Confession: I’m addicted to baby sites. I hit refresh on the Babycenter.com groups constantly throughout to day to see what other pregnant mommies are up to and if we’re feeling the same. I also read about the baby’s size (a blueberry as of now), how it is developing this week, how I should be feeling, etc. over and over. Seriously, babies and all the information surrounded them are infectious.

I’ve avoided looking at baby products though, like clothes, cloth diapers, slings, etc. because we have zero extra money for me to be tempted if I did by chance find a super good deal or super cute item.  If I don’t look, I won’t know what I’m missing, right?  But come June when Mark has a full time job, you bet I’ll be on the hunt!

On another note, I’m confused as to how tired I can be or how early I get into bed,  and yet I can’t fall asleep until at least 11pm. And then I wake up a million times. It stinks. And on top of that late falling asleep, Savannah has been waking up during the night for some unknown reason (I tell you, we always have sleep issues! ) or waking up super early like 5 am. Not cool. Thankfully the hubby has taken awesome responsibility with that and has let me rest. That’s love, yall.

It’s now 11pm, so hopefully my mind will let me sleep. But maybe I should get a snack first…

P.S. Did you see the Evenflo Comfort Select Performance Dual Auto-Cycling Breast Pump giveaway is up?

Today has truly been one of those days. You know the kind. The lack of sleep, screaming baby kind of day. Oy.

It started yesterday (though, yesterday wasn’t a bad day) at 6am I get up for school, had classes all day, get home at 10pm. And, finally get to sleep at 11pm after a long 16 hour day.

Then the fun begins: 12:30am Savannah is crying for me. I can tell it’s going to be a rough night so I take my pillows with me hoping I can get away with just being in the same room as her while sleeping.  That’s a no go.  Savannah is clearly wide awake, full of snot and cannot breathe so she decides to talk. And talk and talk.  So I decide to put on Peter Pan in hopes that will keep her entertained while she couldn’t sleep, so that I could sleep.  Again, the girl wouldn’t stop talking and called me to get up every 5 minutes for one reason or another.

2 Disney movies and 5 hours later, I finally convince her to snuggle with me and she falls asleep. But then, her stopped up nose is making her snore and I still can’t sleep!  I move her back to her crib and we both (finally) rest until 7am.  So let’s tally up mommy’s sleep total, shall we?  3.5 hours. Folks, I do not do well with lack of sleep. At all (Just ask my husband). But, some how God is carrying me through with an unnatural strength and patience that I do not own (again, just ask my husband). I am certain of it.

So, we wake up and she realizes Daddy isn’t home and the scream fest begins.  Calling Daddy on the phone wasn’t good enough, nothing was.  She normally doesn’t act like this (plus she’d been complaining of her head hurting, wasn’t eating much, stuffy nose, etc.), so I locked myself away from her screaming noise and called the Dr. to make an appointment.  Here is where the skies turn sunny again: she was actually good at the doctor’s office (unlike past experiences).  Hurrah!  We discovered she not only is teething her last set of molars, but has a cold and ear infection.  My poor girl.

Anyways, it’s an amazing thing to start out a day so crappy and exhausted, but see handprints of God throughout your day to lift your spirits. And carry you through when your eyes are half shut. I think I’ll take a nap when she does though. Yes, I think I deserve it.

I realize I’ve been missing for… oh…about 2 weeks.  Perhaps my brain needed a break after this tough college semester? I had intended to do more blogging over my Christmas break but it obviously did not happen!  I was too busy enjoying family, or just being lazy. Which, I think is pretty well deserved after a challenging college semester.  We are now finally home from all our visits, settling back into a routine (though school doesn’t start for us for another week) and enjoying being back on our own turf.  I slept like a baby last night, not waking up at all (which is quite rare for me). It’s good to be home!

So since it has been so long since I’ve made a real update. Let’s start with Christmas shall we?

As you can see, it was a jolly good time for all.  We matched a lot, both in our PJ’s and outfits.  There were more present than we could bring home (seriously, we had to leave some behind!). Savannah became a chef who enjoys tasting her own cooking way too much.  She also loves her new baby dolls so much, that she wants to be one of them. She is often found sitting in the baby doll crib, in the stroller (which is now nearly broken…), or attempting to climb into the baby high chair. But some times she does do good things like feed the baby doll or take her for a walk. Savannah received the tiniest little tricycle I’ve ever seen that will grow with her as she does. And she loved it, of course (see top left picture). She also was super thrilled about her bus book (thank you dollar aisle in Target). Mark got underwear for Christmas, ha!  Though, appropriately, it was xbox underwear. And I?  I got a new printer, a sea foam green tea pot (Tea is my new coffee), and drum roll please….

