Five Reasons to be Happy

Reason #1: The sun finally poked out this weekend after a week of dreary rain. It was much appreciated! Erik and I were able to paint and put up the moldings around all the door frames. We still have baseboards to do in all the main areas (and some painting), but it'll all come together eventually. We finally got a chance to watch The Pursuit of Happyness and both nearly cried the whole way through. A definite must-see for those who haven't seen it, especially parents.


Reasons #2 & #3: The weekend brought with it some more sleep solutions for both of the kids. Disclaimer --> I realize I've been blogging about sleep issues a lot, but I suppose it’s because that’s what’s on my mind the most! If you don’t want to hear about it, go ahead and skip to Reason #4 :)

Anyway, I was kind of half-heartedly thinking about taking Keziah’s soother away for sleeping and then it just sort of happened over the weekend. On Friday night she was unusually relaxed and content right up until her bedtime so I decided to try putting her in her crib without her soother. She started crying but it wasn’t a really serious cry – more of a sleepy whiny cry – and I felt I was able to tolerate it. I decided I would give her the soother if her cries started to escalate. Well, they never did and 10 minutes later she was quiet! I snuck in to see what was happening. She was still kind of awake – rubbing her blanket in her face and lifting up both legs and slamming them down on the mattress which, oddly enough, seemed to be soothing for her. I let her be and she was sleeping soon after. She woke up once during the night at which point I just let her have the soother since I was too exhausted for a fight. The next morning around 5:30 I heard her again – just kind of fussing and doing the mattress foot-slam – but she fell asleep without me giving her the soother! Ever since then I've been putting her down without her soother. She usually fusses a little bit, but I don't give her the soother unless she's really crying (then take it away when she calms down). She has surprised me with how well she can fall asleep on her own. And dare I even mention it, the last TWO nights in a row she has slept straight through the night without so much as a peep! Makes me wonder why I didn't try this sooner...

This is way easier than waiting until she’s 2 :) So, what do you say, Kelly? Your turn next!

And we found a sleep solution for Micah that is (possibly) working. He’s been routinely waking up before 6 every morning, so we gave him his own clock radio in his room and told him he couldn’t get out of bed until he heard the music turn on. Well, wouldn’t you guess that the first couple of mornings the alarm actually woke him up! After extending the alarm for another half hour (to 6:30) we tried again. Sat. morning he still got out of bed a few times before 6:30 but I just kept bringing him back with the excuse that the clock didn't say it was morning yet. When the alarm finally went off I made a big deal about it being morning - opening the blinds, etc. I hope he got the point. This morning I heard him cry a few minutes before his alarm, but he stayed in bed until it went off - and then even a bit longer while he listened to the music :)

I would just like to know how many hours of sleep your toddlers get in a day. Micah sleeps about 9 or 10 hours at night and 1.5-3 hours during his nap. Is that enough? I really feel like he needs a longer sleep at night, but it's so hard to get him sleeping any sooner than 8:30.

Reason #4: Keziah started giggling a lot more over the weekend. Micah really got her going one afternoon. There is nothing more precious than watching your children laughing together! (Except watching them sleep!)


Reason #5: Erik had talked about taking a few days off this week so we could have some family days and on Saturday night we made the spontaneous decision to turn it into a trip to Edmonton! I'm excited about getting away - but also a little stressed about the logistics of traveling with two kids. We are planning to drive through the night on Wednesday so they can both sleep the whole way. We'll spend Thurs & Fri nights in a hotel and then drive home Sat. night. We'll hit West Ed, of course, and probably spend awhile at the waterpark. We have lots of stuff to do to get everything ready so I will sign off now in order to get started! I hope you all have a fantastic week!