Aedan: 53 Months, Week 1
Owen: 11 Months, Week 3 (Week 51)
Sunday, September 2nd, Ben and I were traveling back from Boston to Upland. Owen had been up most of the night before, so Ben and I were exhausted and knew we had a long day of traveling ahead of us. We took a taxi to the airport at 8:00, and it was pretty easy to get through security. We found a play area in the airport to let Owen walk around and play, while Ben and I got some coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. It was so funny to watch him play because he just kept following around all the older kids, just hoping that they would play with him. You can definitely tell that he is a younger sibling and the he missed Samantha and Aedan. Owen had done pretty well considering all the dragging around we were doing to him, taking him all over the city of Boston, and expecting him to sleep in a different bed and room. He was definitely done traveling, and we knew this return flight would be more interesting, especially since we had a connection in Chicago, so we would have to be on two planes. I didn't even try to nurse Owen this time since it didn't work at all last time. He was definitely tired that morning since he had such a rough night and hadn't napped at all that morning. It took a little bit of work to get him to fall asleep on that first plane ride, but he eventually passed out on Ben's shoulder for a nice little nap.
Once we got to Indy, we collected our luggage, took the bus back to our parking lot, and we never thought we would be so excited to see our car after pushing around stroller, taking public transportation for a few days, and wrangling a wiggly toddler. Owen fell asleep instantly as soon as we started driving, staying asleep for the entire ride back to Upland. In fact, I think I may have taken a nap for a few minutes as well.
We arrived in Upland around 5:00, and Jeni and Alaina ended up coming down for the evening so that we could see them and the cousins could spend some time together. We hadn't seen them since our family vacation in June. It was a fun evening together, although Samantha cried when Alaina had to leave and she had to get ready for bed. She was hoping she could spend the night so they would have more time to play together in the morning. Samantha loves Alaina, and she so wishes she could see her more often. I wish there was a way we could make that happen more. That's one downfall to living farther away. We don't see family nearly as much as we would like, and it just breaks my heart to see our kids get so sad when we have to leave family.
It was so good to be back in a house where Owen could walk around freely and play with toys and his siblings. He definitely missed them. We told Samantha and Aedan that anytime he saw older kids, he would go up to them and try to interact with them, hoping that they would play with him and show him attention. He loved having his big brother and sister around, that's for sure!
As we were getting ready to head back home on Monday, which was Labor Day, I so wished that we could just teleport ourselves back home. I hoped that Owen wouldn't be too grumpy having to be contained again, and I hoped that Ben and I could get more sleep that night. Owen started off the night waking up crying once before we went to bed, and it took a little bit of work to get him back to sleep. Once again, he was sleeping in a different bed and a different room, so I'm sure that was weird for him. It was so fun to experience a new city and be able to go with Ben for his conference, but I told Ben that I don't want to travel anywhere again until Owen isn't nursing anymore. It just makes it so much more difficult, especially because he won't nurse in public. Sometimes it takes him awhile to calm down when nursing too, and I feel like I'm just wrestling him to get him to settle down and start nursing. I sometimes am looking forward to when I don't have to be the only person putting him to bed, but I know I will be sad when he no longer nurses anymore. However, like I said, I really can't complain, because even though I was tired, I got to go on a trip with my husband and we love to travel together. Some day we will be able to tell Owen about when he was a baby and got to go on a trip with just Mommy and Daddy.
Our car ride back home on Monday went really well. Owen took two really good naps in the car, and Samantha and Aedan were respectful and helpful. We made our normal stop at the Lansing Mall for lunch at Chipotle and time for the kids to play in the play place before getting back in the car to drive again. The only other stop we made was at a rest area to use the bathroom and let the kids stretch their legs for a little while. After picking up Izzy, we made it home just in time for pizza to be delivered to our house at 6:30. We ate a fast dinner, got the essentials unpacked, gave the kids quick baths, and tried to get everyone (especially Samantha) in bed at a decent time since she had her first day of 2nd grade the next day. This wasn't the most ideal way to spend the last couple of days before school started, but I know the kids had a great time with Ema and Papa in Upland.
I always have bittersweet feelings when the school year starts back up again. Especially up here, we have almost three months off of school, so it's hard to transition back into waking up and getting ready quickly, busy schedules, and also just not seeing Samantha as much. We really had a great summer together, and I loved having her around. Samantha and Aedan loved playing together, and they truly are each other's best friends. I loved seeing the things they came up with when they played. My heart was mourning the fact that my little girl was going back to school and would be gone from 8:00-4:00 every day of the week again.