A new computer!  Technically, we bought it after Christmas but as Mark told me…it’s my Christmas, birthday and next Christmas present all in one.  I’m fine with that, we needed a new one desperately. My lap top is getting fixed but a brand new one will be more relaiable. Now if only the UPS man would get here with my package….

Also? While we were away we suffered horrible sleep issues.  One night (or morning?) she woke up at 1 am and stayed awake until 7. ONE AM! What nearly 2 year old can handle that much missing sleep? I know I can’t. Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who stayed with her while I caught up on sleep.  She did this stunt again a few days ago, but got up at midnight instead. The trend seems to be this when she doesn’t nap. Yes, we will be inforcing the naps from now on. Period.  Here she is finally, finally asleep after a long night. Does she look huge to you, as she does to me? 

That’s pretty much the latest news for now, I’m off to play blocks with the girl!

I confess, I didn’t get up at 6am for quiet time.  See, just as I was settling down to sleep last night, Savannah decided it was play time.  So, I didn’t get to sleep until 2am when I finally just left out of frustration and let her cry.  Oh, I do not miss these days. HOW did I ever survive the first year of her life when it was constantly like this?  I’m running off of 5 hours sleep today, can barely keep my eyes open, dealing with a whiny sick girl and I have so much to do. I just want to cry.

But, ya know, some how I’ll get through this day and just pray I don’t completely loose it.  Tomorrow, I will get up early again and thank God that this day is over.

Hope your Wednesday is better than mine!

Two things:

1) The Bed Issue.  We finally got the crib out of the attic and the tent put on it.  She loves it! and it has solved our problem safely. She even likes to just go in her crib to play.  Now we’re dealing with her not wanting to go to sleep without someone in the room with her (scared?) and she keeps waking up at 2am talking and playing, which then wakes me up through the monitor and I can’t fall back asleep. Still, these are minor issues compared to what we were dealing with and it will be go back to “normal” soon. She tends to have these phases.

2) The Silverware Issue.  The cabin rental company did email me back and say the owners are willing to sell the set to me! I’m still waiting to hear what price they are asking.  Hopefully it’ll be a great price since they are well used.  But, if it’s close to the price of just buying a brand new set that is similar looking, I won’t do it. I haven’t told Mark yet I emailed the owners, ha! So, we’ll see what happens soon :-)

Off to class!

Thank you guys for the wonderful comments on the whole sleep issue. We’ve decided just not to push it anymore, since clearly she is not ready for the transition yet.  In deciding that, however, we were still left with the dilemma with what to do about her crib and climbing out.  And then, I got a glorious comment from Angel that mentioned the crib tent. (Thank you! You really are an Angel!)

This is totally the solution for us right now. It’s a win-win situation.  Savannah gets her beloved crib back, and we adults feel safe again with leaving her in there.   We bought one yesterday, but have yet to drag the crib back out of the attic and try everything out. I just can’t let her sleep in that hard port-a-crib for the next 6 months to a year until she’s ready for her bed. A girl deserves a proper bed, yes? And, added bonus, she can’t throw out her pacies when she gets mad at us for putting her to bed! Muahaha!

Oh, I hope this in the win-win solution I hope it will be! I’ll let you know. And again, thank you for all the suggestions! It helps just to simply know that we’re not alone.

I need to go study so I won’t get a C on my two tests tomorrow…but before I do that…I just had to share what my crazy girl did.  I’m laughing at how silly she is, so that I won’t break down in tears.

See, for the past 2 and half weeks we have been trying, unsuccessfully, to switch  her to the big girl bed.  We decided to make the move, even though she is just 18 months old, because she was extremely close to climbing out and we feared breakage of the neck.  The first night it took 2 hours to get her to sleep, but she did it and slept through the entire night. The next day, she took a nap in her new bed. I was hopeful, frustrated but hopeful.

Since then, she’s slept in her bed only a handful of times.  The second night she sobbed and sobbed so I bought back out the pack-n-play crib to ease her fears.  This process by far has been the most frustrating and hardest thing I’ve had to deal with as a parent. Some nights she screams bloody murder about going to bed, some nights she falls asleep without any problems, some nights she just plays and plays and plays until we just have to put her in the crib so we can go to bed ourselves.

