This is not what I signed up for

There are few parenting tasks that are as hard as administering medicine to a child who doesn't want to take it. Michael's RAD has reared its ugly head once more which means I have to use the big guns - the nebulizer and albuterol. Not only does the albuterol make him wired beyond belief, but he has once again developed a huge aversion to the nebulizer again. There's nothing quite like pinning a 40lb/45" preschooler who is half a step away from complete hysterics while keeping a mask on his face for the ten minutes or so it takes for the albuterol to completely vaporize. Thankfully, his respirations aren't that bad but he's having retractions so skipping it isn't an option and I have no desire to make a late night visit to CHOP if his respirations get high which they have a history of doing.

Because misery loves company, Alex is steps (ha) away from walking so I have the joy of a milestone driven sleep regression on top of the white noise of teething. I hate the triteness of the phrase, but This too shall pass has been my mantra. It won't always be this intense and in the grand scheme of things this period is just a drop in the bucket. Unfortunately, that provides little comfort while I'm in the thick of it and ready to sell my soul for sleep and time alone.

We had a fairly quiet Christmas with lots of pictures which I'll get around to posting at some point. John got me Lego Batman for my Nintendo DS and has been working hard to make sure I get some time to actually play it the past few days. Michael loves his WALL-E and EVE action figures and his Matchbox car case is seeing a lot of use. Alex has a new to him walker/ride-on car which isn't seeing use as a walker yet but he's been having a lot of fun playing with the gadgets on it.

Peace has descended on my livingroom for the moment, so I'll take my leave now.

This should be pretty

Well, my latest project in Noro Silk Garden Sock definitely is, but the week isn't shaping up to be.

Alone time today was a bust. I was way too wound up to even think of leaving - all I'd be doing is waiting for the cell to ring telling me I needed to come home. Anyways, Alex woke up not 10 minutes after I finished writing the last post and then another twenty minutes after that. Not much of a nap, but he doesn't want his arms swaddled anymore and wants to nurse until he's sleepy, but suck on the pacifier and pet/squeeze by breast or arm until he falls asleep so we've got this learning curve to look forward to all week. He's also a little stopped up from solids and his top teeth are slowly coming in 'cause you know misery loves company. As if this wasn't enough to be going with, he has a repeat weight check on Wednesday. I know he's gained weight - it's a question of how much. Anything over a pound and I'll be ecstatic.

Not to be outdone by his brother - Michael has been nursing a cough for the past week which has finally crossed the line from little cough to full-on unproductive-if this goes on for more than a few days we'll be in prednisone hell-kind of cough. He's now getting some guaifenesin in addition to his ventolin and I am praying that it will be enough. I'm kicking myself for not being as on top of it as I could this past week - I only gave the ventolin for a day or two when it first started and it almost disappeared for a few days so he didn't get anything then. If anything, I need to talk to his ped so I can get some sort of regimen going for when the cough starts.

Well, I have dinner waiting for me downstairs and then I'm off to bed. Hopefully both of them will sleep better tonight (frankly, anything would be better than last night), but I'm not holding my breath. If it's really bad, I think I may ask John to take a sick day to help me because I'm not sure if I can keep my shit together after several nights of crappy sleep. Who am I kidding - it's been close to a year since I've had a decent night's sleep, but the past few days have been a bit more heinous than most.

I've been doing a little more thinking on the whole, "You'll miss it when they're older" sentiment, and I think the thing that pisses me off the most about it, is that I want to be able to savor those moments now and my reserves are so damned low that I am missing them. More to come - when I can write coherently which may mean that you are in for quite a wait.

TTFN.

My open window

Just a quickie because I should be in bed.

After a very rough start this morning where I questioned my abilities to be a mother to two kids who seem determined to skate within an inch of my limits I had a wonderful afternoon. Alex devoured a rice rusk and played with some cereal before I decided to try and put him down for a nap - and he slept for an hour and a half. I spent the whole time not daring to actually start anything for fear that he would wake up. After he woke and nursed again I managed to make Michael some pancakes and we all had dinner - Alex made some faces at the broccoli I tried to give him, attacked and devoured two rice rusks and made a good effort to get some Joe's O's into his mouth (doesn't quite have a pincer grasp yet). After we had eaten I got Michael dressed and we went for a walk. Got home about 7, Alex asleep by 7.20 and Michael asleep by 8pm. I just finished nursing Alex after his FIRST wake-up since he fell asleep - an almost unheard of occurrence (10.30 - woo hoo!).

On a nursing front, his latch is greatly improved and I still smell strongly of maple syrup. I'm going to give it another week and start a slow taper off the herbs and see what happens.

This I could live with. Please let me not have just jinxed myself.

As if there wasn't enough going on right now

I am bowing to the siren call of the Ravelympics and discounted yarn. I want to knit the boys matching sweaters for Christmas and had settled on a yarn (Cascade Ecological Wool), but not a pattern yet. I checked in the other day to see a new post on the Rosie's Yarn Cellar blog saying that not only were they "sponsoring" a Ravelympics team, but they were offering a 15% discount on yarn. Some hurried sleuthing later, I've settled on making Sherwood from Knitty. The only fly in the ointment is that Rosie's only has two skeins in a few colors of the Eco Wool, not the three that I would really need to get two sweaters so I'll only be doing Michael's right now.

So let's see - the perennial Knitty submission (which is going in this year, dammit), all of my regular knitting, 17 days to knit a sweater for my Michael (which to be honest really is closer to a woman's small), and two high-maintenance kids. I am insane and I have the papers to prove it.

