Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Paige, the Conclusion.

Maybe 'conclusion' isn't the right word, but it certainly feels appropriate after everything that's been going on. For those of you following what's going on with Paige, this morning I brought her back to the breeder. Lori was incredibly understanding and I am so glad that she already has ideas of a home for Paige, after a period of adjustment at Lori's of course. After the last posting I put about Paige, we kind of left the subject hanging for a while and figured we'd talk about it at another time. She had been behaving wonderfully and we haven't had any problems, so we were being optimistic that we'd 'turned a new leaf' and she'd sta with us.

Last night, however, things changed. Part of our concern about her staying here is the obvious agitation she has when kids are around. The noise, chaos, movement, something about it all makes her uneasy. Last night after dinner we were playing in the living room and Julian was standing next to her, holding his ball, and speaking loudly (because really, how may toddlers know not to yell when they talk?) and she snapped at him and tried to bite. I ran across the room, pinned her down, and just looked at Thad in total shock. He was speechless. Did that really just happen?! At that point it wasn't even a question of if but when and I called Lori right away to tell her what happened. We scheduled to bring her this morning and Lori totally understood that we no longer felt comfortable with her in the house.

It has been an emotional 18 hours here but we know this is for the best. It still doesn't make me feel any better, part of me feels like I failed her in finding a way for her to be comfortable here, but I know I can't go down that road without going crazy.

Anyways, we'll miss you Paigey-roo and I hope you are happy wherever you end up. You'll always be our sweet little girl!




Monday, July 6, 2009

Walking and Talking

After the past couple posts that weren't so happy so I thought a fun posting about what's going on with Julian would be nice.

Talking. I know we've spoken about Signing Time before but I didn't realize just how much it would help our communication with Julian. We started watching the DVD with Julian when he was 5 months old but over the past 2 weeks his signs he finally has done more than, well, "More." While he recognizes a lot more than he does, here are the signs he's been doing:
-More
-Hat
-Cracker
-Dog
-Horse
-Airplane
-Car

Walking. FINALLY he took more than 2 steps in a row! Yesterday he actually walked across the living room to go between grandma and daddy (and, I admit, Pirate's Booty was involved). Today, he was a walking machine, even eventually doing downward dog and looking between his legs at me. Enjoy the chubby legs!




Sunday, July 5, 2009

Rock a bye, baby

To my dear friends who tell me, at 11:30 in the morning, that you just woke up, I don't even know what to say to you. Sure, it's no surprise that with parenthood comes the long and sordid fantasies of sleeping past 7 am, and while at some point it was a luxury to spend all day in my pajamas, it just isn't the same when it's out of necessity now rather than a luxury.

Truthfully, I've become quite used to the lack of sleep, or at least shorter sleep patterns. My body naturally wakes me up still every 2-3 hours and if I get more than 6 hours of sleep in a night I am groggy the next day. My issue right now is Julian's sleep. A couple of weeks before he turned one, his naps went to crap. He used to be such a consistent 2-nap-a-day baby, giving me enough time in the mornings to get in a workout and do some laundry, and some time in the afternoon to start dinner and possibly work on my blog. (Side note: for those of you moms who also maintain a blog, how the hell do you do it so frequently?! I feel like I never have time to write anymore and I see you guys update your blogs all the time. When do you do it?!) Ever since that fateful week in May, his naps are erratic at best. Some days I get one, some days I get two, and when they are going to happen no one knows. I know he has been dealing with getting his molars out and has been starting to walk, but doesn't there come a point where his body just NEEDS SLEEP? Right now we get about 9 hours of sleep a night, if that. Period.

Yes, I nurse him down for his naps. Yes, I am trying to stop doing this. At night, Thad sways/rocks him to sleep and yes, this too is something I'd like to change. He's getting to a point where sleep is a battle and I positively dread anything to do with it anymore. Naps? We get in the car. I thought I knew Fairfax very well in my 17 years of living here but I've learned even more about it in the past month. Transfers from the car to the crib? Just forget about it. I might as well just take him out of the car and turn on some dance music because that's about how awake he is once my hand touches the seatbelt.

I have no clue what to do. I had no idea that sleep could be SO consuming. When to sleep, where to sleep, what to wear to sleep, eating before/after sleep....good grief. It's a wonder that we do anything else during the day other than obsess about sleep.

It's 8:10 and he has been crying. It's hard. We both want to help and stay with him until he falls asleep but he doesn't seem to stay asleep once we leave the room.

I'm so sorry that everything I've been posting lately hasn't been very happy, but I guess sometimes it's not always sunshine and daisies. I mean, we *did* have a fantastic weekend celebrating the 4th, other than the sleep issue. We went to the new Chick-Fil-A in Fairfax for it's grand opening, we went to a birthday party of one of Julian's baby pals, we went to the neighborhood pool for the bigh independence day bash. Grandma is back from New Zealand, too, so we've been spending a lot of time with her this weekend as well as finally putting more steps together to walk across the room! It's been a very exciting few weeks but still, I just have to know his sleep will get better.

"This too shall pass." Right?