March Madness

The Sutherlands will be here in 3 hours! Brian left for St. Louis on Sunday for 8 days but it's all ok because the Sutherlands are coming!!! Icing on the cake: forecast for the next 2 days is sunny and 82!

We just had a series of really awful nights with Andrew. He was up and up and up. And crying and screaming and just plain yelling. I stood outside the door and could hear him take a breath and then just YEELLLLLLL! It was enough. I've said that before, but really, this is a boy behaving like a toddler, not a baby. I e-mailed some ECFE moms and the best advice I got is what I've been thinking anyway. It was time to lay down the law and do some serious sleep training. It's exactly what we did with Jackson but with Jack the crying lasted about 15 minutes and it worked for him at 7 weeks. I started it all on Friday night. The main focus is this: it is night time and you are not getting out of your crib until the morning. Andrew falls asleep at 7:00 pm just fine but he wakes up frequently and won't go back to sleep until he is nursed. Those days are through. The first night was awful. He woke up about 6 or 7 times. Each time I'd let him cry for a while and then go it and lay him down without picking him up. I'd rub his hair a little and tell him it was ok and that I was near by but he needed to go to sleep. He'd cry for a while, go back to sleep, and then start all over again. I got about 3 hours of sleep. Saturday night was a little better with less wake-ups and about 5 hours of sleep. Last night was a marked improvement. He went down at 7 p.m., woke up at 12:30 - I went in and laid him down, and he didn't get up until about 7:15. Dare I hope for even more tonight? The best part of it all is that he is not being nursed in the night. The poor kid has been just exhausted during the days - he took a 2 hour nap AND a 3 hour nap yesterday. I am still nursing in the morning and at night. I am torn on quitting altogether until he starts drinking something else with calcium and vit. D. So far he won't so he's only getting it from me.

We met our new babysitter today!!! She came recommended from a friend. She is her coworkers daughter. Erin is a freshman at K-State. She came over this morning to meet me and the boys before she watches them on Thursday night. She is very sweet and kind of quiet, which Jack responds very well to. I expected he would not talk to her and hide by me. He talked to a lot and even wanted to play a game with her. I was impressed with both of them. My friend e-mailed me later to say that Erin called her mom at work to say how cute and sweet the boys are and that she wished I would work this summer so she could watch them. How nice! I feel great about having her and now have a list a mile long of all the things I want to do sans-children. I WILL have to get a job to afford it all. The going rate here is about $4 an hour per child.

I have been without dairy, soy, or peanuts for 2 weeks now. The cravings are pretty much gone but it still is tough when I am hungry. It requires more planning to eat this way. Things need to be prepared. I've been substituting olive oil for butter in a few things and it's usually pretty good. Maybe I will lose weight on this plan after all.

If I could just stop getting those jelly beans.