On the good side, I smell of maple syrup and Alex is nursing well again, he is napping in his bed, and I actually got 7 hours of broken sleep last night with a nice three-hour chunk thrown in so things are about as well with the world as they can be right now.

Random happenings...

Never, ever tell anyone how happy you are that it's 7pm, the kids are both asleep, and the husband isn't due home for two hours. Five, count them, five times I had to go back into the room to get Alex back to sleep - and these weren't just pop the pacifier in and bounce him in the amby trips but full on have to nurse for ten minutes EACH FLIPPIN TIME.

Slacker mom moments - Michael turned four two weeks ago and Alex is now five months old. Where did the time go? I did make up a photo montage for Michael but I kept having to tweak it to get things right and I just gave up after the umpteenth time, it'll get up at some point. It's a good thing that Alex looks almost exactly like Michael at this age - the disturbing lack of pictures chronicling his infancy won't look so apparent. But Alex has all the hand knits so it does balance out.

Wore Alex in the Kozy that H lent me and I'm not completely sold. My lower back is very happy with me, but the straps kept creeping closer to my neck and putting pressure on the exact wrong spots on my shoulders. Alex also does not seem to be a big fan of it and only tolerates it. We'll see - after the vacation I'll probably design my own with wider, more wrap-like shoulders and see how that works for us.

Two weeks ago I bought blue semi-permanent hair dye (yes - I aspire to be *that* mother) and have not mustered the gumption to use it. I think tonight may be the night.

Vacation prep continues. Not much else doing. I'm off to try and knit for a bit before bed. 'Night all.

Squee!

This has been an interesting day. I got a detention from the powers that be for mouthing off and I have to say I'm pretty proud of it. We all had a family nap this morning and I think I'm finally figuring out one of the missing pieces of the puzzle with regards to Alex's napping - he needs to be bundled up. I put him in one of the fleece sleep sacks I have and tried to nurse him to sleep for a nap and of course he woke when I put him in the Amby bed (still getting the hang of transferring him). I decided to head upstairs and pop onto the computer so I had him sort of on my knee - his back to my chest and my arm across his chest under his arms. He actually fell asleep in that position for and slept for a good 30 minutes or so - I think the sleep sacks are going to be the way to go. I'll have to track down some cotton ones for next month when the weather starts getting warmer.

Last but not least - I got to go out for my knitting group tonight! I made the decision while I was nursing him to sleep at 6.30 and low and behold he stayed asleep! I've missed my group so much and getting to hang out with them without that little bit of guilt that is always involved when I leave John with both of them was great.

A crafts update is in the works, as are long overdue pics of the boys. Lots more to do tonight so TTFN!

Just a couple of fun things...

Check out this retelling of Thomas the Tank Engine by way of the Bolshevik Revolution...
The Really Revolutionary Train

I wish I had a link for it, but someone on one of John's boards put forth the theory that Sir Topham Hat is in fact a necromancer who binds the souls of children into trains and other vehicles on Sodor. If you have ever had the misfortune to actually sit through an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine, you will agree with me that this notion is not too far fetched.

And here's this lovely chestnut - Scamming the Scammer, The Tale of the P-P-P Powerbook. The fake powerbook he sent is truly a work of art.

As much as it sucks, and man does it ever, I am going to head to bed now at the same time as Michael because Mr. Man the Second was partying all night long last night and many allegories were made between my life as it is now and The Prisoner. I'm not feeling quite as bad today thanks to the boy's uncanny ability to stop just shy of pushing me over the edge (and I really mean just shy). John got a lead on an Amby Bed to see if we can help Alex sleep better and me regain some modicum of sanity.

All right - off to bed I go. 'night all!

Only I

... could have this strange half-dream.

Last night John and I watched the beginning of one of the This American Life episodes on Showtime. We only lasted a few minutes before realizing that it was way too depressing for us to watch and decided that we really didn't like the format. It was the first time that either of us saw Ira Glass, the host, and we both agreed that he didn't quite fit our mental picture. We ended up watching John Waters instead.

Fast forward to waking up at 2am to nurse Alex. While I was nursing him and half dozing in the chair I had this half dream where my life that evening was an episode of This American Life on NPR and Ira Glass was narrating it - it was very realistic, I could hear the sympathy in his voice as he described how I had to wrench myself out of bed after only being asleep for two and a half hours, my yearning for three or more hours of contiguous sleep and knowing that my day would most likely be beginning at 5.30. All fit into the normal radio format for the program.

Very, very surreal.

Off to bed - 'night all.

Zen

I am seriously having the hardest time getting into a zen-state with Alex. The fact that I am typing this one-handed should give you a pretty good picture. I am very close to saying the hell with my back and using the sling in the evening again. My back may hate me for it but he'll sleep, my chiropractor will have a lot of business, and most importantly I won't be holing in tears and screams when he wakes for the umpteenth time after being rocked and held for an hour.

Sorry folks, sleep deprivation is my life right now, so that's what you get.

---

ETA
It's not really that bad, just hit a crisis point earlier. I just found out I'll have some company knitting a sweater that I hope to have done for Alex's baptism at the end of the month. I don't feel like going through all the hoops I'd have to to pump enough milk to go out Tuesday night, but I'll definitely pop Alex in the wrap and head out to Starbucks for some music and knitting therapy. Here's hoping he'll sleep for me.

Sorry for typos - still one-handed and in the dark.