floor would be my saving grace.

I decided the next night, I would feed Avery the first time she woke up, then I'd disappear into our secluded third floor and let Eric, the hardest sleeper in America, deal with Avery (which would probably mean not deal with her).

So 11 pm came, and like clockwork, Avery woke, I fed her, and had the most wonderful sleep (except my body couldn't resist waking at 3 am).  Eric called me at 6 am when Avery woke and I felt like a new woman with a decent night's sleep.  I asked how she did and Eric said she cried for about 20 minutes at 3 am.  Pretty good.  I'm not convinced that she didn't wake up another time, but if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a noise?

Next night, same thing.  I feed her when she wakes at 11 and disappear until Eric brings her up to me at 6 am.  How did she do? I ask.  She didn't wake up all night!  he says.  There's about a 1% chance that is true, but again, tree, forest, noise.

Last night was the Duke/Carolina game and Avery sensed the pain of the Heels and woke up soon after they lost.  I fed her, but stayed on the main floor since I didn't see it responsible to escape to the third floor with Eric gone.  Avery woke at 3, but I ignored her (pretended I was on another floor) and she went back to sleep after 10 minutes or so.  And woke up at 5, but still, progress.

If you're not asleep by now just reading about a baby's sleeping habits, congrats.  I'm pretty over the whole thing myself, and I think my disappearance brings us one step closer to better sleep.  If Avery had even 20% of her daddy's sleep habits, she'd be in good shape.  The guy can outsleep anyone out there.

POTUS

As much as I (and the majority of my fellow Americans) would like to deny it, Donald Trump is now our president. It struck me yesterday that barring an impeachment (fingers crossed), Avery will be Brady's age when we get a shot at a new president. Kids do grow up fast but that's a little depressing.

It is funny (and a little sad), whenever Jackson talks politics. He viewed the election as a game and during the election, would often confirm that we were "cheering for Hillary."  Here's our conversation from yesterday. 

"Is Donald Trump our president?"

Yes.

"That is so not good."

"But Hillary Clinton gets one more chance, right?"

No

"She gets none more chances?"

No

"So Donald Trump is our president. And he lives in the White House? And he sleeps there?"

You get the drift. Basically, it's as hard for a 3-year-old to grasp that Trump is our president as it is for my 34-year-old self.  But I'll pray for him, and Arnold Schwartzeneger and the ratings of the apprentice because when given the platform for prayer right now, those things seem like they should be on the top of the list.

Earlier this year, Eric and the basketball team got to meet President Obama (again) and recently, he saw the picture for the first time and showed the boys.  When hearing Eric had a picture with the president, Jackson asked, "Is Donald Trump in that picture?"

 

 

Nope.  Probably tweeting something important.