Wishes for a New Year

 

Eric and I don't make New Year's resolutions, exactly.  But our friends Kim and Anondo did tell us about a tradition that Kim picked up when she was an exchange student in Italy.  On New Year's Eve, you get twelve grapes and with each grape you eat, you make a wish.

We started doing this on New Year's Eve 2004 (Eric, reluctantly so.  He typically doesn't like anything that smacks of, oh, I don't know.  Spiritualism?  Good cheer?  But he's come around, and likes looking at the goals now.  We're both often amazed by how many we meet).  We then post the list on the fridge and reflect on it (or laugh at it, or curse it) over the course of the year.  Because it's New Year's eve, we made our list again today, in preparation for the year to come. 12 wishes, 12 months.  Here they are:

1.  Meet health goals consistently.  [This is sort of a cheat-y one.  I have a list of health goals I carry around in my wallet--to move every day, only eat when I'm sitting down, not to eat after 8pm, etc.  So this is one wish that encompasses a bunch of other wishes].

2.  Make a financially responsible decision when we buy a house in Golden, a house that will help us to live a full life.

3.  Live frugally and in accordance with what we value.

4.  Eric wants to read one book a month for a whole year.

5.  Jen wants to publish 2-3 articles.

6.  Drink water [this is Eric's wish, but it's also on my list of health goals].

7.  Maintain or create connections with friends and family.

8.  Have more patience with the girls.

9.  Have an adventure.

10.  No debt.

11.  Express our creative selves [blog? another album for E? who knows?].

12.  Scuba.

The interesting thing we realized when we finished this list was that several of these wishes/goals were on here for the third time running.  We have wanted to be out of debt since 2004; we've wanted to think about moving, get ready to move, then move (A decision three years in the making!); we've wanted to keep in touch with friends and family; we've wanted to make healthy decisions; and so on.  That might seem strange, might seem that we haven't been meeting these goals.  But it could also mean that our values are pretty consistent, and that we're fine-tuning them.  Maybe it's some of both.

For example, the debt thing has dogged us for a long time.  Mostly, I've thought about this wish in terms of making more money.  But it's only been recently that I've realized we also need to spend less.  I know, duh.  But for some reason, this option didn't seem real to me until the last few months.  Now it is, so we'll see where this wish ends up at the end of the year.  Hopefully selling this house will help to wipe out some of the base debt we have, and we'll be able to keep our slate clean by living and spending frugally after that.  This Christmas was sort of an initial test of that, and we did okay.  It was hard seeing so many gifts pass hands and know that we didn't give as much this year as we did last year (though we still managed to spend almost $2000 on travel and gifts.  Geesh).  Frugality in and of itself might be an adventure.

The other thing these reflections do is remind us of what an incredible life we have--of how much we value our friends, family, and self-expression, and how we continually try to make decisions in line with those values.  Christmas was also a reminder of that--the amazing, thoughtful gifts people gave us, the meals and laughter together, the phone calls and cards.  Truly awesome stuff. 

Breakthrough Two

 

I've written about breakthroughs before--just when you think you're going to throw your child out the window from frustration, they change in some small way that gives you hope or makes life just that much easier so that you close that window and decide to keep the kid after all.  This is a good thing to remember, if you can, when you're going through a rough patch with your kid(s). 

In Denver, we have a saying:  "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes."  Things are constantly changing.  My friend Cortney (mom of two) gave me this advice when I was pregnant with Addie:  Things change about every three weeks, she said.  You may think you've got something good going, and in three weeks, you may have to invent a whole new way of doing that thing.  Same goes for struggles, though--wait three weeks, and the problem will probably have resolved itself without your doing anything.

I wrote a few days ago about Nolie's exhausting sleep routine (exhausting for us--not for her).  I've been struggling with when to let Nolie cry it out--when to give her the chance to soothe herself to sleep.  It's been tough to make this choice, because several nights a week, she goes to sleep pretty well with the exhausting sleep routine, and hearing her scream in her crib has been akin to nails on the chalkboard.  But the nights and naptimes that it isn't working, or only works after several hours, are increasing in number.  So, I've just been sort of waiting for the tipping point.

