Sunday, April 24, 2016

Into toddler beds we go...

So after dealing with escapees on Sunday night, we started worrying that the boys were going to hurt themselves eventually if we didn’t do something about it.  We decided that they were old enough and that it was most likely time to make the switch to toddler beds.  So we put the plan into action by searching for toddler beds.  We quickly found two from a friend and one on a selling group on Facebook. We decided to wait until the weekend to put the plan into action because we knew that we may have a few sleepless nights.  That meant five more nights of cribs to get through and hoping no one gets hurt.  Here’s how our week played out:

Monday Night:
I had a Younique party to go do so Gab was alone for bedtime.  Jacob made a huge fuss about going to bed and took a while to fall asleep.  The boys love to play together before sleep and throw things to each other etc.  Sam is also always the first one to try to climb out of his crib and we’ve been closely monitoring their bedroom activities… The moment we see one of them with a leg overboard, we’d scold them from the kitchen/living room, etc.  It would normally take them by surprise and they’d stop right away but not always and five minutes later they’d be back at it… Gab went in on Monday night to try to get them to go to sleep and that got Jacob crying again.  He offered them some music which worked for about 10 seconds then the crying started again. Crying it out was going to have to happen… 45 minutes later Jacob still wasn’t happy and he was screaming to be tucked in and Gab fell for it… He tucked him in and, of course, it did not help.  He just pled his case for more stuff… He finally decided to just sit outside their door since he wanted Gab to sleep on the floor beside him.  This seemed to calm him down but how long is he supposed to sit out there for? He sat there for 25 minutes and once his back couldn’t take it anymore, decided to get up to go to the washroom and hope for the best.  Sam immediately got up but no one else did and no one else was crying so he went to the living room to watch on the monitor and take his chances.  Sam eventually realized that no one else was going to play with him so he eventually fell asleep.  It was an early wake up call the next morning and since we already get up early to get ready before them, it throws off our whole game if they’re up at the same time as us but that we can deal with…  Well that was Monday… this might be a long blog y’all… stay with me…

Tuesday Night:
We really wanted to shorten the hour and a half crying saga that has now become our night time routine so Gab decided that it was best to sit by the door right away.  He sat out there for about 20 minutes and came to join me in the kitchen.  About 10 minutes later we hear “THUMP”… we look at each other just long enough to hear tiny little footsteps running down the hallway and who do we see at the end of the hallway but our little Jacob looking all proud of himself until I look at him and say no no no Jacob… On ne fait pas ça! (We don’t do that!)… I go put him back in his crib and of course, Samuel is on the floor next to his crib looking all kinds of pleased with himself… I told them in no uncertain terms that it was time to go to bed and there was no bed hopping allowed (and it’s like I thought they understood what no uncertain terms meant…).  Of course I broke little Jacob’s heart who started crying all over again… Gab offered up his services to go and sit outside their room again.  He stayed for about 15 minutes and was hearing yawning so he hoped they were on their way out and took a chance.. They finally fell asleep and all was good until Jacob woke up crying at 11pm.  Luckily all it took was a little soothing and leaving the door open and he went right back to bed…

Wednesday:
It was Gab’s turn to go out so it left me alone with the boys for a little bit.  I decided to sit in the doorway for a while but they just kept playing no matter what I did.  They loved having me out there.  I left because there was no point in me hanging out there.  I decided to let them sort it out.  Well Jacob was not having any of it. He screamed and yelled for a very long time. Sam came out of his crib once and Jacob twice.  I went back to sit in the doorway and they got quiet pretty quickly so I left but then they started acting up again like 10 minutes later... thankfully it didn’t last long and we got some sleep even with a yet again early wake up call.

Thursday
My mom finally came home from Florida!!!!!!!!!!!! I got the boys from daycare and we immediately went to meet them at the airport.  It was great to see her walk out of those gates!  Facetime doesn’t compare one iota to having her back face to face… I missed you Maman… xox
Thursday night Gab left to go to a friend’s house after we put the boys to bed and there started a really hellish night for me.  Jacob just hates going to bed lately and this night was just awful for both of us.  He screamed and cried for the better part of two hours.  I intervened once because he jumped out of his crib.  The second time he jumped out he hurt himself again and even had a bloody nose.  I had had enough of his poor little broken heart (and mine) and said F THIS and brought him to bed with me.  He fell asleep within 5 minutes.  I know that I shouldn’t take him in our bed as it may create a habit we don’t want him to get used to but enough was enough.  I’m all about letting them self soothes but my boy was just devastated so I showed him love.  Gabe came home around 11 and Jacob cuddled right up to him.  I got a great night of sleep (well until 4:45) but Gab didn’t so much.  Jacob must have woken him up about 20 times through the night just sitting up and then falling on top of him just randomly.  He was totally trying to muscle him out of our king size bed…

