worth it?

We went to the aquarium on Wednesday with my friend Carrie and her two kids. Of course Eddie had a ball pressing up against all the glass and starring at various species swimming, but now he is sick with a bad cold and I cannot help but think he caught it that day. And although I enjoyed hanging out with my friend, the whole experience was one big ball of stress and anxiety, making me wonder, is it all worth it? I mean, all the things we do for our kids, are they really for our kids or just for us to parents to feel like we are being good parents? I have struggled with the right balance between protecting Eddie from the cold and flu season pandemics and exposing him to new places, people and things. Doing anything in Chicago is accompanied with a certain amount of stress that I don't ever remember feeling growing up in Milwaukee. The parking, the paying for parking, the walking, the carrying all the gear, the bundling up just to sweat while you walk and want to strip it all off, the lines, the waiting, the crowds, the germs, the numerous elevators you have to take just because you have a stroller, more waiting, getting hungry and lightheaded, finding a place to sit and eat, refusing to eat "fast" food, wiping down all the surfaces my son may touch while we sit and eat, washing the hands, drying the hands, eating our snacks but wishing we had more food, wiping the hands and face, refusing to use a public bathroom even though you really have to pee and probably should change a diaper, putting a squirmy kid back in the stroller so you can walk back to your car, bundling up again, sweating again, the walk to the car, the search for the keys, the struggle to buckle him in his car seat, driving round and round and round an enclosed parking garage that makes you feel so nauseous and on edge as you try not to hit any other cars since they are all way too tightly parked, the drive home with a whinny kid, the drive home with a sleeping kid, wondering when/if he will wake up. Twenty minutes later we are home, ahhh, and he wakes up. I wish he could tell me he had so much fun...maybe that would make it all worth it.

to all the ladies

By now all of our girl friends should have received their valentines. It was quite a process. He loves to color, especially with markers, and there was many a marks all over the hands. Here are some shots of Eddie working on his valentines:

a sweet day

Heart-shaped blueberry pancakes and playing in the snow while wearing your moose pajamas, what could be better than this? I think this as I wash morning dishes and watch you frolic in the glistening snow, maneuvering your shovel as you mimic your dad. We shared this valentines day with two other couples, their baby and one baby-to-be still in utero. We dined on elk tenderloin and mushroom risotto. As usual you ate all of your meat and greens, swapped forks with mom and reached for many wine glasses and knives. Jill remarked, "you can tell Eddie is the son of a chef" as you played in their kitchen taking muffin pans and cheese graters out of the cabinets. These days you want to be in the kitchen with me more and more. You want to explore every surface, especially the espresso machine and the fruit bowl, taking bites out of lemons and dumping coffee beans into the machine. You are so eager to taste, to try anything and everything. Even your lotion is frosting to you.

rock n' rolla

We had a busy Saturday. Eddie attended his first concert, kid music artist Ralph's World. He loved it! He was dancing right from the get go and enjoyed running all over and playing with older kids. I included a video clip below, but beware that the sound is awful - we were standing way too close to the speaker. After about four songs up front I decided it probably wasn't the best thing for his ears and we moved to the back. Then that evening we attended my friend Carrie's son's third birthday party at a jumperoo place; translation: a warehouse filled with tons and tons of inflated jumping apparatuses and slides. The party theme was pajama so you will note Eddie's wearing his hockey long johns.

sleep, revisited

So the blog has been a bit quiet lately in the sleep department, but that is only because I have censored it from you readers. Sleep is still, and has been, a major struggle for us, but I am pleased to report that I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. Any progress we might of made last Fall to establish healthy sleep routines all went out the window during holiday season and the few colds we got. And so once Eddie was healthy again, and ultimately once I was healthy again too after my bout of stomach flu, I vowed to myself, this is it, we HAVE to do something. Lack of sleep has taken its toll on us and I know it is related to me getting sick. It is no fun to be a mom when you are sick. And so I fervently sought the assistance of a friend of a friend whom is a sort of sleep consultant; we have been in communication now since last summer and she has supported all of my natural instincts, as in to continue breastfeeding and soothe him to sleep and not let him cry. But suddenly now she is turning it up a notch and taking the role of a coach; the type of coach that blows a whistle loud and hard, the type of coach that makes you run sprints when the ball drops without an attempt to save it. She is pushing me to be in control of my family's well-being...through sleep training, yet again.

And so here we are again listening to the wails and whines of our little guy. Our first step was to address our sleep routine during the day. Instead of allowing him to fall asleep on the boob before a nap, I now feed him with the lights on or in another room and put in into his crib while he is still awake. It took a week of doing this before I could claim success; he now goes into his crib all on his own and nuzzles into his blankies and falls asleep without any cries or whines. Then we modified the same routine at the end of the day. Again, instead of turning the lights off during our nursing, we now leave the lights on so that he doesn't fall asleep on the boob and I put him into his crib drowsy but awake. This is successful 90% of the time; there are still evenings when he is exhausted and falls asleep on me. But he never makes a peep when he is placed into his crib, as if to say that he is tired and knows that his bed is the best place for him to be. And then the hardest part of the training, which is to not go to him when he wakes up in the middle of night. This is the stage we are in now. We have to allow him the opportunity to fall back to sleep on his own, and then soon, hopefully his hormones will regulate and he will cease to wake up so much in the middle of the night. Friday night he woke up at 11 pm and cried for 5 minutes and then fell back asleep. Yey. But then Dad came home from a hockey game and Marty barked and Eddie woke up at 11:30 and then seemed to fall back asleep, but then I heard him cry again around 12:15. So I went to him. He didn't eat much at dinner, so I fed him. And I didn't feel bad about this decision. He slept until 4 a.m. and then cried a bit and fell back to sleep. Woke up at 8 a.m. Great! Saturday/Sunday is now a blur and I cannot remember the details, but I know we let him cry at one point and I think I went to him once, around 4 a.m. and then we woke up at 7. Then last night he officially slept through the night - went to bed at 7:30 and woke up at 6 a.m. Not bad, not bad. As they say in one of my favorite '90s movies Major League, "starting to come together, starting to come together."