Dirty Little Secret: Day 2

So how did it go?

I laid in bed for a long time just listening to them breath. I am not sure when but I finally dozed off. Around 2:30 Abbi woke me up. But she was actually crying, not just grunting. I went into the girls room and got her and then looked over at Madie's bed to see if Abbi had woken her up.

SHE WASN'T THERE!

I immediately panicked. I started calling her name and looking in every place that I thought that she might have gone. She likes to crawl under Abbi's crib and look at books - Not there. Maybe she went out on the couch - Not there. Did she go in Slade's bed - Not there. I even pulled open her blinds to make she the window was still closed - It was. At this point I am near tears, it is not like our house is big. Where is she? And then I saw her, peaking around the corner in the laundry room. Poor thing must have thought that she was in trouble when I started calling her name and hid. She had woke up and realized that her pull up was wet and had gone in there to throw the wet one away after she had changed. What a relief!

After that I brought both girls into my room. That was all that I could take for one night. Besides that when I woke up I realized that my nasty cold had kicked it into high gear and I really wanted to die.

Tonight in spite of everything in me I put the girls back in their own beds. I am contemplating sleeping on the couch.

Hopefully tonight goes better than last night.  

Seriously am I the only one that is this big of a freak about things like this?

Dirty Little Secret

I have a confession to make...

So... my kids don't sleep in their own beds... when Ben is gone... or when he is home really...

When Ben is gone Slade sleeps in his bed when he has school the next day but otherwise he is in my bed. Madie just starts out in my bed and Abbi sleeps either in the pack and play or in her bouncer (depending on how her reflux is doing that day) both of which are in my room.

When Ben is home both big kids start out in their own beds, around 3 in the morning Ben gets up and moves to the couch (because his back is bugging him) this is also right around the time that Slade and Madie make their way into our bed for the night.

On top of this Abbi does not sleep well... because I jump every time she makes a peep. When she wakes up I willingly feed her and she goes back to sleep. We do this about three times a night and at least one of those times I opt to lay on my side and nurse her instead of sitting up... which means now all three of our children are in my bed. Her doctor refers to this as me being "to tired to sleep".

As you can guess all of this makes Ben crazy and it is totally because I am to weak to make them sleep in their own beds. The real problem comes down to this... I am super paranoid. I am so scared that something is going to happen at night and I will not wake up or there will be a fire and I won't be able to get to the kids to get them out or that someone will break into the house and hurt the kids or that someone will break into the house and steal the kids or that... well you get the idea. I seriously loose sleep worrying about what could happen.

I addition to my ridiculous paranoia our kids bedrooms are on the other end of the house. It is a full 22 steps from my bed to the girl's beds and 26 steps to Slade's bed. I have already informed Ben that our next house will not have the bedrooms separated.

I have read the books and know what the experts say about teaching babies to sleep and I have also done some research about the benefits of a 'family bed'. To be honest I think I would be all for the family bed if Ben would let me.

Anyway I know it is not fair to the kids to get mixed signals. I know that I should have the same rules when Ben is home as I do when he is gone. So tonight I am attempting to have the girls sleep in their own beds (Slade is at his mom's). Both girls are there now, sleeping peacefully. I am sitting on my bed typing this post, watching "That 70's show", the baby monitor is cranked up as loud a it goes, I am listening to Abbi breathing, Madie snoring, and the neighbor dog barking. I have been in to check on them 4 times since I started writing this post. I have a nasty cold so I know I won't be able to sleep anyway so I guess tonight is a good night to give it a shot right?

So wish me luck... I will let you know tomorrow how it went.

My man

Well today was that day again.
The day that Ben leaves to go back to work.

I usually don't plan much for the day that he leaves because I want to be able to just sit and feel sorry for myself. Most times that feeling sorry for myself hangs over into Friday and Saturday.

This past weekend as I was thinking about today coming up I said to myself "Self, you should plan something fun to do so that you don't get stuck in the funk that happened last time he left." So right away I texted Beth and made plans to go to lunch today. It was so nice. The girls and I got Ben sent off, had some tears and a snickers bar and then picked ourselves up, got ready and went to lunch. Afterwards we came home, did some work around the house and then played for a bit. It was still a hard day but I felt like me feeling better about today was easier on them. I guess we will get better at this the more times we do it.