Friday
Gab put them to bed with a book.  After about ten minutes they started throwing the books to one another so he took them away.  After about 5 minutes of crying about the books, they started throwing their blankets, teddy bears and all they had in their cribs.  We gave them their stuff back and tried to put them to bed.  Jacob cried for about 20 minutes.  I left at that point to go have a girls night out with my Kellys.  I had so much fun even though they made me eat at this Calactus vegetarian place… lol… After Calactus (where a glass of wine was 9$), we went to Rosanno’s where we had more wine and desert (THEIR wine was only 3$!!!!!!!!!!!!! You’re telling me I could have had meat AND three times the amount of wine for the same price!!! They’re lucky I love them…).  After desert, we weren’t quite ready to end our night so I suggested going to the Casino to see my friend MJ play.  We had quite a good night singing and dancing… I knew the boys were fine as Gab took care of it.  He had to go sit beside Jacob’s crib and hold his hand (poor little dude… he’s just hating bedtime life right now…).  I looked at the monitor from the restaurant at 8 and Gab was sitting in the room on the floor holding Jacob’s hand and everyone was still awake and I look again 15 minutes later and POOF, everyone is sleeping… He did have to stay for about 25 minutes and try not to crack up as Sam was singing Little Bunny Foo Foo…  They slept really well until about 20 after 1 when Jacob started crying to get out of bed.  He cried for about 20 minutes before Gab decided to go in (I had been home for exactly 20 minutes at this point, I didn’t want to get my tipsy ass out of bed lol).  It’s super tough going in lately because you never know if going in will soothe him or make it worse.  Thankfully it was the latter in this case.  Gab gave him his blanket (that he had previously thrown on the ground).  He told him he’d keep the door open and that he still needed more sleep.  He actually shook his head in agreement and went right back to sleep! PHEW!!!

Saturday (we’re getting to the end here gang…)
We started the day with a trip to Wal-Mart so that I could buy their new blankets for their new toddler beds.  We wanted to make a big to do about their new room arrangement to create some excitement about bedtime (didn’t work but at least their room is pretty cute!)  After that we went to our last soccer tots day (HURRAY!) and then we drove up to my mother’s house to spend most of the day so that Gab could come home, disassemble the cribs, baby proof the room and put their new room together.  The boys had a great time at Mamie’s and Pappy’s.  We played outside for a big long while with my step-dad’s weirdly amazing contraptions.  We put the boys down for a nap in different locations in the house hoping they’d sleep for a little bit.  Well Jacob had a nap with my step-dad, slept for about 45 minutes.  Zachary, after much soothing from me, finally fell asleep in the guest room, slept for about an hour and Samuel got the big bed in the basement where he was alone and cool and loving life… he slept for 2.5 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday night… first night in toddler beds… most of you followed this excitement online already but here it is.  We put a gate in the doorway, closed the door and said goodnight.  They partied for while and cried for a while.  After about an hour, Sam and Zachary were finally starting to wind down but Jacob didn’t let them.  He’d run, with his shirt half off mind you, from bed to bed pinching his brothers and pulling out their blankets… We went in to intervene to make sure that things didn’t escalate and left them alone again.  It took about another good hour before they all settled down.  Jacob woke up crying at about midnight and I went in to soothe him and tuck him in again and sang him a little song and kissed his worries away.  He fell asleep again.  At about 5am he woke up again and this time Gabe went in and got him to sleep again.  They woke up at 6:30! SUCCESS! That’s the latest we slept in in almost two weeks…

Sunday night… Toddler Bed Night #2
Well… what can I say… it was another two hours of craziness.  There was crib jumping, dresser climbing (it’s anchored but the drawers can be pulled out still so we’ll be putting it away tomorrow), closet door handle hanging competition, bed pushing… Lots of interventions from Gabe because they were either being too rough of about to hurt themselves.  There was a lot of crying from too much rough housing and getting hurt… There was a lot of pleading and laughing… it’s almost too cute to hate… After about the 50th time of Gab going in, I took a pause from this blog writing and went in to see if I could make a difference.  I’m not sure if I made the difference or they had just had enough and wanted to sleep but they cuddled right into their beds after asking me about 5 times each to tuck them in.  They’ve been quiet ever since.  8h30 is now officially their new sleep time… it has taken about 2 hours every night this week to get them to sleep… They just love each other too much.  Oh, I know it sounds amazing (and it IS) but it is also very irritating when you’re trying to get them to sleep!  They thankfully got a pretty good nap today though after I decided to separate them. 
I can’t write much more folks… for those of you who made it to the end of this, thank you for your support… I’m going to go have some chocolate and wine now… or something of the sort…


Have a good week y’all… xx  Oh, and Happy Birthday Kel!  Love you! 


