Tag: Kids & Parenting

All Mommy Wants For Christmas Is A Silent Night

Published by dee on December 13, 2007

It seems like all I can write about lately is how busy and tired I am. It comes along with the season. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to keep up with everything going on around me. Besides the usual hustle and bustle of the holidays, two of my nephews celebrate their birthdays at the end of the year and my whole family is waiting for my brother’s baby to be born any day now. Every time my phone rings I’m hoping it is them saying they are on their way to the hospital.

Add onto that the fact that I’m in my sixth month of pregnancy and I have a two-year-old who still doesn’t want to sleep at night (although there has been some improvement with the sleeping situation). I am just so very tired. Even when I do get to sleep, I’m sleeping restlessly, waking over and over again through the night. It is frustrating to say the least. I just can’t stay comfortable for long enough in one position to get a good night’s sleep. Without sleep, it becomes much more difficult to focus, much less actually complete any tasks. I think the most difficult thing I’ve done all week was baking and decorating cookies with Zach.

I thought I was actually going to get a break tonight when Zachary turned to me and asked if it was bed time at 7:40 tonight. I thought maybe I could get a few extra minutes to myself and maybe even turn in early for the night. Considering that I haven’t been able to get him to bed before 9:00 lately, I was ecstatic that he actually wanted to go to bed. I took him back to his room, read a couple (or five) books to him, sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with him, and tried to get him settled in for the night. By the time I got out of his room it was about 8:30.

I sat down on the couch to eat some dinner, relax, and watch TV for a few minutes. Before I knew it, I heard the pitter-patter of little feet coming down the hallway. Since it’s an almost nightly occurrence, I knew to expect it. The boy can find a million and one reasons to get back out of bed. After three or possibly four trips to the living room with a new excuse each time, I think he is finally settling down…at 9:30, almost two hours after we started the whole process. Now I can finally begin my evening. So much for going to bed early.

The good news is that Zach is actually sleeping better through the night. Instead of waking up over and over again all night long, he is only waking once or twice and settling back down pretty easily. Once he settles back down, he generally sleeps the rest of the night. You would think this would help me get a little more sleep, but I’m still waking up all night long. It is a little frustrating.

All I really want right now is a few nights of good, solid sleep. I’m so tired of waking up with burning eyes, headaches, and just general aches from tossing and turning all night. Even though I’m excited to share Christmas with my family this year, I’m also anxious for it to be over and for things to just slow back down. I need time to do nothing, to relax, and to sleep. I’m really looking forward to January.

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Trying To Find Some Christmas Spirit

Published by dee on December 4, 2007

No matter how much I want to slow it down, Christmas seems to be coming up very quickly. I always enjoy the shopping, but I’m not exactly finding myself in the Christmas spirit yet. We’ve decorated the tree, pulled out the Christmas music, and have been reading all of Zach’s Christmas books, but I’m just not feeling it yet.

I really want Zach to get excited about Christmas this year because for some reason I think that if he gets excited it will help me get more excited. I’m not sure he really understands the whole concept yet, but I’m trying to teach him little by little what to expect on Christmas morning. I also would like to find a book written on a toddler level that tells the biblical Christmas story so he can learn that as well.

In my effort to get us both a little more excited, I decided to pull out the construction paper and have a little craft time with Zach. He wasn’t too sure about it at first, but once he found out he got to use glue he got a little more excited.

He worked really hard for a while, picking out the right colors and gluing each strip.

He got pretty excited when he started seeing results and figured out that we were actually making something with all of that paper and glue.

Zach got a little bored before we were finished. What can I say? He has the attention span of a two-year-old for some reason. While he watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I finished up the chain. He came back to help a couple of times. I was pretty tired of it myself by the time I finally glued the last strip.

When all was said and done, we hung our Christmas paper chain up along the doorway next to the Christmas tree. Zach was very excited to see the finished product. I was just glad that it was finally done. I have to say that it was kind of fun while Zach and I were working together on it though. I can’t wait until he gets just a little bit older and we can do more things like this together.

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Building Traditions

Published by dee on November 27, 2007

After trying for several days now, I finally found time tonight to get the Christmas tree up and decorated. I was really hoping that Zach would get excited about helping this year and I was not disappointed. He handed Hubby and I branches as we put the tree together (yes, fake tree). He watched excitedly as I wrapped the tree in lights and garland. Then he helped hang the decorations on the branches. The only problem was that he wanted to hang all of the decorations on the exact same branch. I had to do a little bit of rearranging when he was finished, but it was totally worth it to watch him enjoy this small part of our family’s Christmas tradition.

When the tree was finished we decided it was time for a little snack so we finished the night up with this:

It was so good it may very well become a new holiday tradition.

I’m really excited to celebrate Christmas with Zach this year. I can’t wait to read him the Christmas story and teach him the true meaning of Christmas. He may not really understand it quite yet, but I still want to introduce it to him. I’m anxious to teach him the songs that I have sung since I was a young child. I can’t wait for him to experience the true spirit of Christmas, celebrating with family and friends. But the best part is building new traditions that my own little family will carry on for years to come.