Which was last night.  Nolie went down after Eric gave her the "treatment" at 8pm; she woke at 1am, and I fed her.  She feel asleep, but was up again 20 minutes later.  I fed her again, but at some point I looked down at her, and her eyes were wide open.  She gave me a big grin, and I knew we were in for it.  Two and a half hours of her cooing and playing and whining later, I handed her over to Eric for the second "treatment."  Thankfully, she slept until 8.  Maybe I'm spoiled.  Maybe this doesn't sound that bad.  But to me, it felt like misery.  I haven't been sleeping well for several nights now, and this just felt like the capper.  Plus, it is about 30 degrees in our house at night, making staying up with baby that much tougher.

So, once Nolie was giving some tired signs this morning, I put her down in her crib, unswaddled and out of her bouncy chair.

No dice.

Then, inspiration.  Change something else.  To my great surprise, Nolie downed her first two bowls of rice cereal like they were manna.  This made me happy--Nolie is one step closer to people-ness:  she eats food! (dreams of normal-size breasts dance in my head).  Then the sleepy signs really increased, so I gave Noles the death swaddle and laid her down in the crib (no bouncy seat) and made a commitment to myself to let her cry for at least an hour.

Ah-ha!  Five minutes of very loud screaming later?  Quiet Nolie.  Sleeping Nolie.

A few minutes ago she awoke and cried a little.  I didn't go in right away, and she quieted herself.  She's sleeping again now.  The season of miracles, indeed.

Will we be able to replicate this tonight?  I hope so.  But breakthroughs have their fits and starts.  The point is that there's hope, and maybe more sleep, in our future.

Snowed In

We just got socked with about two feet of snow, and Addie and I just got back from a walk--she was in the pack, and I was trying not to fall on my ass.  So, she's going to help me write this blog.  Here's what she has to say:

sink

I don't know.

mail

Go to Nancy's.  Nancy wasn't home.

a letter pack

That's it, friends.  Straight from the mouths of babes.  Apparently Addie isn't feeling too talkative today.  Here's the picture she wants us to post today, though (not sure why she likes it--Nolie's acne was pretty agro in this shot):

 

 

Lumps and Bumps

We've moved Addie into the queen-sized bed in the guest room in preparation for trying to sell the house (and thus cutting down on visible kid stuff, like her little toddler bed).  She was growing out of the toddler bed, anyway, so it made sense to move her into the bigger bed and the bigger room, where there is also more space to play.

Major business seems to be conducted in Addie's room, particularly during those naptimes or evenings where she's not particularly tired.  She doesn't have much but her books and stuffed animals in there, but she manages to make it sound as if she's heaving sacks of dead warthogs against the walls.  There is much great thumping and bumping.

There is also a lot of rattling of the doorknob, and cries of "Mommydaddymommydaddymommydaddy I did a big yucky poop!"  Which we are more than happy to respond to:  I'll sprint to her room to prevent more poop fingerpainting.

But lately, she's been summoning us for less urgent matters.  For example, last night, she was rattling the door and calling for mommydaddy; when Eric opened the door, she looked at him and said, "Daddy?  Walk and talk rhyme." 

Newsflash, friends.  Walk and talk rhyme.  Our two-and-a-half-year old (whom we smugly call "baby genius," when we're not calling her "annoying") is kept awake at night thinking of words that rhyme.  Future poet?  Lyricist?  Insomniac?  Only time will tell.

Addie has also been very interested in being helpful lately--she wants to help make dinner, clean the kitchen floor, fetch Nolie toys, and so on.  Addie especially likes handing me my towels as I'm getting out of the bath.  The minute she hears me pull the plug, she's standing there (she appears like--who was it, on The Addams Family, Uncle Fester?--out of thin air, scaring the crap out of me sometimes) with a towel in hand.  It's like having my very own pint-sized butler.

Anyway, I was toweling off today and Addie pointed at my crotch and asked, "What's that?"  "Uh, hair," I told her.  She moved around to the back and gave my butt a few good whacks.  "Mommy?  This is all bumpy and lumpy!" 

I had to laugh because, well, she's right.  My butt is bumpy and lumpy.  And she said it without any judgment, just as an observation, so I appreciated that.  It's a reminder to just observe myself without judment now and then, too.

Death Swaddles and Lullabies

 

Nolie's been a pretty good sleeper, really.  Oh, there will be a night or two a week where she'll wake up two or three times to eat, but that's usually because her stomach is gassy from not pooping, and it passes (you know, passes).  But she's definitely not a nightmare sleeper, not a kid who screams all night or who has to be held constantly or who we're going to have to kick out of the family bed at thirteen [ed. note:  There's nothing wrong with the family bed.  We co-slept with both our kids for the first few months of their lives, until they became hot and squirmy and slept better in their cribs].

