Naptime Miscellany

I am eating a taro bun right now, with coconut cream. Occasionally Keith stops by an Asian grocery and picks up all sorts of goodies for our freezer and pantry--pocky and potstickers and panda cookies and seaweed. I'm kind of addicted to the light-yet-chewy texture of these things. (Taro is also our favorite flavor of frozen yogurt at Razzy Fresh. I guess it's some sort of tuber?)

While I'm showing you pictures of my bookshelf (Tolkien is just to the left in that picture), this is our poetry shelf. It is a frequent victim of baby attacks because Dominic can easily reach it while standing on the armchair. And he always, always goes for this book. Never Browning, never Eliot, never Auden. I guess he has very modern tastes. (Also he likes yellow.)

Keith is currently away in San Franciso, for a wedding and to finish going through his mom's belongings. He left on Friday and comes back Thursday morning.

That's six solo bedtimes, people.

It's actually not so bad. (Knock on wood?) Every night once everyone's in bed I've been rewarding myself with ice cream and a glass of wine. Although the ice cream is all gone. The wine helps me sleep. Also at night I've been binge-reading this webcomic (recommended by Molly--thank you!!), but now I've caught up, which is awful. Truly. I hate catching up to webcomics! To be reading pages and pages each day and then suddenly you get three pages a week! It's torture.

Seven Quick Takes (23)

1. Well, this has been an exciting week. On Monday Michael tripped and split open his forehead on the corner of a wall. There was blood everywhere. I have a vivid image of him standing in the kitchen trying to wipe blood out of his eyes but not being able to keep up with it as it dripped off his chin onto the floor.

We were able to stop the bleeding pretty quickly, and my mom stayed with the babies while Michael and I rode in the ambulance--a trip he did NOT enjoy. Luckily Keith arrived just in time to help me restrain him while they cleaned and glued the wound. Ugh. :(

Then the next day he picked the glue off. So he's had a huge band-aid every since, and it bleeds a bit every time I change it, but according to the doctor there's not much more to be done about it.


2. The next day we said "bye-bye" to binky. Ever since then Michael refuses to nap, and "quiet time" has been ... not so quiet. I am not ready for this!! I already knew and appreciated how much sanity naptime gave to my day, so this week has been really frustrating. I've had so many projects I'm itching to start and now no time to do anything. Hopefully a new normal works itself out soon.


3. I've been letting him bring books into bed, but what Michael would really love to do is build things with his door shut. And I would totally let him, except that his palaces of blocks and magnetiles or long looping tracks inevitably crash on his wooden floor, waking up his brothers. He is really good at building and puzzles ... I think he's a very spatial thinker.

At my parent's house, and with a little help, but in his signature style.

4. I've been knitting a lot lately but in a very non-committal way, jumping between hexipuffs and crochet flowers and leaves for Michael's blanket. All little parts of larger projects.


5. I've also had some non-knitting projects in the works ... I bought lumber for this table (before naptime ended ...), written up a spring-cleaning to-do list, and hung up teal paint samples in various places ... But it's all mostly on hold until this naptime/quiet time thing is sorted out.

Apparently Keith and I had an agreement some time ago that our kitchen would be white with teal accents, maybe a backsplash. He reminded me of this in dismay when he saw those swatches up on the wall. But I've definitely developed a taste for more color and would like to experiment a little. I think he's right that anything except, perhaps, a very light teal on the walls would be too much. What I'd really like is painted cabinets ... but since ours are laminate, that doesn't make sense. (Well, 75% of them are laminate. This section is wood; another is metal.) Which makes me a little sad. I'm determined to paint something though. Maybe the door frames?


6. I forgot to post about what we ate last week. On Friday and Saturday we had this curry with homemade naan, and other nights we had frozen ravioli with pesto, a quiche with broccoli and carmelized onions, and mushroom soup.


