Aedan: 46 Months, Week 4
Owen: 5 Months, Week 1 (Week 23)
So Sunday, February 18, was a special day in our house because our puppy turned one year old! The kids were so excited that it was her birthday, and they couldn't wait to sing Happy Birthday to her. Our plan was to stop by the pet store and let the kids pick out toys for her birthday on the way to church, so I did something silly and gave her a a special treat of two Milkbones stuck together with peanut butter. That is what she is jumping for in this video. :)
A few weeks back Ben had the idea to suggest getting all the puppies from Izzy's litter together to play sometime around their birthday, kind of as a mini-reunion. So through our Facebook group, we made plans for anyone that could make it to meet in the soccer fields by the high school. We had a pretty good group of dogs there that afternoon. I think there were seven in all, and it was interesting to see how different and yet how similar they all looked. Izzy was probably about average in size, but you could definitely tell that she wasn't as socialized as some of the other dogs. It's something I wish we did better at in this first year of her life, so we didn't establish bad habits, but she was very unsure of the whole situation. She barked at any of the people that tried to show her attention or talk to her, even after the initial 5-10 minutes like she normally will bark. She didn't act afraid of the other dogs at all, but she wanted to just follow around and sniff them. She didn't really get in on any of the playing action. But again, she isn't really around many other dogs except our neighbor dogs on the other side of the fence (that she always barks at) or the dogs she is with boarded with the couple times we have gone out of town. I know she is still trainable, so we definitely need to work on her being more comfortable around people and not barking so much, or at least for not as long. Here are some cute pictures and video of the puppies that afternoon. I wish some of them lived closer so we could get the puppies together to play more often.
The rest of Sunday we just hung out and relaxed at home, getting ready for the next day and a new week. However, as the night wore on, I started feeling worse and worse. My stomach was very unhappy. I kept having to go to the bathroom, and I went to bed wondering what the night would have in store for me. Well, when Owen woke up about 2:15 to eat, I went in to pick him up and immediately had to set him down on our bed, telling Ben, I don't think I can take him right now, and I got sick to my stomach in the trash can that I had ready next to the bed. Ben jumped into action, taking Owen upstairs to change his diaper and get a bottle ready to try and feed him so I wouldn't have to. I actually felt much better after getting sick that one time, still not back to normal, but my stomach felt much less unsettled. However, it was not fun being sick, especially with Owen who still needed to be cared for in the middle of the night. Ben tried so hard to feed him a bottle and make him satisfied with that, and Owen did drink some of it, but it was just not the same. Ben tried to bounce him and get him to fall asleep, but he just wasn't having it. He just kept crying and wouldn't go to sleep, so I ended up having to get up and nurse him, hoping that I wouldn't get sick. I felt miserable, very weak and light-headed.
Monday Ben was the great husband he always is. Even though he had a full day of classes and meetings, he cancelled and rescheduled everything so that he could stay home and help me. With how sick I got overnight, we didn't know how I would be feeling that day. Plus, I didn't want to get my germs all over the boys. I felt pretty light-headed and weak all day, sleeping on and off most of the day, and letting Ben take care of everything except for when Owen needed to eat. His schedule was all out of whack that day, and I found myself always nursing him to sleep, which I don't like to do all the time. Plus, he was very fussy and didn't nap for very long. I felt bad that Ben had to deal with everything, plus Owen being grumpy. By the afternoon, I was attempting to sit up more and eat and drink a little more to see what my stomach could tolerate. However, my head was pounding so much, that I just had to take some medicine. I took one ibuprofen, but it wasn't long after that before I got sick again, which I attributed to the medicine not sitting well in my stomach. I just couldn't wait until I started to feel better again. I hate being sick, especially with a stomach bug/flu.