Anyways, Samantha was pretty excited about going to school, but she was a bit apprehensive that first day since she didn't know who her teachers were going to be since they were both new to the school, and we were out of town the night of the Meet the Teacher Night. We decided to make it a family affair in taking her to school, so we could walk her in and get her situated where she needed to be. Of course, I took her 1st day of school picture before we left home. I can't believe my little girl is already in 2nd grade! That sounds so old to me. It's hard to believe this is her third year in elementary school already. Time sure does seem to go by faster as they get older.
I wasn't sure exactly how the day would go, but it went faster than I expected it to go. It was nice having Aedan around me more because when Samantha is home, he largely ignores me, but now that she's gone, he wanted to be near me and play with me and talk to me a lot more than usual. We spent the day just hanging out at home, getting things settled after being out of town, doing laundry, and just playing at home together.
Since Aedan hadn't started preschool yet, Samantha could take the bus home this first week of school, and I couldn't wait to hear how her day went. She had a great day and always likes school once she starts going, even if she doesn't want to admit it. Owen took good naps for me that day, for which I was extremely thankful, and then we spent the night hanging out together as a family.
Here is Owen doing one of his favorite activities as of late, putting toys back into a container. We can now get him to help us clean up!
After having chili soup for dinner, we went out for celebratory first day of school ice cream. It was a little bit too chilly to go to Dairy Queen and eat ice cream outside, so we went to Zak's instead. Everyone enjoyed their ice cream, and Ben even let Owen have a taste of his.
Wednesday was a busy day with Ben and I meeting with Samantha's teacher and principal first thing that morning to discuss the schedule we are going to try and follow for her going up a grade for math. (Miss Linda came over to our house to watch the boys for us so we didn't have to bring them along to the meeting, which was super kind of her.) They were able to find a consistent time every day, but it meant that she was going to miss P.E. once a week and Culture once a week. Plus, Ms. Allison would have to do Samantha's Guided Reading group at another time of day on the days she would miss it for math. We decided to let Samantha go to P.E. and miss math on Wednesdays, and we would try that for awhile to see if that worked okay. She just loves P.E., and it's a good time for her to be active and social, so we didn't want her to miss out on that time either. I was happy that it seemed like everyone was on the same page, and I was glad that we got it worked out so quickly so that Samantha could get started in 3rd grade math right away. Ms. Allison seems to be organized and on top of things, so I am hoping this will be a good year for Samantha to learn and grow.
Then, the busy morning continued with a MOPS leadership team meeting at church from 10-12:30. I tried to get Owen down for a nap before the meeting, but he woke up when I laid him down, and then only slept 20 minutes. Then, he was out all morning playing at church, and he did fine, but then he was just so overtired for lunch time, and I nursed him and rocked him for 25 minutes to get him to fall asleep for his afternoon nap, but again, woke up as soon as I laid him down. It was so frustrating because I knew he was tired and needed to sleep, but I just could not get him to stay asleep. One time I went down to his room, planning on just holding him and letting him sleep on me, because that would at least be better than no nap, but I couldn't even get him to sleep on my shoulder sitting down. He just kept wiggling and whimpering. I even tried nursing him again to see if he would fall asleep doing that, but he was not interested in sleeping, so I eventually just gave up and let him get up.
Then, the busy morning continued with a MOPS leadership team meeting at church from 10-12:30. I tried to get Owen down for a nap before the meeting, but he woke up when I laid him down, and then only slept 20 minutes. Then, he was out all morning playing at church, and he did fine, but then he was just so overtired for lunch time, and I nursed him and rocked him for 25 minutes to get him to fall asleep for his afternoon nap, but again, woke up as soon as I laid him down. It was so frustrating because I knew he was tired and needed to sleep, but I just could not get him to stay asleep. One time I went down to his room, planning on just holding him and letting him sleep on me, because that would at least be better than no nap, but I couldn't even get him to sleep on my shoulder sitting down. He just kept wiggling and whimpering. I even tried nursing him again to see if he would fall asleep doing that, but he was not interested in sleeping, so I eventually just gave up and let him get up.
After a long day of little sleep, I put Owen to bed early that night, a little after 7:00. In fact, all the kids were in bed before 7:30 that night because everyone was so tired, and it was nice to be done with him and back upstairs before 7:30, giving me more of a night to myself.
Even though Owen was giving me such a hard time at staying asleep for nap time, he was doing somewhat better at night, at least better than what he was doing in Boston, which I guess doesn't say much. He had actually slept from when we go to bed until the morning a couple times, but he also started waking up 2-3 times in the time between when I put him down and when we go to bed, for some reason, which is frustrating because it interrupts Ben and my time together or the work that we are trying to get done.