7. This week's meals:

Monday: Honey Lime Sweet Potato Tacos
Tuesday: Clam chowder
Wendesday: Broccoli pizza and mushroom and carmelized onion pizza
Thursday: Out to dinner at Burgatory with my family ... not particularly Lenten ;)
Friday: Fish tacos

Bedroom Tour (with a little before/after)

In the past few days I've really buckled down and tried to get the twins on a semi-consistent routine. The main goal that being their (sometimes quite short) naps overlap, at least a little. And so far it hasn't been too bad! Some successes, some failures ... but right now I have a kettle on for some chai, a slice of pear-cardamom upside-down cake awaiting the tea, and this blog post open on my computer screen. And all three boys are SLEEPING.

(I'm sure one of them will wake up before the tea is finished brewing. But that's okay! Just ten minutes is enough to make me feel a little more grounded.)

Right now Gregory sleeps in a pack'n'play in our closet. Because I am scared of what will happen if I try to put them down in the same room together. One step at a time.

It's a step above having him in a pack'n'play in our bedroom ... and two steps above him sleeping on our bed, although that's where both babies end up eventually. (They've also started falling off the edge in the wee hours of the morning. :( Time to back off on the bedsharing. Luckily our bed is less than a foot off the ground.)

Anyway. Our closet is pretty awesome. It's a walk-in with plenty of space (and a window, artfully covered by a thick blanket so that Gregory will actually sleep in there). In fact, we have a another (regular sized) closet just across from this one ... I think our bedroom has more storage space than any other room in the house.

Our bedroom was the first and biggest project we tackled in this house. It was a partially finished attic that was used as a bedroom by the previous owner, but ... it was in pretty bad shape. We finished it a week before the twins were born. (And then I couldn't sleep there for four weeks because of the c-section ... and since then the babies have shared it with us to varying degrees!)

Before

The flooring was this weird white vinyl stuff, and the wallpaper was not exactly our style. I don't know how well you can see it, but the previous owner cut individual plates out of the wallpaper and pasted them to the (also wallpapered) ceiling.

Long story short, we had a LOT of wallpaper to take down. We even bought a wall-paper remover ... we figured it was a good investment since there's wall-paper to take down in every room but the living room and the basement! (And even in the living room it looks like some previous wallpaper was painted over, so hopefully that won't become an issue.)

Removing wallpaper from the ceiling is a PAIN.

We also had to replace one of the walls (you can see the plaster in the first "before" picture), and of course paint. (So imagine me hugely pregnant wearing clothes that don't fit painting the ceiling. Or maybe don't. It's not too flattering a picture.) We also got new carpeting and were paranoid of dripping paint on it ... probably should've saved that step for last!

But the results were very worth it. I love this room; it's one of my favorite places in the house. 

Ta-da!

Doesn't the quilt complement the colors of our bedroom perfectly? It makes me happy. :) The Moroccan wedding rug that Keith's friend gave us for our wedding is at the foot of the bed, and a print given to us by friends of Mary and Joseph's wedding (left of the window). I'd like to get a side table of some sort for Keith's side of the bed, perhaps two matching ones ... we'll see! The doors on the right open to a little cupboard where I keep our sheets and a few other things. 

 The Sacred and Immaculate Heart statues on our windowsill belonged to my grandma. And the curtains in the room were made by my great-grandma Ivy, who passed away when I was 8 or 10. She traced the pattern onto the linen, embroidered the flowers, and sewed the curtains. I think she copied the flowers from an illustration in one of the Little House books. They are a bit worn in some places; I need to have them repaired soon.

Our little alcove. The windowseat opens to more storage, and the door to the left leads to a crawlspace under the eaves. I admit I am kind of terrified of the idea of the boys falling out of this window, so I never ever open it. 

Cat doorstops my husband gave me when we were dating. :) I told him a story about sleeping in a bed and breakfast when I was a very little girl. The lady who owned it had these stuffed cats that served as doorstops, and I took one to bed with me. (I also remember waking up that night to a terrifying noise; when I shook my mom awake she told me it was just Dad snoring.) These cats migrate a lot because Michael likes to come upstairs in the morning and play with them.

