sleep training

It's been pretty busy as usual around here the last couple of weeks. The big news is that Owen has begun some pretty serious sleep training. Last weekend we started "phase I" which was teaching him to fall asleep on his own. Now I know that all of you baby-wise moms are rolling your eyes because he did not already have this skill at four months of age, but give the guy a break. He's had some serious reflux (much helped by meds...and now all you earthy-type moms are probably rolling the eyes) and a hearty round of colic. Both of these are mostly resolved. The colic is over, (thank you, Lord!) and the reflux is managed pretty well by the medicine, as long as we keep the dose increased to match his weight gain.
So, after feeling like prisoners in our own home for 4 months, we finally started the sleep training last weekend. We were following the directives of a pediatric sleep specialist from St. Louis, and it was so helpful to have specific advice from an expert in the area who knew all the details of Owen's history and habits. Her instructions were pretty involved, but a small price to pay for some sanity around here!!
So the weekend before last, the Phase I of the training went very well without any super-long bouts of crying from the little guy. He was ready, and so were we! By the second night, he did not cry at all when going down for the night.
We started Phase II this past Monday night, and the goal was to end the middle-of-the-night wakings. I have never been more ready for anything in my life. The 4 days leading up to this "Phase II" were particularly dreadful. Steve was out of town for those 4 days, and little O-man had some of his worst nights. He would go down without any problem, but be awake every other hour or so. And sometimes, he would not go back to bed. for hours at a time. On Saturday, he was awake from 2:30 in the morning until 5:30 in the morning, at which point the snow plows came through and woke up Ava. So I was up from 2:30 am until bedtime that night. dreadful. I was going to try to nap during one of their naps, but he only slept for 17 minutes at a time. Sooo, to try and remedy his sleep deprivation, we ended up driving up and down the highway for a couple of hours so he could finally sleep. This was good for him, but a silly thing to ask an extremely sleep-deprived parent to do. ha. I stayed on the phone most of the time as to not get drowsy.
In spite of the felt exhaustion, we did have some nice times over the weekend. I happened to read Psalm 46 that Friday, which states that "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble...God will help her at break of day...The Lord Almighty is with us...Be still and know that I am God." I couldn't physically be still for too long, but God stilled my heart and my mind and gave me the grace and endurance to persevere and be joyful.
So Phase II started Monday night, and per instructions, Steve was handling these wakings. He truly deserves a medal of honor or maybe even a parade. The little guy was up and down all night long. Then night number two came along. It was a Christmas miracle in February. Coop put him down at 8:45, and he slept until 6:30 in the morning. Thank you, Lord! And thanks to all you women out there praying for us in this process! Hopefully that will become a trend for little Owen!
We have some travel plans in the near future, so we're hoping to keep the ball rolling despite the change of scenery!
We also started the rice cereal when he turned 4 months old. Owen seems to have a love-hate relationship with this stuff. Some days, he downs a whole barrel of the pasty substance, other days, you can't get a bite in him. This was his first taste of baby food.

PeaPod Groceries

I'm looking around the Peapod website, and I have a feeling that this service may change my life.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a little Valentine's Day Celebration this evening. My dad had sent me flowers today, and Steve came home with flowers for his girls. : ) Owen liked them too, and he fit in well with the bouquet. I love you, Steve! Happy Valentine's Day!

The Dells

I addition to The Domes, my friend had also talked about different places to stay at the dells, and I was feeling a little stir crazy. So that Friday afternoon around 3pm we decided to leave town for a weekend away at the dells. Who says you can't be spontaneous with 2 young kids? I got online, booked a place, packed up, found a dog-sitter, and when Steve got home he loaded the car and we took off on a great adventure.

The Dells are in the middle of WI, about a 2 hour drive from our house. The place is almost exactly like Branson, but with less tacky billboards and more indoor water parks. Ava loved the indoor amusement park and water park we went to on Saturday. She went on the Tea Cup ride with Coop, rode the merry-go-round, and even took a turn on this crazy ride. I was shocked! After some time at the amusement park, we crossed over to the indoor water park. It was pretty big, and it had lot of toddler-friendly attractions as well.

She liked it so much that she couldn't seem to settle into a nap that afternoon. By the time we went to dinner, all 4 of us were a little worn out. Owen fussed throughout the meal, Ava whined, and Steve and I tried to eat at least some of the meal we had ordered. Steve and I took turns walking with Owen while the other one ate with Ava. It was exhausting, actually. The next morning we drove around in order to scout out a different place to stay for our next trip and then drove back home before noon. It was a lot of work, but it was fun. Glad we went, but I'm no longer stir crazy. ha.

The Domes & The Dells

So when I ran into my friend at Generations last Thursday, she also invited us to join her at The Domes the next morning. The Domes are a lot like the dome at the Botanical Gardens in STL, except that there are three of them here. There's a tropical dome, a desert dome, and a "show" dome that hosts traveling exhibits and what not. This month they had a legoland demo set up in the show dome. We had a really great time there. The sun was shining that morning, so it felt like a spring day inside the domes! There were lots of different lego scenes scattered around the gardens, but Ava's favorite by far were the model trains running throughout. She really got a kick out of them. It smelled so good in there with all of the flowers. We hung out for a long time, enjoying a mini-version of Spring. Yeah!

From disappointment to a delightful morning

Last Thursday, Steve let me sleep in till 7:30 because Owen had such a stinkin' night. He's the best hubby. ever. Well, this made our morning routine a little compressed if we were going to make it to MOPS, but I was pretty determined. Childcare, free food, friends--let's just say I was highly motivated. So we bust out of here with much rush and arrive in a decent window of time to the church. I see other moms with their preschoolers heading into the building. We head in ourselves, and this was tricky bc the DH had the car washed and I couldn't open the back to get out the stroller. So I'm lugging both kids (+ pumpkin seat) in my arms over the ice. We get in, get down the hall, and there's no check-in table. I had the wrong week. Are you kidding me? I had received emails that week and everything about who was bringing what food, etc. I guess the food-coordinator was super ahead of schedule. great. The appearance of other moms was due to a weekly Bible study at that church that provided childcare.
Well, I was not about to let all of that effort of packing up and heading out and mittens and fleece coat liners and car-seat covers go to waste, so we headed to Generations at Play. This is a fun little coffee shop/indoor play area for preschoolers and their mommies. We had never been, so we headed over to check it out. Upon walking in, I see another gal who sits at my table at MOPS. Yeah! So our kids played and we chatted and I met another friend of hers and I had the yummiest mug of hot chocolate I have ever tasted. It was such a handy venue bc the set up wasn't too big, so it was somewhat easy to watch Ava without having to shadow her around the place. Plus they had some great snack options for sale like grapes, yogurt, crackers, muffins, so all in all, we made out like bandits. It was so nice to see this other mom there and have some conversation all morning. Plus, this conversation included a tip-off to a couple of other fun things to do around Milwaukee, so we had another fun outting on Friday. and another Friday night. More to come.
Here's a pic of Owen, just because.