I have also noticed that if I give myself projects to work on while Ben is gone I seem to do better. I find myself acting just like Slade when Ben comes home...

"Babe come look what I did while you were gone"

Anyway even though this might be getting easier we still miss him so much when he is gone.
Hurry home Babe!

What about you? Do you have things that you do to help you get through when you significant other is gone?

And just because I think this funny. Remember how I told you that Ben likes to shave in a stache when he goes to work. Well check out what my sexy man has been sporting while he has been home...

 

Sweet huh? And why you might ask? Well because it is Fu-man-choo February of course.

Just wait to see what they have in store for March.

Fashionista

Look out Stacy London
You know - What Not to Wear
(I've been watching a lot of that lately trying to figure out what to do with this body of mine)

Anyway my Madie has quite the fashion sense.

Check her out

First of all you might ask what she has on her head. My Mom got them this polar bear hat/mitten thing that Slade and Madie fight over constantly. You can't really see it in the picture but on the other side of the paws are pockets to put your hands in and the hat has a polar bear head on it.

The dress is from last summer and is obviously to small now but she found it in her to small box and insisted on wearing it, since we weren't going anywhere that day I consented.

She is such a little crazy!

She totally loves makeup. I try to sneak into my bathroom in the morning to put my makeup on because if she knows what I am doing she insists that she needs makeup too. I will sometimes let her put on a little blush and maybe some pink eyeshadow but she always has to put on lip gloss (a.k.a. lip tuff). I have just given her one of her own that she keeps in a drawer in my bathroom. I think she thinks that it is for multiple purposes though... I keep catching her painting her nails with it.

She is such a character.

• If I call her anything but her name she tells me "I Madadin". She doesn't like it if I call Abbi anything but her name either.
• Anytime we are getting ready to do something she will say "lets get this party started!"
• She loves getting her hair fixed. She stands on the stool in my bathroom and when I get done she says "oh Mommy, I'm beautiful"
• She absolutely adores her brother. It is like torture for her when he is at school or with his mom.
• She loves primary and sings "I am a Child of God" all the time
• Anytime someone comes to the door she runs and hides and then jumps out and yells "Surprise!"
• She loves guacamole. She calls it guacamokey.
• She also loves broccoli, I actually bribe her with it.
• She loves art, any kind of art. When I sew she even sits on the kitchen table and watches ever stitch.
• I cautiously say she is finally potty trained during the day.
• She loves to bathe.
• She loves to play with Slade's toys, as soon as he leaves she runs into his room.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if...

You washed a pullup?

In my laundry room I have a garbage can that I put dirty diapers in (and then take to the big can outside everyday). Since we don't have a garage and the neighbor animals seem to enjoy jumping our fence just to tear up any unprotected garbage this seems to be the easiest solution at this time. Lets face it I am much to lazy to run it out to the can every time I change a bum.

Madie is not a morning person. It takes a good half hour from the time that she wakes up until she is able to coexist with us everyday... sometimes longer.

But when she is ready to participate in life she declares to the house

it's morning time

and then runs into her room and strips off her jammies and puts on some underwear and a t-shirt

(you know... her at home uniform). Then she takes her jams and pullup into the laundry room, puts her jams in her basket and pullup in the garbage... usually.

One morning she apparently took her jammie pants and pullup off together and they were all tangled together. She threw both in the laundry basket.

So I am doing the laundry and apparently threw the whole works in the washer.

Then I went in to move it over to the dryer and found that some of the clothes had a weird tapioca like goo on them. SICK! I started shuffling through the clothes that were left in the washer and then I found it... 

the PULLUP 

AHHH, it was huge with all the water that it had soaked up and there was about a cup worth of the nasty goo on the bottom and side of my washer.

I pulled out all the affected clothes and rinsed them out and then scrubbed up the washing machine, ran all the clothes through another cycle and went on with my life.