We have seen improvement in that she knows now to stay in bed when we say to, but it’s still a battle pretty much every single time.  She chooses to sleep in her bed, but when she doesn’t listen and tries to get up, she’s warned that she will go into her crib.  Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn’t, and she just ends up in her pack-n-play crib because that’s pretty much the only place she’ll readily go to sleep now.  It takes anywhere from 45-2 hours to get her to sleep now and it’s wearing us thin.

We’ve tried everything. The girl is just the most hard headed thing (really, I don’t know where she gets it).  If we try to discipline her with “popping” her bottom or hand she just laughs at us and does it again.  Oh, we are doomed as we head into the terrible twos. Nothing works with her.

Our Dr. recommend just leaving her in her room (baby proofed) with a gate so she cannot get out. He said she may play, but eventually she should go to sleep.  Sounds good, right? Logically, that’s the only thing that worked when we were training her to sleep in her crib throughout the night as well. But, I don’t know if this will work. Today, after an hour of her playing alone I came into this:

What am I going to do with her?!  And seriously, please, please give me some advice on how to get her to sleep.  Once she lets herself fall asleep, she’s great and sleeps through the night. She just won’t let herself get to that point most nights unless she’s in her crib. She’s too distracted by her cool shutter doors, or her baby doll.

Perhaps that’s the answer right there. Take away all the fun stuff like toys and stuffed animals (and hide the dirty clothes….) so it’s less enticing to play. I want her to be bored and go to bed. It could work. Maybe?

HELP! How did you make the switch? How long did it take?

Things going wrong:

-Savannah found Mark’s energy gum and decided to have a piece (Go ahead, laugh with me)

-She fought sleep until at least 9:30 last night (her bed time is 8pm).

-She then woke up at 1am WIDE EYED and ready to play.

-I used my stern Mommy voice too many times in my frustration and exhaustion.

-Slammed some doors, too.

-I tried everything, nothing worked.

-So, at 3:30am I did the ultimate bad Mommy thing: Went back to my own bed and turned off the monitor.

-I spilled orange juice this morning (Do you know how sticky that stuff is?)

-I look and feel like crap.

-My face is breaking out worse than it has in a long time (Will I ever grow out of acne?)

-Dude, I’m tired.

-And very, very, very grumpy. I’m not used to this sleep issue stuff anymore.

The Things That Make This Day a Tiny Bit Easier:

-Savannah let us sleep in until 8:15am.

-She’s not whiny today.

-Tomorrow is Friday, which means one more day and I’ll have help to maintain my sanity.

-I got to take nice, long, hot shower by myself (a rarity these days)

-Yup, that’s about all the sunshine in my stormy day.

I think I’ll go take a nap now.

Things are improving. Savannah slept nearly 12 hours last night (knock on wood). I however, did not.  My brain is still used to being awake from 2-5 or some odd time in the middle of the night and I didn’t sleep well at all! That, and it was hot. And? My husband keeps taking up all the room, nearly forcing me off the edge of the bed. hm.

But the good news is that when Savannah sleeps good, the whining is minimized. And therefore I may be tired but my nerves aren’t pushed over the edge like last week. All is good over all.

Other than that, there isn’t much new to report. I’m enjoying my days, refreshed from the weekend, with Savannah. She’s learning new sign language all the time along with new words. She knows how to sign and say “more” and “all done” (especially involving food), which also minimizes the whining.  Man, I love Baby Einstein.

Also?  I’m enjoying relaxing reading some good ole Christian Fiction books. I found my way to the tiny-dinky library in my tiny town and was happy to find they had more selection of my kind of books than I thought!  And, they will send books from the bigger libraries in the area for me to pick up, so that helps. I’ve finished nearly 3 books already in the past week.

I love summer.

(Savannah is currently looking, pointing and talking at baby Kaylee pictures. Aw.)

Well…that didn’t work.

She was fast asleep by 7:15 worn out from playing in the sun and taking a walk. I was hopeful that she would sleep through the night, or at least not fight sleep when she did wake up during the night. Nope.  It only got worse. Instead of waking up at 4am, she moved it up to 2am!  And succeeded in fighting sleep, laughing at it even, until 4:30am.  So needless to say, I’m tired. We’re all tired.  Mark took off work today so that I could sleep in, he got up with her at 6:30am.

But good thing there wasn’t a car accident involved today, right?

Actually, there was a worse accident involved as Mark’s Mom fell in the bathroom during the middle of the night and cut open her face right near her eye. She seemed in good spirits despite how horrible the bruising is, the bleeding, and I hear even bone showing. Ouch, ouch, ouch. We’re waiting for her to get back from the emergency room. Keep her in your prayers, would ya?