A typical night

7:00pm: Mike leaves for scouts, I put the girls in a bath.

7:30: Two clean girls leave the bath, Bailey is coloring in her room, I am putting Avery down.

7:45: Bailey tells me she has peed in her panties. Of course, I didn't put her in her training panties because she has not had an accident in weeks.

7:50: I lay Avery down, and go to deal with Bailey, who has peed all over the bathroom floor right next to the toilet. I tell her she has to clean in up. She falls in the puddle and gets covered in her own pee. Nice.

7:55: While she is in the shower, I clean up the big mess, and then clean her up.

8:05: Bailey and Avery are both in bed. Yeah. Time to relax.

8:05-8:50: Bailey gets up about four times having to go to the potty. Mike comes home and tells her no more potty, and no more getting up.

9:00: Avery wakes up. I refuse to feed her- it's only been an hour. She cries for a few minutes and goes back to sleep.

9:40: Avery wakes up again. I decide maybe she really is hungry and try to feed her.

9:45: While I am feeding Avery, Bailey is yelling in her room, "DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!" I am worried that she is going to really wake up Avery, who is almost asleep. Mike goes back and wraps up Bailey's baby.

9:50: Avery is in her crib again. Finally.

10:30: We are getting ready for bed. Bailey is still awake.

10:45: I am seriously exhausted. We turn out the lights, and Avery wakes up again.

11:00: After feeding Avery, she is back in her own bed. I think that Bailey is asleep.

1:00: Avery wakes up and kind of eats, again.

4:30: Avery wakes up and kind of eats.

5:30: Avery wakes up again. I refuse to feed her. She fuses for a few minutes and goes back to sleep. Mike has to be up in a half an hour but doesn't go back to sleep.

6:00: Mike gets up, Avery fusses a little, but I still don't get her up.

6:30: Mike leaves. Maybe now I can go back to sleep.

6:50: Bailey wakes up, I tell her it's too early and that she needs to go back to bed. She at least stays in her bed.

7:00: Avery wakes up for the day and eats. Bailey hears us up and gets up as well.

I am ready for a good night's sleep! And a vacation by myself. Maybe Mike can come if he promises to just let me sleep...

Tutu Cute

Here are a few pictures of the girls in their new favorite p.j.'s. I can never get a picture with both of them smiling...

Doesn't Avery's hair look pretty blond? This week I had someone comment about her blond hair. She has some dark spots, so I'm betting it comes in brown. We'll see when she gets more hair- hopefully soon.

Ear Conundrum

It has been a while since my last post, but I have a good reason. Our lives have been consumed with one thing for the last month- Avery and her endless ear infections.

Since the end of April, when we started letting Avery cry in out in a desperate attempt to get more sleep, she has had constant ear infections. Of course, when I realized this, I felt terrible. Here I was, letting her cry for two hours in the middle of the night, and she was in pain. I am pretty sure that I cannot do that again.

Over that last month, Avery's system has been flooded with antibiotics. She started out taking amoxicillin, which did nothing. Then, she took Omnicef, which worked for three rounds, but did nothing the fourth. She then got a shot of rocephin. And then another. All was well for a few days, but a week later she got a third rocephin shot and a round of zithromax. Despite that, a few days later, she had yet another infection and a fourth rocephin shot.

I obviously felt bad for out little baby, but this has seriously worn me out. She was up for two to three hours almost every night. I have worked hard on not being the naturally clumsy me, but the exhaustion has brought it back out. One night I set a cookbook on fire because I turned on the wrong burner. That was pretty exciting.

Avery got her tubes put in last Monday. Finally! I was hoping for instant relief, but I was not that lucky. The first night she was up for two hours. The next night, similar. However, last night, she slept for five hours straight, got up and ate, and then slept for another five hours. All I can say is hallelujah. Hopefully my cookbooks, and more importantly my children, are safe from my sleep deprived accidents.

Sleepy baby

We have been letting Avery cry it out for almost a week now. There has been a lot of progress, but she is still up for hours in the middle of the night. She no longer cries when we lay her down, and she sleeps for four of five hours. But when she gets up, she is up. Last night she was up from midnight to three. She was in her crib for most of that time, playing, talking and crying. It was horrible! I don't know what to do. As you can imagine, we are both really tired. I took these pictures of her while we were playing this morning. She looks like a little zombie baby. I'm so sad!