Needless to say I am looking through the clothes a little bit more carefully now.

I guess I will just chalk this one up to another adventure in mommyville.

A reminder

Have you seen this movie?



So good!

Totally a movie that I think that every parent should watch.

It is a Christan movie that talks about the responsibility of Fathers in their family.

I watched it like two weeks ago and I can't stop thinking about it.

At one point in the movie the four guys are talking and one man says

"You are a good enough Dad"

The other then goes on to talk about how he doesn't want to be a good enough Dad and the changes that he was going to make.

It has made me think a lot about the kind of Mom that I am.

Some days I think that I am just a "good enough" Mom. I have even thought "I am not great but I am a better Mom than her" (I think you know know who 'her' is).

You know what... I am not ok with being good enough.

I have some work to do.

My kids deserve it.

Heavenly Father has entrusted me with these sweet little spirits. What am I doing with that trust? Am I doing my best? I definitely think that I can improve.

Magic Combination

Today I found it... The Magic Combination!

Moby Wrap
(No this is not me or my baby)

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Less Stress Shopping Trip

I have felt pretty imprisoned with my inability to go out in public places, namely stores, when Ben is gone.
Want to know why?

Madie is a runner!
First chance she gets - she is gone.
She hates sitting in the cart. She says big girls don't sit in the cart. When I try to make her sit in the cart she stands up and tries to climb out. When I belt her in she screams all through the store to let her out. Nothing is better than being the parent at the store who is a) wrestling their toddler to try to get them back into the cart or b) the parent that has the obnoxious child that just will not stop screaming. She begs to walk next to me, when I let her try she bolts and then I am chasing her through Walmart with a shopping cart full of Abbi and groceries. So I got her one of these babies...



She thinks this is great and loves to wear it. So what is my problem you ask? She loves it because she thinks that if she is wearing it than we must be playing puppy, which means that she is usually crawling around the store on all fours. YUCK!!! If she isn't on all fours she is pulling with all of her strength in the opposite direction. Awesome!

If I can get her to ride in the cart I have no room for grocerie and I also can't see over Abbi's car seat because I am like 2 feet tall.

So last month when I did my monthly big shopping trip I got one of those gigantic family carts.  Yikes! First of all I think that one should probably have a CDL to drive one of those babies. I kept running into things. Second, I am way weird about being far away from my baby in public places. Abbi was like a whole 3 feet from me... Ah makes me anxious just thinking about it. I hate it when strangers come up and breath all their grody germs on my tiny baby. I am a freak - I know, it is ok if you want to judge. Thirdly not all stores have family carts and some have them but not very many... like the Broulims in Rigby - seriously... 1 family cart. Come on people I know that I am not the only one that has to go to the store with more than one kid. Not to mention that about half way through the trip Abbi decides that she is done with her car seat and wants to be held.

Anyway, as you can tell going shopping is a workout. By the time I am done begging, pleading, bribing and threatening my way through a store I am exhausted, I am sweating and I need a serious nap. Why don't I wait and just go when Ben gets home? I could I guess but I think that I must just be a gluten for punishment and it is a lot easier to stick to my list and budget if there is only me throwing things into the cart.

But today I think I found the solution to my shopping issue.

I strapped Abbi on me before I went in the store so I could leave her seat in the van. She rode along and cooed at me for a while and then dozed off. My mom got me the Moby wrap just before Abbi was born. I LOVE IT! I had a different baby carrier for Madie that I used probably twice because she hated it so much.

As for Madie, I went right at lunch time, I strapped her in the seat in the cart, and I went right into the McDonald's that is in the front of Walmart and got her a happy meal.
She rode all around the store just eating her cheese burger. She polished off her fries and apples and then played with her little happy meal toy. She didn't beg for anything, I only had 2 things left on my list by the time she asked if she could get out and walk. It was like a dream!

I was still a bit sweaty by the time that I got done - Abbi is a little heater. But I will take a little sweaty over 'I want to rip my hair out' any day!

Now I just hope that this combo will work next time I have to go to the store.