Sleepy

I am sleepy. Beyond sleepy. Exhausted. Last night Hailey stayed up with Audreyanna until about 1:30 so that I could get some sleep so today I can actually put words together to form a sentence.I have had lots of babies, some great sleepers and some not so great sleepers. But my days are so full of the needs and activities of the rest of the family that they would exhaust me even with a good nights sleep, and when sleep comes in fits and spurts it doesn't take long to slip below the waves.

Cry it out is not my thing, I just don't have the stomach for it. So I got this book from the library to see what I could see. I was so giddy when I picked it up that I thought if it worked I would kiss it and hug it and dance it around the room. I might even buy my own copy and build a little shadow box to display it over the fireplace!

So, the book basically advocates gradually changing your babies habits and routines. Up until the last couple of babies, my kids were always on somewhat of a schedule. Not full blown bedtime routines, but the pretty much had a bedtime, and a naptime and they happened at pretty much the same time every day. Through the fog of my rose colored glasses it seemed like they were better sleepers. My last 3 have NOT been good sleepers. And they have not really had sleep time schedules. Hmmm. I know it sounds obvious, but you have to coming at it hiking uphill through a jungle of exhaustion where people keep grabbing your legs. It's harder to see.

So, Pantley says her suggestions could take some time to really see results. I really want to put her to be tonight and wake up in the morning shocked that she's still sleeping, but we're going to give it a go. I had already been trying to teach her that she doesn't actually have to have my breast in her mouth all night long to sleep. But I need to be more consistent. I have got her to the point where I can sometimes exract myself from her mouth and she will complain a little and go back to sleep. But only as long as I stay on my side facing her. If I try to move to my back or put my back toward her, her super spidey senses kick in and she is awake and crying.

So, we are going to work on real nap times. In her own bed. Hopefully working up to 2 naps about 1.5 - 2 hours each, in her bed. Rather than 3 - 4 naps of 15 - 20 min each in our arms. And I hope to get my response time during the night to times when she is actually hungry and she will learn to just fall back to sleep when she wakes as a regular part of the infant sleep cycle.

We'll see. Right now she is up every hour to hour and a half and she wants attention and comfort nursing. I would also like her to start the night in her co-sleeper at least until the first nursing. Which will hopefully be after several hours of sleep.

I'm going to use the heat pad to warm her bed before putting her in it. The book is really a lot of common sense solutions, but it was helpful to read it. I think I got a little lazy with my little ones. I just sort of fit them around everything that was going on with the biggers, instead of really working to develop the habits that would help the whole family function better.

So, here we go!

Randomness

My internet connector thingy mabob died. Again. At our last house we couldn't get dsl and opted for one of those wireless cards that lets you connect anywhere. Sort of. Unless it's cloudy, or raining, or Tuesday, or a full moon. You get the picture... It's been really frustrating. And my laptop is pretty new and I always wondered if it was really that slow or if it was just the connection. Because it would take me 30 minutes to load a 3 minute U Tube video, if I could download it at all.

But yesterday the little connector card died and I am without access until I figure something else out. But I needed to balance the bank account and pay a few bills so I headed to Starbucks. I'm not really supposed to be blogging. The baby is at home. But I just had to share...IT'S NOT MY LAPTOP!! Web pages are flying open, there is no waiting. I bet I would watch a whole concert on U Tube. Anyway, I'm pretty excited. Just wanted to share :)

Oh, also found about $500 of charges from someone who is not me. Looks like my information has bee stolen, so I'm off to the bank :(

Snow!

We awoke to snow this morning. Lot's of snow. Well, lot's of snow for us anyway. Mike couldn't get to work this morning, and took a nasty spill on his rear trying to get back up to the house. You know, after he abandoned the car at the bottom of the hill.

We had heard this was a possibility, so we took care of all the essentials. We.... Well, let's see. We.... Hmmm. Let's just say we like to learn our lessons the hard way around here :) We didn't buy a snow shovel. We are almost out of water. And the horses will likely be out of hay tonight. We do have hot chocolate though, so we probably won't notice.

About the water. I mean, there is water. It's just that it comes from the well instead of that fancy filter contraption in front of the Savemart. Ewww.

But hay, that's gonna be tricky.

Of course, it's only supposed to snow until Wednesday. And then the temp. should rise to 34 degrees and I'm sure it will all melt quickly away on this lovely southern slope :)

A Contest

Shanna is having a contest for one of Tonya's beautiful pieces of wall art and I want to enter! I love what Tonya does at Fruitful Vine Creations, and even bought a few for gifts a while back. I have spent lot's of time dreaming over what I would want on my own walls but haven't yet made the plunge. This would be a great opportunity to do that.

So, go have a look at Tonya's website and you'll be dreaming about your own walls soon. And then head on over to Shanna's blog for some wise words and a contest!

