Well, I did get to stay in bed until 6AM until I got some peanut butter sandwich stuffed in my mouth by Jacob and the dream was over... I did get TWO delicious meals prepared by people other than myself and a glass of wine and that's about it... It's ok, we're busy and the boys DID give us a minimum of 2.5 hours of nap time. This is due to the fact that they had only slept about 8 hours the night before... One day when the boys are older, I want to leave right after the boys go down the Saturday night before Mother's Day with a small group of other Mothers that I love and rent a hotel suite for us. I want us to eat, drink, gossip, talk about how amazingly cute the children we so desperately wanted to get away from are. I want us to wake up when we want, go have a nice long relaxing breakfast and a long nice relaxing gossip session in the hot tub followed by a nice hot shower before we check out to go to a spa for some much deserved mani/pedi and more gossip love. I want to come home to a clean house with a happy husband and happy kids (I know I'm pushing my luck here) and hug the crap out of them because I know that I will miss them more than ever. We were away on Thursday night as I had some conferences in Fredericton on Friday and walking in to the house on Friday morning made me realize that although it's nice to get away, I freaking love the crap out of those kids and I could stare at their faces all day. Samuel was so happy to see me, all he wanted to do was look at me and smile... I wasn't sure my heart could take much more!
I say that I didn't get the things I really wanted to Mother's Day but to be honest, I got most of them on Thursday night when we went up to Fredericton... We checked in to the room and Gab was perfectly content staying in and doing absolutely nothing. The break from bedtime was a welcome break! I asked if he minded if I went to see my work girlfriends and he said he didn't mind at all. So I got my night away, I got my evening in a hotel room with some girlfriends where we gossiped and shared stories for hours (I only went to bed at 2AM... lol), I woke up on my own terms (it was still 6AM... ARGH!!!) and had a nice relaxing breakfast with my husband! I even got to go gossip in the hot tub the night before so I can't say I didn't have a nice treat! And today, well I got to spend the morning with my family which is always filled with love and laughter and almost always food so those are three of my favorite things! So yes, I may not have gotten a Mother's Day gift wrapped in a pretty little bow, but I did have a pretty nice Mother's Day regardless!
We are still trying to deal with the transition to toddler beds and the adventures certainly carried on this week... We are now at night 16 and we think we may have finally found a solution that works for us... We'll see... Here's the lowdown of the week:
Sunday night boys went down fairly quick....well if you call 50 minutes quick HA! Somewhere around 2h30 AM Zachary fell out of bed even though Gab had turned him around earlier in the night. He sure moves around. They slept well after that until about 530 when Jacob woke up crying while I was in the shower. Gab got him out of bed and convinced Zachary and Sam to stay in bed for a little while. They slept until 610 or something. Semi success! Right now 6h15 AM would be a dream!
Monday night we played outside before and after supper right up until bedtime. The kids were wound up! By the time we got them to bed it was at least 7h15 (instead of 630-645). Good news is Gab was out of the room with within 35 minutes....could this be progress? Zachary fell out of bed at about 10pm and then again at 1130. Poor dude! He gets pinched, bitten, blankets stolen and is constantly falling on the ground! He will be truly traumatized by this transition! Gab was about to go to bed and randomly checked the baby monitor ...Jacob was on the floor????!!! Don't think he fell?? Probably chose to go on the floor?? He risked it and went in to put him back to bed.
Tuesday morning the boys were all sleeping in their bed until about 6:10 when we went to wake them up. I will call that semi-successful. This was the longest they've slept in since we started the transition and maybe even before that!
We dropped the boys off at daycare and went on our merry way... 9am, daycare calls... Jacob and Zachary have a rash and they need to be checked out by the doctor. It's always difficult when we have to pick up more than one of the boys because Gab works as a delivery driver and he can't always drop everything and go get them not to mention he obviously doesn't have baby seats in his work van and my job as a teacher makes it quite difficult to leave. It so happens that my father in law had our van today because he was going to take it for an oil change and tire rotation for us so he was able to go pick up the two kids at daycare. We then had to out the rest of the day and how to get them to the doctor. He brought them home and thankfully my day was planned in a way that allowed me to come home. I took them to the doctor in the afternoon and he said that it was most likely just an allergic reaction.
Tuesday night bedtime, I took the reigns of bedtime. I stayed with them and managed to escape 35 minutes in. I think it's because they knew I wanted to go spend some time with one of my Kellys :).
Wednesday was McHappy Day so my mom and I took took the boys to McDonald's. I thought it would be a good idea to take them to the McDonald's where they have a Play Place... Well was I ever wrong!! I put them in the play area where they got overly excited and I lost them in the play structure right away. I tried to tell myself that I was being overly paranoid and that they were fine but then I saw all these big kids go in and swarm the place and my panic level rose higher and higher. When my mom got to the table with the food, she aksed me what was wrong and I told her I was super scared for the boys. She said, in true Betty fashion, "Well go get them then!" so I did. I couldn't see them ANYWHERE! Suddently I see Jacob and Zachary and guide them towards the exit. Sam??? I had no idea where HE was... and then I hear a most definite Samuel cry... I rush over to the huge slide and he's sitting there, almost at the bottom, crying his little heart out. I crawl in there to get him feeling the world's worst mom. I grab the three of them and drag them out of there. While I'm sitting down, calming down from the whole experience, I glance into the room and see that the recommended ages are 3 to 7... Well!!!! I should have followed the rules!!! They won't go back until they're at least 5 anyway, they're just too little! We got a visit from my sister and her family after we got home and my sister reminded me of the time my brother in law had to go get my niece Gabrielle all the way to the the TOP of the structure! Guess I'm not the only one with parent fails!