I still hate the whole crying thing. One night this week, I fed her then laid her down. She cried and cried, which she had not been doing for a few nights.  After thirty minutes, I went and fed her again. She ate like she was starving. I felt terrible- she was still hungry! Last night, after I fed her, she cried in her crib for a while. I went back there, and she had a poopy diaper. Once again, I felt bad. How are you supposed to tell when there is something that she needs, and when she is just trying to get me to hold her?? That is my big issue with the whole crying it out technique. I guess no teaching your baby to sleep by herself was is perfect. If there was a way, we'd all be doing it.

I am so happy that Avery is on her way to better sleeping, I just wish we could do it without all the crying.

Avery Pics

For some reason, everytime we try to take a picture of Avery, she closes her eyes, even without the flash. I think our smart little baby remembers and anticipates the flash every time! Here are a few of the many closed-eyes pictures we have of her:

Amish Country

On the first day of Mike's break, we decided to go to Amish country. We left the house, fully prepared, or so we thought. After following the directions I got off of Google maps, we were no closer to the Amish than when we left. Instead of being in Amish Berlin, we were in Berlin Township. (I might add that this is the second time this month Google maps has done this to me. When looking for a Native American burial mound, we never made it. When we got home we looked it up- we had bad directions. Mike says I'm not allowed to get the directions any more.) It was a one street area with no buggies.

We drove back to the main road and bought a map of Ohio. Two hours later we finally made it. We visited Yoder's Amish Home. There we saw a modern Amish house, barn, and went on a buggy ride. Bailey had been so excited about the buggy ride all day, but when it came down to it, she was terrified of the horse! Luckily, we conviced her to ride, and she loved it. She told Mike, "The horse was running fast. It was fun." She was not a big fan of the animal barn, but she enjoyed seeing the baby chickens, cows, horses and bunnies, as long as I was holding her.

It was interesting to learn about how the Amish live, although I think it is kind of weird to be visiting the Amish for vacation. I'm not quite sure how I would feel if my life was a vacation display. I can just see it:

Tour guide: "Here is where they cook dinner. They do use electricity. However, notice the absence of a coffee pot. They do not drink coffee or tea."

Tourist: "I hear they don't drink pop. Is that true?"

Tour guide: "And here is a modern Mormon bedroom. Contrary to popular belief, they do not have horns."

Tourist: "Do they use birth control?"

Yes, someone did ask this on the tour.

I am actually glad the Amish have opened up their community so that we can learn about their beliefs. Like us, they believe in modesty, keeping the Sabbath holy, and in protecting the family. We definitely need more people who are willing to stand up for their beliefs in the world.

Sleep Woes

I am having a serious dilema with Avery right now. I do not believe in letting babies cry it out. I want Avery to know that when she cries, I will be there for her. I don't want her to think that I am ignoring her, or that there are things more important than her. I worry that letting babies cry teaches them the wrong message- I will only come to you if it is convenient for me. We did however, let Bailey cry it out when she was old enough to talk and understand what we were doing. She didn't cry for very long, luckily.

Here comes the problem.

Up until recently, we didn't have any problems getting Avery to go to sleep. I usually nursed her on my bed until she was asleep and the left her there. Then for some reason, that stopped working. So, I nursed her swaddled (or even double swaddled because she really is too big for that) and put her in her bed. Things went downhill from there. My nights were turning into holding Avery festivals until she was in deep deep sleep. I was holding her for hours! Literally. I simply couldn't do that any more.

So. I've read lots and lots of books about sleep. One recommended picking her up when she cries, comforting her, and then laying her back down. You do this every time she cries. I tried it. The problem is, she starts crying just as soon as she starts moving towards the bed. Another suggested comforting her as she cries in her bed by patting her, singing etc. I did that, and it seemed to be working well until a few nights ago. Then I was up with her for three hours in the middle of the night. She was not crying, just playing. But as soon as I left, she would wail.

It was not an isolated incident. She took no naps the next day. At bedtime she refused to sleep. If I was in there, she was playing. If I left, she would cry, but would resume playing as soon as I returned.

I was desperate. She was a zombie. We let her cry it out. It only took thirty agonizing minutes.

And then 2:15 am happended. I was up with her for an hour, feeding her, trying to get to sleep. Once again, she just wanted to play. At 3:15, I let her cry again. This time she screamed for an hour. I went in there every 15 min. to give her a kiss and her pacifier. It was horrible. She felt awful, I felt awful, Mike was awake and feeling awful too.

I still don't know if I did the right thing. I didn't know what else to do. Tell me your sleeping stories! Did you let your kids cry it out? How old were they? Did you feel okay doing it? How did you get your kids to sleep if they didn't cry it out? If you don't have kids, how do you feel about it?

I really thought that by now, at seven and a half months, we would all be sleeping better. Here's hoping for a better night tonight!