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I'm Glad He Won't Remember This Day

Published by dee on November 26, 2007

My sister snapped this photo at my mom’s house on Thanksgiving while I was snuggling with the kids on the couch. Zach and Ryan were pretty consumed watching Toy Story at the time and Brayden was just interested in those things the older boys were shoving in their mouths. As for myself, I was just enjoying being surrounded by three of my favorite kids.

This is how I feel most natural, surrounded by kids. I love them all, but Zach and my nephews have such a special place in my heart. They bring so much joy to my life. That’s why when I get frustrated and lose my cool with any of them it breaks my heart and I wonder if I’m really cut out for this parenting thing. I know kids act up and I should be prepared for that, but sometimes my frustration overtakes me and I lash out.

The whole losing my cool thing has been happening a bit too often lately. Instead of consistent disciplining, I find myself yelling and having the urge to spank out of frustration. I know it has a lot to do with the lack of sleep and Zach’s seemingly endless tantrums these days, but I find it happening more and more often. The less Zach sleeps, the less I sleep and we both end up crankier and crankier.

This morning, during an almost hour long tantrum I lost control to the point that I scared myself. After a night of very little sleep, Zach was screaming and thrashing around and refusing to cooperate with anything. I was getting later and later for work and he was getting more and more obstinate as the minutes went by. I had to hold him down to get his clothes on him and after he kicked his shoes off for about the fifth time I was spent.

I felt myself growing more and more angry and knew I needed to take a step back. I finally managed to wrestle him into his car seat and strapped him in. The car was in the garage, so I left him there for a couple minutes while I stepped back inside the house and tried to calm myself down. It didn’t take long. I just needed a couple of deep breaths and a moment to put things into perspective.

When I came back to the car, Zach was still screaming (just as I expected) but I was in a different frame of mind. He finally settled down shortly before we got to his school. I wanted so badly to turn the car around, go home, and just hold him for the rest of the day. Instead, I had to take him inside to his class where he clung to me with a death grip. When his teacher finally pulled him away from me, I had to listen to his screams all the way to the door.

I left his school with tears in my eyes, knowing that all he really wanted was some time with me this morning and I was in too big of a rush to give it to him. After being away from him all weekend, I couldn’t give him a few extra minutes of my time when he needed it. The worst part of it all is feeling like I let him down.

By the time I picked Zach up from school tonight, he was perfectly fine and had most likely forgotten about the whole thing. I was the one in need of some extra snuggling by that time and he was happy to oblige.

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Lunch with Toddlers

Published by dee on November 16, 2007

Today I got the pleasure of going to school and eating lunch with Zach. They had a parents luncheon for Thanksgiving where all the parents got to come have lunch with their kids. It was chaotic to say the least. Sitting at a table with 8 two-year-olds was an experience that I’ve never really had before. In between every bite I could shove in my mouth were requests for more juice or mac and cheese, which were the two most popular things at our table.

The food was actually quite good but the dessert table was the most impressive. I had a hard time choosing between the many cakes, pies, and cookies spread out. I ended up with samples of peach cobbler, apple pie, some kind of brownie/cookie concoction, and a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie.

I was also impressed with the table decorations, although I have to say that candles, tablecloths, and toddlers don’t really mix well. The kids had the candles blown out within a few minutes and the tablecloths barely managed to stay on the table.

The whole thing really was fun though. I loved seeing how excited Zach was when I showed up for lunch. Only a couple of other parents showed up for his class so they were all calling me “mom” for a while. The hard part came when I had to leave and go back to work. Zach wasn’t at all happy that I was leaving and didn’t want to let go. Eventually a teacher had to come peel him off of me so I could escape.

I’m really thankful that I have a boss that is so flexible and allowed me to take an extra hour at lunch so I could be with Zach. I really had a great time and I know Zach enjoyed me being there.

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Late Night Ramblings

Published by dee on November 15, 2007

I’ve had a post in my mind all day that I want to write, but somehow I can’t find the words to write it quite yet. It certainly doesn’t help that I had to spend an hour fighting with my obstinate son just to get him to go to bed. Somehow in the process I lost all of the thoughts that were written out in my head. Hopefully that post will still be coming but I just don’t have it in me to write it tonight.

Instead I’ll let you contemplate on just how in the world this boy with such an adorable little face can turn into a demon every night when bed time comes around. It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to get him to bed, depending on what kind of mood he is in. We have a routine set in place, but no matter how hard I try to stick to the routine, he’ll always find a way to break it up. I’ve even gone so far as to use Super Nanny methods of keeping him in bed but so far it hasn’t worked. Perhaps I’m just not strict enough.

One of his biggest excuses for getting out of bed is that he’s scared and with the recent onslaught of night terrors and bad dreams, I can’t seem to let that go. How do you really know if a 2-year-old is scared or if he’s just trying to convince you to let him stay up a little longer? I want to believe him and comfort him, but I don’t want to let him totally play me either. On top of that, I really need to get some sleep myself and the recent routine has really thrown my evenings off.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I know there is no magic answer and I know that I’m just going to have to be firm and wait out this phase. I just hate it when I get to the point where I feel like I’m losing control and I’ve gotten to that point more than once lately. And now I’m rambling on when I should be getting myself to bed and getting some sleep.

Please just tell me that this will end, preferably before I have my hands full with an infant.

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