Bedtime that night was about an hour. Sam was the trouble maker for the first while then he gave up and the others picked up. Sam fell asleep and so did Jacob but the second Gab moved he woke up. He finally told him he had to go to the washroom and he was OK with that. As he was leaving, he hears a very long fart noise....like 5 seconds or more....then Zachary says....Papa. ....Zachary grrrrrroooooos pet (fart)! The small streak has been broken.... Only took a little longer to convince them to go to bed. Shortly after nidnight the boys started crying. I went to see them and stayed for a bit as they wouldn't let me leave. We left the door open and Gab tagged in and he also had a tough time leaving. They were awake for about 45 minutes. Zachary and Jacob woke up crying at 5am. Jacob refuses to go back to bed or let Gab leave. After about ten minutes in he gives up and tags me in. Despite my best efforts we accept that it's over and they are up for the day. This is tough during week days because we lose our 30-60 minute prep time before the boys are normally supposed to wake up.
Thursday right from daycare the boys were crying a lot. I think they knew Gab and I were going to Fredericton. My in laws were watching after the boys overnight so that Gab could come with me to my NBTA conferences where I was giving a presentation. We left a little later than we intended as I didn't want to leave my in laws with the boys in the state they were even if they said it was fine. It wasn't fine for me because I wanted to make sure they were comforted and settled before I left them. We checked in on the baby monitor from time to time on our drive up. By 8pm the boys were asleep and my father in law was out of the room and the door was closed. Not bad for a a guy who hasn't put fussy kids to bed in over 30 years! Kudos Pépère! So the boys slept through the night but woke up super early. I woke up at 515am and checked in on them and saw my mother in law with one of them in her arms and rubbing another one's leg. They were eating breakfast by 530 am.
Friday night we had a really tough time with bed time. Gab was in for the first 15 minutes and the boys would not listen at all so I went in to help. All in all it took us an hour. They slept until midnight and woke up crying. I went in to see them. Then we let them cry it out for a bit...Jacob stopped crying but Zachary was still crying. The reason Jacob stopped was because he was pinching Zachary to make him cry. Gab then spent another 40 minutes in there and all seemed fine but the minute he left, Jacob pinched Zachary again. We decided it was time to put Jacob in the playpen that we put in the room for just that reason. Gab stayed another 20 minutes and was finally back to bed at 140a.m. Wake up time was 520a.m.,,, Rough!
Saturday morning we met Kelly P and her family at the natural park at Centennial Park. We then went to their daycare friend William's bday party. It was a lot of fun! Nap time started off awful! We split them all in separate rooms as we had last weekend. After about 15 minutes or so Zachary and Sam were ok but Jacob... not so much! He cried/screamed for at least 30 minutes. He finally fell asleep for like an hour then I got him, rocked him for a bit then I decided to go lay him down on Gab who was napping on the couch. He slept about another hour or so. We went to play outside after with the boys and my in laws. At bed time, we are already at our wits end cause nothing seems to work!! Twice in the past 2 weeks we opted to try and have a talk with Jacob about not pinching and if he doesn't pinch and sleeps with out mommy or daddy he will get a sticker in the morning. We also decided to stick their beds together again and leave the door open with the baby gate so they can't get out. We put them to bed and let them play for about 15 minutes....then put them to bed again and I sat outside the doorway to see how that would go. About 25 minutes in Zachary wouldn't stop stealing Sam's blanket so I put Zachary in the play pen as a time out and he did not like that. Gab tagged in at some point and after about 20 minutes of me silently going and putting them down after they would get up they were almost asleep. They were finally all laying in bed nice and quiet for some time on the verge up of sleeping when Jacob started being a little a-hole and poking Zachary. He went in quite a few times to stop him and then tried to separate Jacob's bed and that's when he threw a CRAZY fit . Screaming like he was possessed. Gab would lay him down and he would shoot up like a spring. After 10-15 tries he decided to put his bed back with the others but he was still freaking out and pinched Zachary. That's when he tagged me in. By this time, it was 830 (well past bed time) and they were now overtired and super cranky and so were we. I put on my calm face, went in and finally got them good and quiet. Took about 1.5 hours to put them to sleep last night! They woke up around midnight. We think Jacob may have fallen out of bed. They then wore up at 5 am... argh... Thanks for the lovely Mother's Day sleep in boys... completed with a peanut butter sandwich shoved in my mouth. After brunch at my mom's house we came home and separated the boys for naps again. Jacob just hates everything about sleeping life so he freaked out for about 30 minutes. We decided to get him out and lay him out on the couch with us. Gab held his hand for about 5 minutes and he was OUT! Zachary and Sam napped for 3 hours and Jacob for about 2.5 hours... I think they were a little tired! It did give us a nice long break which was great!
Bedtime tonight, we decided to do the Super Nanny method... No talking, just sitting close to the bedroom and put them back in their beds every time they get out. They were sleeping within an hour... we'll see if this new routine works... I hope something works because we are simply exhausted!! What happened to our amazing sleepers I use to brag about?!?
Here are some pics...
Have a good week y'all!
xx
No comments:
Post a Comment