Tuesday morning started off with a surprise as when I went to feed Owen early that morning, I had a message on my phone from Samantha's school, saying school was cancelled due to bad weather. At first I wasn't really looking forward to the fact that she was going to be home all day since I still wasn't feeling 100%. However, it ended up being better in some ways because then Aedan had someone to play with instead of whining at me to play with him all day. They did a pretty good job playing together that morning, and when they started to get a little stir crazy, I decided to take them over to the Norris Center. I wanted to look into getting a pass so that way we could go over to the gym for the kids to run around and play or use the pool whenever we wanted. I'm not sure why we hadn't thought about getting it sooner, especially with it being right down the street from our house. The kids really had a blast running around the track, kicking and throwing balls, trying their hand at ping pong, and just getting lots of good energy out. Owen enjoyed just hanging out in the stroller and looking around. I'm glad we went over to the gym, and we will definitely have to do that more now that we have a pass to get in. We even went in and checked out the pool. We took the kids there to swim a couple times awhile ago and for swim lessons when we first moved to the Soo, but they complained about the water being too cold, so we hadn't been back since. When they saw the pool, they got really excited and couldn't wait to go swimming there together as a family.
Jen
Since we got over to the gym later that morning, we got back for lunch later than I would have liked, making things a bit rushed. However, even though Samantha was home, Aedan actually napped that afternoon without fighting me. But of course, Owen didn't. He only slept like twenty-five minutes before waking up and crying. It was frustrating, as I could have really used the break to relax, since I was still recovering from being sick, and just to spend more time hanging out with Samantha.
One thing I've realized about myself lately is that I have not been a very patient person, particularly with the kids, particularly when I'm tired and feeling overwhelmed or stressed out. Sometimes I let the smallest things set me off, and I forget that Samantha is really sensitive to correction and the tone of voice I use, so I'm sure that sometimes I make it worse by the way I react. It's not always easy, but I have really been trying to think of giving more grace, of taking a deep breath before I react, and remembering that they are just kids and I can't expect them to be perfect any more than I can expect myself to be perfect. I try to get down on their level and talk to them about whatever is going on before blowing up and overreacting. It's a daily thing I have to remind myself of and pray about, and I hope to see change in myself gradually over time.
I forget if I've mentioned this or not, but Owen has recently discovered his feet. He loves to reach for them and grab them, even getting them into his mouth sometimes. Especially when we change his diaper, he loves to grab his feet, so on Tuesday afternoon, I just let him play around for awhile before changing his diaper and clothes.
Jenn
So after all this talk the last couple weeks of how poorly Owen has been sleeping, particularly during the day, I discovered the reason on Wednesday, February 21st. He got his first tooth on the bottom left side! No wonder he has been so fussy lately! It's always kind of a relief when something like this happens because it explains so much about their behavior, and now we know if he starts behaving like this in the future, it's probably because he's teething. It makes sense now, especially with how much he was drooling, his red cheeks, and how he was rubbing everything on his gums. Here is my little man, 5 months old with his first tooth. :)
Even though I saw the tooth poking through and knowing that he was experiencing teething pain, I still had to deal with a baby that would hardly sleep during the day. The last couple of days I couldn't even get him to sleep without nursing him, and then all my doubts set in, thinking that I am going to create this sleep association where he won't be able to fall asleep without eating, making him even more dependent on me. Then sometimes when he wakes up after only sleeping 20-25 minutes, I wonder if he wakes up because he is no longer in my arms. So many people I talk to say I need to be laying him down drowsy but not asleep so that he will learn how to fall asleep on their own. Or people say that I need to sleep train, but I don't think I like that idea. I feel like he would just cry and cry. Ben always says that I have been like this for every baby, that I worry that they won't ever be able to fall asleep on their own, without nursing to sleep, and Samantha and Aedan both learned how to do it in their own time. I was just feeling so frustrated by all of this and tired of thinking about how to get him to sleep longer.
Since popping out his first tooth wasn't enough, we decided to try Owen out on some rice cereal on Wednesday night. He has been showing much more interest in food lately, watching our spoon go to our mouth, and reaching for our plates and cups, which are all signs that he is ready to try some food of his own. We mixed up some rice cereal with some milk, put Owen in the Bumbo seat, and Ben tried feeding him. He was definitely interested in the food and reaching for the spoon, but he kept trying to stick his fingers in his mouth, making it a little difficult to keep the food in.