You leave this entertainer alone for 2 minutes in the kitchen...


One of Gab's night of hanging out... 

Little sunburnt from the gorgeous days we had

Weeeee!

Monkey



Desert and CHEAP wine... lol!  Me and my Kellys!

The boys got to play on the bouncy castle at soccer tots... they loved it!



The got a sucker after... Their first sucker!!! Do you think they loved it or what??



One of Winston's cool contraptions


Cribs are gone... transformation is starting...

Little bugger climbed up there all by himself!!


Finished product

45 mins into night one




Sunday morning play date




They all LOVED that basket





This is what made me decide to separate them at nap time... 

Zachary is alone in there and still destroying everything

Box on my head



Story time!


One hour into night #2

Finally...



Sunday, April 17, 2016

Just when I thought we had it all figured out...

I have a crisis to deal with at the moment so I will leave you with my husband's extensive blog notes for the week... 

In my husband's eyes... 

Monday 530. Jacob woke up first thing crying for us to go get him in his crib. Mommy went in and talked to him for a little bit and convinced them to stay in bed with the door open. Everything was fine until Sam turned on his Talking Elmo doll that was in bed with them which set Jacob off crying again...
Later that morning at daycare I saw Jacob wanting to play with two kids are a little bit older. He didn't try to play with them or ask them he just told me that he wanted to and they caught wind of it and didn't seem like they wanted to play with him and I just witnessed his little heart break and also the fear in trying to approach the older kids. The kids didn't do anything wrong they're allowed to choose who they want to play with but it makes you realize as a parent how sometimes you can see things one-sided. On the flip side last week it seems that our boys didn't want to play with one of the little girls in their group and she was left out and alone. That also makes me sad that my boys would do that. And I'm sure it's not a discriminatory thing that they do consciously and decide not to play with her. I would hope it just happened organically that they chose to play with each other and not with her but since our boys make up the majority of the class it's as though the entire class doesn't want to play with this little girl

Monday evening Mommy went out for supper with friends and to see a Hedley concert. (WHICH WAS AWESOME BY THE WAY!!!!)  That niight I left a dim light on to help ease Jacob"s fears....didn't work. Just got them to sing and play for 30 minutes. Turned the light off and opened the door and told them to go to bed.

Tuesday morning was yet another early morning with crying boys. That morning at daycare 2 of the kids were super excited to see Jacob. ...they yelled out his name. Ha  Sam and Zachary sat on the couch and read together.
Tuesday night Jacob didn't want to go to bed. Cried for water, cried to get out, cried to go to bed with us, cried for anything he could think of to try and stay up.  

Wednesday night we decided to attack the ant problem.  We took everything out of the cupboards to clean with water and vinegar to try and stop the ants....On the bright side the boys have found a new hobby. Spotting ants from 15 feet away and yelling FOURMIS ( French for ant) then request that we hit the ant to which they laugh hysterically.  
That night also marked day 3 of Jacob not wanting to go to bed and crying and trying every trick in the book not to go.  He cried for a while....then stopped....then so they started playing and singing. I went back to tell them bed time...must have been close to 8 by the time they passed out.

Thursday night was just Daddy and Pépère and the boys.  Jacob stole Sam's piece of chocolate after having eaten his own so I gave a new piece to Sam.  Jacob spent the next 15 minutes crying that he wanted Sam's chocolate.  Sam was even nice enough to give Jacob 2 bites and he still wasn't satisfied. Once he finally stopped crying it was time to start getting ready for bed. Jacob (night 4 of not wanting to go to bed. ) spent the next 15 minutes crying that he wanted to go to bed with daddy and that he didn't want to go to bed. When bed time came the crying continued along with begging and pleading for everything and anything including washing his blanket. Finally tucked in the other two and left the room with Jacob crying then he started howling for McQueen.  I figured he wanted to be tucked in so I did...then more crying so I sang a song which helped. ..until I stopped signing. Another 15 minutes of crying.  Tucked them in again....another 15 minutes of crying. Then Jacob said he pooped. I wasn't falling for that one. Then be asked for a hug so I lean in to hug him....guess he was right. He did poop. Change the poop  and come back now Zach and Sam say they pooped...but they didn't....then after being in bed for over and hour and crying I think they are finally going to sleep. ..except now Sam keeps saying papa....couverte McQueen. 1.5 hours after bed time they are quiet....but still awake.

