Sans Naps

Yesterday marked the first day that Michael will no longer be taking naps. I hate to give them up so early I mean he is only 21 months, but he really needs to. Most nights he is awake until at least 10 and sometimes even later. Ive always been a put-the-kids-early-to-bed kind of person so this just isn't working for our family. One of the biggest things that I establish early on is an early bedtime and an early rise. Usually 7-7 works for me. I am totally willing to get out of bed early so that I can have a peaceful evening to myself. When I just had Rayden we would sometimes be up at 5am having breakfast because he went down for the night at 6. That was when he was a small baby but he has continued this pattern and still prefers to go to bed early.

So Day One was a little challenging, especially since Josiah was fussy for a lot of the day. Around 3pm Michael really wanted to take and nap and he kept asking me for a bottle because he was sooky. I eventually distracted him with a snack and some play time and then he seemed to have a second wind until about 8pm last night.

Today is definitely harder already and it is only lunch time. He started to get tired around 11 this morning and will probably crash in a few hours. From doing this before though with my older two, I know that after about 3-4 days of consistency in this new schedule, he will reset his sleep at night so that he gets more out of it and isn't as tired during the day.

I have no idea what we are going to do together when the older two are in school next month and Josiah is sleeping. I was really looking forward to that time for myself so that I could get the normal daily things done. This way I guess he and I will have some quality time together though that Im sure he is sorely missing since the new bambino came along.

Tid Bit

Me: "What are we going to have for lunch?"
Chris: "I don't know. Im not the boss, you are!"

One Month

Josiah turned one month yesterday. I never would have thought that time could go as fast as it does when you have four small children. My God, it feels like maybe a week has past since I was sitting here day after day just waiting for this child to GET OUT OF MY BODY! I went to L&D three times before he was actually born, which made it feel like he was taking even longer. But eventually he came and he was perfect.


His birth was such an empowering experience. The room was all only women; from my labour coaches to the doctor and nurses. Right from the start everyone took the approach that I knew what I was doing and they all just let me do what I needed to do. It wasn't as perfect as I wanted it to be considering I had to have a few stitches and it took four hours. I was GBS+ so I had to be attached to an IV bag which limited my position options. I prefer to labour standing up as much as possible because it moves things along much faster and I believe it gives the perineum a chance to stretch. I spent this entire labour on my back though in the bed until the last ten minutes or so. I had to move to a squatting position because he would start to move down and then go back up again. Oh what fun labour is! But for my last child, it was still a wonderful experience.

It is hard to tell what Josiah's personality will be but for now he is a happy baby that loves faces and socializing. I can tell that he is listening when I sing or talk to him and he just started to coo and make noises back. He smiled for the first time (for real!) the day before he was one month. In the few days since then he has perfected the art, smiling almost every time he looks at some one's face. It is one of the most precious things I have ever seen.

He also loves baths in really warm water. My baby bath tub that I bought for Michael is still put away from the move so Josiah has been taking baths in the big tub. I hold him with one had behind his head and his little body just floats around while he coos. Even when I take him out to dry him off and get his pjs on, he is still so happy and content that he rarely cries.

Early on though Josiah developed thrush and I attribute that to the antibiotics that I had during labour for the GBS. It took me a couple days to get him into the doctor and by then his tongue was thickly coated. I was also in a lot of pain and had to psych myself up just to put him on the breast! After a few days of his medication though both he and I started to get better. I was using a cream as well which I have continued to use because Josiah's tongue still has a hint of white even though his medication has been finished for a while. While he was still taking the medication though, it gave him terrible pains and gas and the poor guy was so fussy every day. It was all I could do to get through the two weeks.

When he was over the medicine, he started acting colicky. Im still not sure what is causing his screaming fits but he is obviously in pain and has a lot of gas. Im experimenting with my diet now though and he has had a few good days so I know it has to do with food. I haven't quite figured out all of what bothers him but I do know that I have to cut out whole grain bread and pitas, watermelon and instant oatmeal. I also tried to drink a little gingerale, but I think that bothered him too. Rayden had a lot of sensitivities to foods that I ate as well so Im sure this will be a similar experience of having to really watch what I eat and how it affects him.

On days when he isn't in pain, Josiah is sleeping really well. Through out the day he sleeps mostly in a chair because he refuses his bassinet. I have to get more strict about it but for now I just need him to sleep so I can get things done. He is awake for an hour or so in the morning while everyone is getting up and dressed and while I am making breakfast. He usually falls asleep in his chair watching all the goings on then I move him into a quiet room for a couple hours. Then throughout the day he wakes long enough to be changed and have a feed before dozing off again. Around supper time he wakes again and watches all the happenings of the house. After supper we play and have family time before he goes down again for the night. If he wakes in the late afternoon however he will usually have another awake time around 10pm which keeps me up and makes me Cranky the next day. So I try to avoid that.

All around I don't think this month has been too hard on us as a family and we are adjusting well. Josiah fits perfectly with his brothers and they all seem to be ok with him (for now!). Hopefully this next month will bring more of the same, except with a little more sleep for me.

Writer Failure

So Ive failed my self-challenge of posting here every day. To be fair, it has been a busy couple of days with Rayden's 7th birthday and all. But even though I have been posting, I cant stop thinking about my blog. Do you other bloggers do that? It may just be the novelty of having a new blog or maybe Im just crazy like that; who knows? What Ive been worried about though is how I come off. Like Ive mentioned, Im not sharing this blog with my real life peeps and so the only medium through which you have to know me are these words. That is probably one of the worst things I could say to fellow bloggers though because for the most part we are not supposed to care about what people think of us. I also started this blog as a place to document my thoughts and life with the added bonus of community and networking thrown in. But I do care, in a not-really kind of way. Could you imagine what internet rejection would be like? Yuck!