View from the bed. (Except normally Keith has clothes piled on top of his dresser ... sometimes up to the ceiling. I staged an intervention before taking these photos. ;) ) The alcove is to the left. Our walk-in closet is just left of the doorway, with the other closet opposite. If you look, you can see we still have that wallpaper above the stairs. 

I found you Mama!

And Gregory just now woke up! How providential. :)

SOTG and other bookish goodness (SQT 19)

1. I finished Something Other Than God 2.5 days after starting it. Considering I have three mouths to feed, three butts to diaper, three sets of voices to respond to when they cry out ... that's a dang fast read. I couldn't stop turning the pages! My copy is now in the hands the first friend I saw after finishing it; I imagine it will visit a few other people before finding its true home on my shelf. (Or maybe its true home is in the hands of people. :) )


2. Why isn't one of the categories in the release contest "Best Picture of the Book with Babies?" Because I would totally win that one, right?

3.The parts of the book that touched me the most were Jennifer's struggles with the idea that God would allow the suffering and death of children. There is a scene where she is walking through a cemetery she's visited her whole life and realizes, for the first time, how many of the graves belong to young ones; how families would lose four of their children in one year. I think it would speak to any mother, but it touched me especially because a family we know just lost their own little one, the age of our own Michael. Please pray for their family!


4. It was an awesome mail day today. The Desolation of Smaug came from Netflix. I have low expectations for many reasons but ... I'm still excited. Because Bilbo! And Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug!


5. Also we got a haul of used children's books that Keith ordered a week or two ago, including Rikki Tikki Tavi.


6. Last but certainly not least, I got an advanced review copy of a book soon to be released by Wiseblood Books. I am so excited to start reading it!


7. I've been nap training Dominic this week and it's been going really well ... except today. He woke up shortly into my time typing this post and he was screaming rather than his usual fussing (and of course keeping Michael awake ... grrr). Nothing I do will mollify him. So ... I might not be cracking open that new book until tomorrow. Sigh.

New Year, New Goals

I am super, super excited for this year. God-willing, Keith will graduate and we will move--hopefully to a house. But all of that is incredibly unpredictable right now, so I've spent some time imagining staying where we are (meaning this apartment, Keith in school, etc), and while we both really want to move this year (and it would be really frustrating for Keith if he didn't finish his degree this summer), I know I can be happy even if moving gets put on hold. :)

There is so much apart from that to be excited about, though. Michael's first birthday, and all the milestones he will hit. (He is gearing up to crawl within the next month and a half, I think.) Getting outside more this summer. (Last summer I was a hermit ... I was exhausted and a bit overwhelmed with the adjustment to motherhood.) Continuing to learn about being a stay-at-home mom and domestic diva. ;) Seeing what God has in store for our little family.

So excited!

And my goals for this year have me excited too. Although this list seems a LOT longer than last year's. Uh-oh. I have a feeling that means I won't get much of it done.  We'll see. I've started a Pinterest board for my 2013 goals to keep me motivated, although it's still a bit sparse.

Knitting 

-a sweater for myself

-a sweater for someone else (other than Michael--he kind of goes without saying)

-100 hexipuffs (2 down, 98 to go! I need a concrete goal rather than just "a lot." This might be a bit ambitious, but we'll see!)

-Bigger on the Inside (my friends and I did a "knitalong" on this one and I seriously missed the boat--they're all finished and I haven't even cast on!)

-a panel for Knit the Bridge

-mittens (also planning on doing a knitalong with friends for this)


Things Otherwise Crafty

-Learn to dye yarn. My father-in-law has a lot of black walnut trees on his property, and is all too happy to have someone take the nuts off his hands once they start falling to the ground.

-Sew for real this year, which means I need to have concrete projects in mind. Either or all of these: a knitting needle case, pajamas, a summer dress for myself. (This is where I'm starting to have misgivings about how ambitious this list is, haha.) 

-Make Christmas stockings for our family.

-Learn to make macarons. I am pretty psyched to do this.