1230....Jacob woke us up crying again.  MC went to see him and he almost stopped but when she left he started crying again.  I went to see him a while later...he asked for me to rock him....I told him to hang on a minute and I left the room for a minute. He stopped crying but I felt guilty cause I lied. I told him I'd be back...so I went back and told him good night and he was fine...until 545 a.m. when he woke up crying again.

Friday morning we had an appointment with Dr Blaney, their high risk pediatrician.  He's impressed as always.  They're tiny (in the 10th percentile) but still on the curb.  Samuel is 25 lbs, Jacob and Zachary are close to 24lbs. \

Friday night bed time went fairly well. No crying from Jacob for the first 20 minutes...then he started crying for his blanket so I went in and the pleading started but I stayed strong, tucked him in and left....he whimpered a bit but only 5 minutes...progress!

Nap time sucks...  We tried a new nap time routine. Picture from baby cam. Didn't work. Mattresses in the living room.  Didn't work.  We ended up with zero minutes of nap time with all of us on the couch watching TV.  Yep, great routine right there parents of the year... 

Sunday, new plan:  let them cry.. 30 minutes later, playing and singing...an hour later they took off their diapers and started throwing them across the room to one another.  We decided to go for a drive because obviously the crying it out bit wasn't working...they slept a bit.  We ended up at the park and had a great afternoon. 

So... back to me (MC)... my children decided to throw a few wrenches in our perfectly sleep trained boys.  Well nap time has been going shitty for some time now and with Jacob not liking bed time anymore, I guess we had it coming... Here was the crisis:


YEP, those are 2 out of my 3 OUT OF THEIR CRIBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Oh, and if you look closely, Jacob has his leg already out of the crib.  By the time I got in there, they had closed the door.  I walk in, Zachary wasn't in the room... WTF??? Oh, wait a minute... walk in MY bedroom and the little bugger is IN MY BED!!!  So much for me having three perfect night time sleepers... what does this mean?  Toddler beds?? Am I ready for this???  I walked in there shaking my head and saying "Ah! Ah! Ah!  No! No! No!, we don't get out of our beds!!"  They are still, for now, in their bed... we'll see what happens tomorrow night... next week's blog should be interesting.  Just when I thought I should stop writing this thing because it was getting boring...  They're actually sleeping at the moment... phew!  But WTH do I do tomorrow night??  This makes me so anxious... Why can't they just stay in their cribs until they're 13 and keep their diapers on like good little boys?  Why can't I have children who don't pinch, push, bite, throw fits???  WHERE IS THE WINE AND CHOCOLATE??????????????????????????

On that note... 



A little dark, but my sister and I TREMENDOUSLY enjoyed Hedley!!! 

Yes, that's how we eat McCain Deep and Delicious Cake... 


Selling cookie dough!!!

Killing ants!!! 

They are actively searching for more ants to smack! 

Picking one up to throw out

Milk bubbles!!!!

He was out of milk at this point.. 

So was he... 

Gettin my foil on... I sent this picture to Gab and he replied "We have tin foil at home, why are we spending all this money?"


Waiting in the hospital lobby for Papa.  It's been a while since I've felt like these guys were different... we had sooooooooooooooooo many "OMG Triplets?" moments... 

Snack Break at Soccer tots

This was strategy number one on Saturday... I tried to sit in the room and read while they fell asleep... No go... They just kept wanting me to do stuff... 

I wasn't feeling well after the boys' appointment so I stayed home.  I started organizing for the big sale... SO MUCH TO DO!!!

Organizing while watching Grey's... 


Got my tuque ready for next season! Thanks to my friend Heather for this amazing owl tuque! 

Samuel feeding Jacob some Cheerios

They are LOVING this game

Music time with Daddy-o

Nap drive

These boys were asleep within 5 minutes of our driving
                   
                                       
It took this guy a little longer but finally went down

They are so loving being able to spend hours outside again

Zachary insisted on wearing his hot tuque... I didn't get many pictures of him because he spent most of the time there hanging out with his Pépère



Sam telling this kid with his eyes to back off


Looking at the ducks 
I can't often get a good picture of this little guy as he always "WANTS TO SEE" but he was pretty intense on those ducks



Yes, Jacob has his monster eyes on but they're finally asleep... They're going to be tired little dudes tomorrow...

 Have a good week y'all... wish me luck!  I'm off to do some research...