In fact, Nolie sleeps through the night four or five nights a week; if she does wake up, it's usually for a quick top-off from the old nip, and back she goes. 

Here's the thing, though.  It's kind of a production to actually get her to sleep.  First, she has to be in a death-swaddle, one that Eric is extremely proficient at executing, in which she is unable to move any limbs.  Second, said swaddle has to be in one of the hospital receiving blankets (the pink and blue striped kind) which we thankfully stole from Presbyterian/St. Luke's after her birth.  Third, she has to be tightly wrapped in her kiddopotamus, so that she can't break out of the death swaddle.  We only own two of these because they're a little pricey and I refuse to buy any more baby gear than is absolutely necessary.  The problem is, Nolie is constantly doing the milk hork all over herself, and so these things have to be washed pretty much every other day.  Great.

Then, she has to be nearly suffocated while we carry her around in the back-breaking, quad-building tango my brother-in-law Steve calls the "Thunder Moccasin Dance" (he has perfected this with his own children, who require no such insane swaddling).  I often do this with my boob in her mouth; Eric muffles her cries in the crook of his arm until she hyperventilates and passes out.

Then, once she is totally quiet, she is placed in a bouncy seat, sans any hangy-things, vibrations, or other distractions.  This bouncy seat is placed, a little precariously, in the crib.

Eric and I keep wondering to ourselves if this is a good thing.  Nolie is getting kind of big, and at some point could ostensibly wiggle herself out of the baby seat, thus cracking her noggin a good one on the crib slats.  It also seems a little weird to us that she's still so into the swaddle--most kids have definitely outgrown it by four months, my web-sleuthing reveals (and, Addie did).  I suppose there is a lame-ass part of us that worries she'll be stunted by not being able to move any of her limbs.  I suppose there is a lame-ass part of me that worries that this baby is going to be insanely needy for the rest of her life. 

Mostly, though, I think we would like to whittle down the production somewhat.  We'd like to shave off a step or two and maybe, just maybe, take a nap ourselves someday.

As a result, today, I tried feeding Nolie in the rocker, unswaddled, until she fell asleep.  Once she (and my left arm) seemed soundly asleep, I tried to lay her in the crib. 

Uh, no.

Two hours of repeating this process over and over and over again, and Nolie was wide awake, looking up at me and giggling.  I suppose she had her nap, though interrupted, and was ready to rock.  I gave her over to Eric, who played with her a while, swaddled her, and has her sleeping peacefully in his arms as I write this.  I had to soak in a hot bath, my nerves and lower back worse for the wear (Eric, on the other hand, is fine.  I wore the baby out for him, and it's football season, so he has an excuse to just hang on the couch anyway).

Nolie has quite clearly let us know that she likes what she likes the way she likes it.

Anyway, the production continues.  My instincts tell me not to force it (like I did with the potty training fiasco this fall), that Nolie will tell us when she's ready to sleep unsheathed.  To paraphrase our good buddy Dr. Sears, whatever works, man.  Whatever works.

Working It In, Working It Out

For a number of reasons, I am finding it nearly impossible to find time to work out.  There's the end-of-semester rush, the holiday mania, the two-small-children-under-the-age-of-three thing.  Eric's got practices and his first solo gig coming up, so he's busier than usual, and then there just seems to be a million little things that have to get done.  Get the dog's heartworm pills, go to the dentist, watch Season 2 of Lost.  And so on.

But I have to fit in a workout somehow, or I become a poor excuse for a human being.  I can feel my cognitive functions slowing, my waistline increasing, my sleep becoming more fraught with stressful dreams.  So, this week, I decided to try some unconventional workout times.  I did yoga one evening at 9pm; that night, I slept beautifully, but didn't get some work done because I was working out.  I got up at 6 another day and did an abbreviated yoga routine--that was okay, though I felt so stiff from sleep that it was really challenging to stretch anything.  I got up yesterday morning at 6:30 to take the dog for a walk, which precipitated my first asthma attack in a year and gave me really sore hips today.

What the hell, I ask you!  I am 31 years old!  Why is a walk with the dog making me sore and asthmatic?  Something is seriously wrong here.