Other Goals

-Read 50 books. (Specifically Reckless (how have I not read this yet??), Call the Midwife, The Hobbit, Drowned Cities, Character Building, and the Catechism.)

-Get in the habit of spiritual reading each day.

-Revamp my blog's layout and try to post once each week. (I think I should decide on a day of the week that I always post, no matter what.)

-Submit three stories for publication. (I thought about setting a writing goal of some sort, but couldn't decide on a good one. At the bare minimum this will require me to write even if I'm not producing much new work.)

-Plan and throw a birthday party for Michael.

Sleep. Or no sleep.

(This post will probably bore people who aren't parents. Tough bananas. You don't have to read it.) 

(I have no idea where "tough bananas" came from. I need more coffee.)

Today, Michael is five months old.

Yesterday, we started sleep-training. 

Wrapped in his Grandma-made blankie while his Mama blogs.

Daytime sleep has been pretty scarce round here these days, and nighttime sleep isn't much better. (This is why I haven't posted much lately ... no naps, no blogging. Or knitting. And often no laundry or vaccuuming.) Over the past few weeks we've slipped into cosleeping, which wasn't the plan. In some ways it works out fine--it is really easy to meet Michael's needs at night--but ultimately, it still isn't what I want to do, because I don't want 1) Michael to depend on me being next to him to go to sleep (meaning a late bedtime for him or early bedtime for me, and no baby-free time for me and Keith), or 2) our bedroom to be offlimits to us after Michael's bedtime. Maybe there is some way around these difficulties, but the real big problem around here these days is #1. 

When he was three months old, Michael slept through the night in his crib in the other room. I would put him down between nine and ten pm, and he would wake up between four and five am, and I would simply take him into bed with me, nurse him, and fall back asleep until he woke up for the morning. That was awesome. 

Then around four months, it started getting more and more difficult to put him down for the night. He'd sleep for anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes, then wake up and need to be coddled and soothed until he fell back asleep ... for another 10 to 30 minutes. And he started waking up at 2am instead of 4 or 5am. Because it was hard to get him back to sleep, and because I was so tired that I usually fell asleep nursing him anyway, I would take him into bed at 2am, which meant he was spending most of the night with us. 

Now the only way to get him to sleep, day or night, is to lay down and hold him on the bed, my arm wrapped around him and supporting his head. Rocking him, standing by the crib with him, etc are no longer enough. He knows what he wants and will settle for nothing less.  Sometimes he'll nap in the swing for ten or fifteen minutes; getting him to sleep longer than that during the day is almost impossible. This week he's had days where he's only napped for about an hour altogether, and by the end of the day both Michael and Mama are having meltdowns. (Poor Papa.) 

So something has to change. I'm a little anxious because we're traveling to Colorado next weekend for a wedding, and I worry that any training we do now will be undone ... but we really can't wait to do this any longer. 

After reading about different methods and thinking about how they might interact with Michael's personality, we've decided to go with a modified version of the Ferber method: letting him cry for a certain amount of time and then going in and soothing him. (Modified because I am not comfortable with an indefinitely increasing amount of time leaving him by himself.) It took about 45 minutes for him to fall asleep last night. I think if Keith hadn't been here, I would probably have given up on it about half an hour in, which in my opinion would have been really bad, because then his crying would have been for nothing. But now that I know he can do it, maybe it will be a little easier tonight.

I know some people believe that cry-it-out methods are cruel. I don't--or at least, not the Ferber method specifically, where the parents are continually going in to soothe the baby. I know he doesn't understand, but I also know I'm not doing irrevocable damage to our bond of trust, because this little guy receives a lot of love and has all his needs met. 

But it's still hard. For me, and for him. I know there will be many, many times in his life where I have to do something hard as a parent to achieve something good for him. Disciplining him, telling him he can't have something he wants, etc--I guess this is a window into those difficulties. 

We'll see how tonight goes.

(ETA: The nap pictured above has lasted more than two hours! It shows signs of ending very soon, but praise God. :) )