After having such a hard the last few days with napping, guess what he did on Wednesday night? He slept all the way from when I put him down until 3:15 and then went back to sleep again until 6:30. Then, on Thursday afternoon he napped for two hours and fifteen minutes in the afternoon. It was kind of nice seeing his tooth popping through because it hopefully explained his difficulty with sleeping and his fussiness over the last week or so. I was also lucky in that Aedan was napping every day without giving me much trouble, so at least I didn't have to deal with Aedan giving me trouble either.
On Thursday night we decided to get the high chair out for Owen to sit in to eat. He fit fine in the Bumbo chair, but it was more difficult to get him to sit up straight and not bend over and lean. He looked like such a big boy sitting in the high chair, and he enjoyed getting another taste of rice cereal. Hopefully starting food will help fill this little guy up more and maybe help him sleep better and just be happier. We will do rice cereal for awhile and then start on some vegetables!
Then, to round off a week of napping miracles, both Thursday and Friday during his nap, Owen woke up just like he has been after like 25 minutes, but then he actually settled himself back to sleep without needing me to go down to his room. I was so happy that he seemed to be settling into a good routine and was sleeping better than he had been for a long time.
Samantha had a half day on Friday, so Aedan was very excited about having her home. After letting them play for awhile, I tried to get all three of them to nap, including Samantha. Ben wanted to take her to a Soo Eagles hockey game that night because she got a free ticket for being Student of the Month and she was going to be honored at the game. However, with the game basically starting at bed time, we knew it would be best for her to get some rest that afternoon. However, she gave me a hard time about going to sleep and kept coming out of her room and going to the bathroom. Then, she was sitting in her room crying so loud that I could hear her in the living room. She was so tired but was being weird, saying she couldn't fall asleep. I was at my wit's end with trying to get through to her, but she was just getting her something so worked up about having to go to the bathroom. Finally, I convinced her to go back to her room, lay down, and look at book to help calm her down and take her mind off of things, then try to go to sleep. Apparently that worked because then she went to sleep after that.
After having dinner together as a family, Ben and Samantha went to the hockey game while I hung out at home with the boys. Here are some pictures of their date night out together, drinking hot chocolate, and Samantha getting to go out on the ice to accept her certificate from the hockey players themselves.
Owen has been showing a lot of interest in rolling over on to his side to reach for things. He has been so close to rolling all the way over, but just can't quite make it sometimes. In these two videos I was trying to entice him to roll over by jingling a toy just out of his reach. Even though he didn't roll over, it's still cute to see how much more active he has become and how interested in the world he is. Later in the weekend, Owen did end up rolling over, but he was so quick about it and did it when we weren't paying attention, so we weren't able to capture it on video. We were so excited though! He was very proud of himself, but once he rolled over he didn't know what to do because he can't roll back over yet.
After going to the Norris Center to play earlier in the week, we decided to check out the pool on Saturday morning. They didn't open until 11:00, so we planned on arriving there as close to 11:00 as we could so we could swim before lunch time. The kids were really excited about getting in the water. We got their floaties on and even brought some toys along with us. The water was a little cooler than what they are used to at the pool in Canada, but it really wasn't too bad. We even were able to put Owen in a little baby float. He seemed to enjoy floating around, and Samantha and Aedan had fun playing with the pool noodles, racing across the pool, and jumping into the water. It definitely wasn't the same as the John Rhodes pool with the zero depth area, water features, and water slide, but it was a fun, little getaway that was free and right down the street. Owen did pretty well in the water, and it is definitely something we will have to go do more often. They even have swim lessons starting up soon that we are looking into for the kids to help improve their swimming skills. It's nice to be so close to campus and be able to take advantage of these things.
(Blog about February 18-24, 2018)
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