I think part of it is that I am just not made to exercise in the morning.  To say that I am not a morning person is putting it mildly.  The only reason I am up before 9am is because my children wake up and require my attention.  Otherwise I would perennially sleep in.  When I do get up early, it takes me a while to ease into wakefulness.  This makes morning workouts hard.  I refuse to get up before 6 in order to avoid total exhaustion for the rest of the day, but if I get up at 6, I have to start exercising immediately in order to finish before the kids wake up and demand my attention.

Normally, working out at night would probably be fine.  Eric would probably agree to watch the kids for 45 minutes while I walk or run or do yoga.  But it's getting cold and dark here before he even gets home, and I'm a little scared to run in the dark.  I tried doing yoga Tuesday night, but both kids were meltdown mode and just ignoring the melee wasn't an option.

I could work out at 9 more often, I suppose.  Though I'm pretty comatose by that point, after a full day of working and childcare and housework.

The most workable solution would probably be for us to get a double jogger, and for me to bundle the kids up and take them out for a spin.  I'm just resentful of having to buy yet more huge baby gear that is expensive and which we have to store (especially painful when we don't have a garage).  I want to simplify my life--not weigh it down with more stuff.

For a while, I was taking the kids to the gym--they camped out in the daycare for an hour while I worked out.  But the cost of my membership and the daycare was getting prohibitive, and the stress of getting them there and back before naptime wasn't worth it--I would work off the stress of the drive, then have a stressful drive home and undo the workout.  And the kids were fried.

My local yoga studio doesn't have childcare, so Eric has to watch the kids if I want to go.  Which means one more night we don't have together.

These sound like excuses.  They are excuses.  But I'm having trouble finding workable solutions here.  Even those of you without kids must understand--some of you have insane schedules, too.  What do you do?  How do you fit it in?  Help!

Milestones, Maybe

 

Big day for the Schneider kids.

Hallelujah, raise your hands, the roof is on fire, because we seem to be back on the slow train to toiletland.  Addie has been showing some disdain for wet pull-ups the last few days, and on the way home from school yesterday, she initiated a conversation about how big girls go potty in the toilet.

Not wanting to get my hopes up, I debated with myself over what such signs might mean.  Is now the time to push forward?  Or will she just push back again, leaving us firmly stalled at the pull-up depot?  Could this be the window of opportunity we were hoping for?  Our second chance at winning the toilet trophy?

Well, it seems it might be.  It's only been a few days, but here's the data:  I've been wanting to set her up for success, so I've only been asking her to use the potty at times I know she'll need to pee (a few minutes after eating, before nap, before bath).  She's resisted a few times, but I've given her the choice of going potty on the big-person potty or on her little potty--the old change-the-choice trick.  Going potty is the given, which potty she uses is up to her.  Anyway, she's been going a few times a day.  Then, today, she was dry almost the whole day, with one small exception, which she told me about right away. 

I view this as progress.  I'm not going to over-push or put her in her cloth underwear just yet, but I am giving lots of even praise and trying to give her lots of ways to succeed.  Geesh, I hope this works.

And Nolie?  Nolie must have had a big night last night, because she woke up this morning almost able to sit up on her own and wanting to play with Addie.  By play, I mean kick and grab at Addie's legos, which is sweet justice after Addie has destroyed every cool lego structure her dad and I have ever built.  Now she'll have her own Godzilla to contend with.  Nolie's interest in toys seems to have multiplied over night, and she is grabbing at and mouthing everything she can convince her fingers to clutch.

I'm understating the HUGENESS of this.  Just yesterday, Nolie was only content in a tight, could-barely-breathe swaddle.  She would occasionally hit herself in the eye with an errant fist, and wasn't babbling too much.  Now, she's in the ring, for real--talking, grabbing, squealing.  I anticipate walking tomorrow; by the weekend?  Everest.  Anyway, it's an inkling that someday these children might play together, might amuse one another (and yes, I know, scream at and fight with one another).  But this inkling is exciting, and I think it makes Nolie just a little more real to Addie.  And to me.

And, I swear to God, it sounded like Nolie said "mama" today.  Oh, I know she doesn't know what the sounds mean yet.  But it's pretty cool to hear some consonants, and those just happen to be my favorites.

Also, in case you were wondering, yesterday was Puesday, and yes, Nolie did poop.  While sitting on my lap, the minute I finished typing this blog.  It's uncanny.