"Let's play trains"

most frequently heard phrase these days at our house

I look forward to the day Henry asks Grant more often than Momma or Papa

Smiles

These help an exhausted Momma feel less irritated about a 5:00am wake up call.

Grant's smiles are so sweet.


We have pillow talk, and then, if we're lucky, another short nap before Henry is at the door.

Hhmmm.

Until I have a little more time to myself, the blog will continue to take a back burner. Though I do have ideas floating around in my head that I'm excited so share, you'll have to simply stay tuned.

Recently, I've been trying to read more about sibling adjustment, as Henry seems to be in an awful phase of acting out and being quite aggressive toward Grant. The University of Michigan has a very helpful website, complete with a questionnaire to help parents understand their child's temperament, in addition to suggestions on how to handle regression or aggressive behavior.  I found the following excerpt on this website and it made me laugh. So I wanted to share:

To get a sense of how your older child might feel about the addition of the new baby, imagine this:  
Imagine that your partner puts an arm around you and says, "Honey, I love you so much, and you're so wonderful that I've decided to have another wife (or husband or partner) just like you."  When the new wife (or husband or partner) finally arrives, you see that (s)he's very young and kind of cute. When the three of you are out together, people say hello to you politely, but exclaim ecstatically over the newcomer. "Isn't (s)he adorable! Hello sweetheart... You are precious!" Then they turn to you and ask, "How do you like the new wife (or husband or partner)?"  

Brand New Cousin

Taking her sweet time to come into the world (8 days overdue!), Elaina Louise Sanford arrives on the scene with a lovely head of hair.  She was born June 18th and weighed in at 8 lbs 15 oz. She and Grant are 6 weeks apart. I'm sure there will be fun times ahead for these cousins.

Congrats, Sanford family!

6 Weeks

Six weeks old. And so strong.
He has to be, to survive his brother.

We've had some scares (well, maybe Grant wasn't scared, but Mommy sure was) -- I've found Henry flat on top of him, like a human pancake. I've seen Grant dangling from the futon, legs over the edge, face down. I'm conscious of the split seconds that I leave the two of them in a room together. Apparently, a lot can happen in a split second.

Mr. Mischief

And then.
As if the anguish from waking in the middle of the night were simply a bad dream, morning dawns.
After a little sleep in (is it really sleeping in if your return to sleep is at 5:30am?)

This is what I see as I open the door. 
A cloud of white powder greets me.
The smell of baby powder lingers in the air.
All night terrors forgotten. Mr. Mischief wakes up, gets out of bed, and is having the time of his life jumping on his bed after thoroughly powdering his stuffed animals.

Finger wagging, he is telling me to "Momma, shut the door."

All is forgiven.

I laugh.

a prayer for 3:42am

For several nights in a row last week Henry woke up around 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning to start crying and pleading for me to "Lay down in my bed, Momma!" or "I'll lay down in your bed, Momma!"  For a full two hours -- me in and out of the room, worrying that Grant might need me at any moment. Or, even more ironically, Grant simply being asleep in one of his 3 hour stretches (a true gift) that is being underutilized by a fatigued momma.  Me growing ever more angry that my two year old, who used to reliably sleep through the night, is finding ever more creative ways to spend time with me any way he can. The "I need a drink of water" routine doesn't grab my attention nearly as quickly as the "I have to go potty!" alarm. (Yes, he still wears a diaper to bed. Yes, I still get him out of bed so he'll use the potty anyway).

Summoning my last few ounces of patience, I start mumbling a prayer, so that my anger and frustration might melt into empathy and understanding for the child that is used to undivided attention, but must now share the spotlight.

Dear Lord,

Please help my child be still, be calm, and be quiet. 

May he feel peaceful and secure in his bed. 

Calm his fears and dry his tears, 

so that we may all sleep and feel well rested.

Amen.

This prayer was repeated every 5 minutes, ad lib, until issues were resolved.

I've racked my brain to try to figure out the motive for Henry's sleepless escapades. Growing pains? Non-napping side effects? Too early, too late to bed? Too cold or too hot? Teething (we just cut the last 2 year molar in the last month or so)? Increased imagination? Something he saw on TV or a movie (in the middle of the night, he's ready to discuss an episode of Elmo's world that interested him)?

It seems as though it is mostly the adjustment to sharing Momma. I had a long heart to heart with him one night where I simply stated that "I was SO tired and needed to sleep in my own bed, next to Papa and Grant's bed, in case he needed me." [I fail to mention that Grant really sleeps right next to me, that probably won't help my case.] I went on to reassure him that "I had had a fun day with him, I love him very much and that he is such a good boy to sleep in his big bed with his stuffed dog as a companion and the blankets that Grandma made him." I don't know what made me go on this assurance tirade, other than the fact that he seemed to really need to hear it. And my prayer has been answered as long as I run through this mantra every night at bedtime.

more pictures

Grant is still fussy-pants in the evenings (much to Mommy's dismay), but not nearly so inconsolable (to Mommy's delight)

However, this does mean I still don't have the capacity to use both hands for typing.

Updates:

Grant is doubling the number of chins daily, it seems.  He is still quite the eater and becoming nice and chubby. Our nights are getting a little better, he's stringing together a few more hours of sleep for me (a couple of 3 hour stretches sandwiched between feedings). Overall, he's a pretty easy going baby, doing what babies do best: eat, sleep, poop. Repeat. We've even seen the first smiles and heard some cooing, which is always a lot of fun to see after all the effort parents put in to keep a baby happy.

Henry is showing the signs of "adjustment".  Until this week, he's given Grant plenty of kisses and returns to playing with his cars. George returned to work, however, and there are no visitors, so the attention on a daily basis has decreased dramatically. Henry is now trying to hit Grant, push his friends around, and continues to be Captain NO. It's exhausting and frustrating for me to continue to reinforce the boundaries of acceptable behavior without also coming across as Negative Nancy by using lots of "no's" and "don't's".  

Henry has even been waking at night frequently. I hope that he returns to sleeping through the night again, sleep deprivation leads to crabbiness for him as well.  

The only area he has continued to improve in has been potty training. The week Grant came home from the hospital, Henry decided he'd poop in the potty, and we've had more dry days than wet ones around here. This week I even woke him up one morning to find that his night-time diaper was dry. I'm very glad I put in the effort before Grant was born to provide a good foundation for potty training. It has really paid off. I'm so glad I'm not changing two sets of diapers daily!

1 month pics

these nights, typing on the computer is done one-handed, rocking a baby. 

so stories will come later. photos for now.