So back to where I was going with this; Im not a great writer. Im not witty or creative and I have no idea about grammer or other english major type stuff. To be honest, I dropped out of school after grade nine and barely passed the writing portion of the GED 3 years later. My four years of university is the only thing saving me from sounding like a cave woman trying to communicate with a series of grunts and odd gestures.

Despite my failings as a writer, Im willing to push through and keep up with this blog and hopefully one day find my voice. Who ever I am will eventually come through in my writing as I relax a bit and get comfortable with the whole idea.

Because I hate to end it on a negative note, here are some cutie pictures of the newest addition:

Been there, done that

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to just leave everything behind and hit the open road? Pack up your belongings, say goodbye to your job and everything else and just leave with no idea of what lies ahead? I think its safe to say that a large portion of the western world has flirted with the idea, even if only a little. Personally, Ive thought about it on many occasions and have in fact done just that. It wasn't as romantic as the movies or my daydreams would make it out to be and even now I look back on it as just another part of my life. But it was an adventure and it was fun.

I was a new mom and faced with raising my son alone in the town where I grew up or heading off with my crazy family for a province we had never even seen. Obviously I chose to follow them blindly, but with every intention to move back if things didn't work out. So we sent all of our belongings with a mover and an agreement that he would store everything until we decided on a new town. We had no idea at the time but it took about two months to find one and for those two months I was living out of a suitcase with an infant.

At the time I really thought we were crazy and I occasionally regretted the decision. Here we are though coming up on 7 years in October and Im still living here. My parents settled in a smaller town about an hour or so outside of the capital city and I tried that for awhile, but it just wasn't for me. I relocated in a much more urban environment and Ive lived in the same neighborhood ever since.

What brought about this walk down memory lane today was my mother's mention of her applying for a job in the wilderness of the NWT. And Im talking WILD-ER-NESS, like north of the arctic circle. She recently finished a masters degree in counselling psych so she is now on the job hunt and our current province, just doesn't seem to cut it. My dad as well is just finishing up a BA in anthropology and his options are also limited as he wants to pursue a higher degree; hence the drastic move, AGAIN. This is all still early, as they are just applying for jobs so really there is about a 50% chance that it will actually happen. But still. It just seems crazy to completely uproot yourself twice in a lifetime without a clear path. This time I guess is a little different than the last because they would at least have jobs to be going to. Sigh, what a big thumper to get smacked with.

To Clarify

I realised after I published the last post that if anyone does happen to read this then they may be a bit confused about my situation. So to clarify, at least partly:

The kids last summer at our local botanical gardens

• I have four children, all boys
  
• The first was born when I was 18 and his dad didn't want to be a dad
  
• When I was 19 I met my ex-husband who I then had two more children with
  
• When our third was only a few months old, the Ex moved out
  
• Somehow I managed to find myself pregnant again when my third turned one but this time with a guy I hadn't been seeing very long
  
• The guy disappeared when I told him
  
• Baby number four was born July 2008 and I haven't spoken with his dad since Dec 2007
  
• Ex Husband is engaged and had a baby girl in June 2008 (2 wks before mine was born)
  
• All the kids live with me and the three oldest visit the Ex

I also realise that this post opens me up for a whole lot of judgement and criticism. I am prepared for the first however I will not accept the second. I am writing here for myself, as a benefit to me. I have chosen to be completely honest about my situation and the mistakes and choices that I have made in the past. If you can not accept me and only want to criticise then please move along, no one is forcing you to read.

After the Fact

My ex-mom-in-law and I didn't really get along all the while I was with her son. It wasn't as if she was particularly mean or anything, we just never really felt comfortable with each other. We were pleasant none the less and we certainly got along better than FIL and I did, like times a million. After the break up though things got worse long before they got better. After about a year or so of her son being an ass however, she started to turn around a little bit.

Whats so great now is that she actually steps in and gives me a break, like all the time. Our custody arrangement is pretty pathetic as the Ex only takes the kids Sundays from 10-4 and comes by our house Wednesday evenings with his fiance for about a half hour. If that wasn't bad enough, the guy pretty much stopped coming Wednesdays when his new daughter was born at the end of June. But then to my surprise in comes MIL to pick up the kids and take them out for an afternoon before depositing them back to me with full bellies and lots of fun stories. She even makes sure Michael doesn't have a nap so he'll actually go to bed on time. The Ex doesn't even do that on Sundays so my Sunday nights are HELL. The greatest thing about all of this though is that the ex-MIL does this every single week, even twice sometimes. Take today for example. The kids are at the mall right now surely running around causing all sorts of trouble and I don't have to deal with it. I mean I feel a little bad for the 60+ year old woman that has to chase them, but hell I gave her a stroller for the little one so at least she is mobile.

The really sad part that has me dreading the rest of the summer is that this woman is leaving for a whole month to visit her daughter in Ontario. I have no idea how I am going to manage having all four of them for 96% of every week until at least Rayden goes back to school and (hopefully) Chris starts preschool. I can barely manage a weekly trip to the grocery store with the babe as it is. I don't know, maybe Im just being overly worried about nothing. I did handle three kids all by myself and the youngest of them was only a babe, so whats one more?