Hear Our Cry, O God

There is a lot of praying going on in our house today. We have been praying for baby Noah for some time. He is a very ill little boy with what appears to be a mitochondrial disorder. This manifests itself in many different ways that often have him struggling for his very life. He has been very ill and in the hospital again, and he just got home yesterday. And his mommy is due to be induced with his baby sister tomorrow. They are all very much in need of our prayers.

If you have never visited their blog, I encourage you to do it. I love to read their blog because they really get it. They truly understand the sovereignty of God. There struggles are immense, and yet there is real peace and joy in the midst of them. The Estes family has taught me much about what it means to truly cling to our savior.

We are also fervently praying for Eric Davis, his wife Heather, and the entire Davis family. They nearly lost Eric a few weeks ago when he had some unexplained breathing issues that they thought was asthma, but wasn't. Then on Friday he had a heart attack and has thus far been unresponsive. They are waiting on the results of todays eeg to see if there is any brain activity. They have taken him off of most of his medication and there should be some response to stimulus, but so far there is not.

My heart is breaking for Heather and the children. Heather is resting in the Lord, praising Him even through her tears. Please join me in lifting Eric and the Davis family before the throne of our almighty heavenly father. The great physician and merciful God.

You can read more on the Davis family blog, and Stacy has a current update here.

It's Off!

My wedding ring has been stuck on my finger for about 2 years. I have tried at various times to remove it, sometimes quite strenuously, but have always been unsuccsessful. Sometimes it is so tight I can barely spin it around on my finger, and other times it is comfortable.

My fingers always swell when I am pregnant, and I have known for some time that it really must come off. Last night I could hardly sleep because the ring was so tight that the throbbing kept waking me up.

So, this afternoon we went to the EMS to see if they could cut if off. I thought cutting was the only option. But when we arrived, the woman there said "If you can take it, I can get it off." I decided to see if I could take it.

The male technicians were all very interested to learn how she did it. She had apparently removed the ring of a man a week ago and everyone was very impressed, but no one had seen her do it.

The retrieved some tracheostomy tape (umbilical tape is preferred, but it was unavailable), and some KY Jelly. She slid a strip of the tape under my ring, creating a handle to pull the ring with. Then she wrapped my finger VERY tightly with the tape to try to make it smaller than the ring. A liberal squirt of KY and the pulling/twisting commenced.

WOW, It was PAINFUL!

They pulled, twisted, pulled, twisted... A few times I had to have them stop so I could catch my breath and make sure that they weren't fileting my finger. It really, really hurt.

But, it is off!

My finger is still pretty swollen and painful, but I will sleep tonight. And the ring didn't have to be cut.

All in all, worth it.

And now, if anyone needs a ring removed, I know just what to do :)

Ups and Downs

Mike arrived home this afternoon a little blue. He had been reflecting on the fact that he had just received this big promotion at work and no one in our family had congratulated him, we had not celebrated in any way, in fact, we were all pretty sad about it.

He was right. We got caught up in how we didn't want to move, didn't want months of separation, and all that there is to be done before he leaves. The fact that this is a great opportunity for him and in many ways a great blessing for us, just got ignored.

Well, we all quickly apologized and agreed that it was indeed an occasion that demanded to be celebrated!

So, we got all gussied up and went out for a really good dinner and spoke in a celebratory fashion.

Then we went to Home Depot to price out some of the improvements we are hoping to do.

THEN...while driving home on our bucolic country road...someone THREW A ROCK at the van and SHATTERED one of our side windows. Yep, shattered it.

Mike and Chance are back at the scene waiting for the police to come conduct what I suspect will be a futile search for the perpetrator/s, but at least we will have a police report if we need it for the insurance company.

So, a less-than-ideal cap to our evening of celebration.

I'm Back!

Wow, I've been gone a long time. It just got away from me I guess, and for a while I just didn't feel like I had anything to say.

For those who don't know me IRL, I'll give you a little recap to bring y'all up to date.

Let's see December and January were mostly taken up with morning (all day) sickness because WE ARE EXPECTING AGAIN! I also had quite a bit of trouble early on and spent a lot of time on bedrest consuming copious amounts of herbs. I am now 16 - 17 weeks and things are going well. It appears to be about time to find a midwife.

In early February we traveled to Ca for the wedding of Mike's neice. I flew out due to aforementioned "trouble" and Mike was taking the van and the kids and the dog meeting me at my parents home in AZ. He got as far as El Paso, where he stopped for the night. While my family slept in their hotel room, someone decided that they had greater need of our possessions than we did. Likely to run "undocumented workers" over the border. We lost MANY things. One of them was our digital camera, which has yet to be replaced. So, there is likely to be far fewer pictures posted on the blog for a while. My sweet puppy, Ellie Mae, was also in the van because the hotel did not allow pets.

And now it looks highly likely that we will have to leave Texas and return to CA. They are offering a pretty good promotion, and the job situation here has become highly unreliable.

The prospect of moving breaks our heart on so many levels I don't even know what to say about it. We are trusting God to direct our paths.

There, you're all caught up. Left out the flu and some other less than fun things, but those are the biggies.

So, what's going on in your neck of the woods?