As Ben and I were getting ready to go to bed ourselves that night, Ben let Izzy out to go the bathroom, as he always does, and there was a skunk on the other side of our fence by our play set. Izzy ran right for it and got sprayed before Ben could call her back. We were both so annoyed that she got sprayed again and that we were going to have to spend all this time cleaning her off again when she, and our house, was finally smelling better. We were smart enough to not let her in the house this time, but Ben did let her in the garage in order to get her away from the skunk. She got sprayed across her chest again, and we decided to get the baby pool out, put Izzy in it, and clean her outside with the hose. The water was cold, and we felt bad that we had to do that to her, but we did not want her in the house until she was cleaned. Luckily, we had some hydrogen peroxide still, so we were able to use the effective solution right away. I scrubbed her as best as I could and got as much of the smell off her as I could. However, we still moved her kennel into the laundry room so we could keep her out of the main part of the house. It was definitely better than the last time she got sprayed, but it still smelled in our house. It was coming in from the garage and sinking down into the basement, and I think Ben and I probably smelled too from being outside with Izzy. It was so disgusting and annoying. Our neighbors had even caught a skunk in a trap the day before, so we thought maybe we were good to go, but then they told us that they had seen a mom and two babies walking around outside, and once Izzy got sprayed, we realized there was definitely more than one skunk. The other thing we realized the next day, is that we probably should have moved the car out of the garage because the whole inside of the car smelled like skunk from the odor permeating it all night long. I tried to air out the garage and the car as much as possible for the rest of the week, but it's amazing how long the skunk smell can linger.
I struggled with this week because I wanted to be doing fun things with Aedan and spend more time with him before he started preschool the next week and our schedule was more limited, but with the trouble I was having trying to get Owen to sleep, I felt like I was spending all my time with him, down in his room, trying to get him to sleep and to stay asleep. Thursday was another one of those days. I tried to get him down for a morning nap, as he was up before 7:00 that morning, but once again, he cried as soon as I laid him down. I was holding him and patting him for over 20 minutes, but it wasn't doing any good, and after struggling with him all day on Wednesday, I just felt like I couldn't do it again. I felt so tired of him not being able to ever fall asleep on his own. In fact, I ended up just leaving him in his bed that morning so that I could actually spend time with Aedan. Plus, I was just too upset about it and needed a break, for his sake and mine. So, Aedan and I played board games together, like I Can Do That! and Clue Jr. It was so fun to be able to give Aedan that one-on-one attention and just do whatever he wanted to for awhile. An hour and ten minutes later, around 11:15, Owen finally gave up and fell asleep. Then, he ended up sleeping until 12:45, which was strange and pushed our lunch time way back, but I didn't care, I was just glad he was finally sleeping.
On a more positive note, even though Owen has trouble sleeping, he is almost always happy and easygoing when he's awake. Here's Aedan playing a fun game of throwing this soft, inflatable ball at Owen's head. Owen did not seem to care at all, and I probably shouldn't have let it go on so long, but it was just fun to watch. Aedan thought it was great fun, and it's a good thing he didn't always have the greatest aim. It's amazing what little brothers can put up with. :)
I have been trying to not talk about and obsess over Owen's sleep, but I feel like we were back in a bad place with him again. Before going to Boston, I feel like he was starting to find a new normal and settle into a little bit of a routine. However, Thursday night was a rough night after an already rough day. He was up 5 times during the night, and one of those times it took us an hour and a half to get him back to sleep, with both of us having to go into his room to try and help him back to sleep. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I was pretty sure he was getting a molar in on the bottom left side of his mouth because there was a large bump on his gums. We have been giving him medicine before putting him to bed, and I also gave him more around 3:00 a.m., but it didn't seem to be helping him much.
There was a play date at McDonald's that Thursday morning, and I thought about taking the boys, but I didn't want to go if there wasn't going to be anyone for Aedan to play with there. One boy that he likes to play with that I thought might be there ended up not being able to go, but when I messaged his mom about it, she invited us to come to their house instead, so we headed over there. Owen only slept half an hour for his morning nap, which I guess is better than nothing, but didn't seem long enough after the rough night he had. I felt bad for Aedan because I was spending so much time down with Owen trying to get him to sleep, and that definitely didn't help Aedan's adjustment to having Samantha back in school. He was definitely much more listless and bored, wanting me to play with him all the time, and not being patient when I had to try and get things done around the house. It will be nice when Aedan gets to go to preschool in the afternoons starting next week because it will give him something to do instead of being stuck at the house having to be quiet while his baby brother naps (hopefully). However, I was glad that Aedan was able to go over to a friend's house and play. We built train tracks together, colored pictures, and they even had mac and cheese for lunch before we had to go back home so I could put Owen down for his afternoon nap. He ended up going down pretty easily for that nap, so that was good. I also had Aedan nap because he was just acting so tired. He was already fast asleep by the time I came back up from putting Owen to bed.
The other interesting thing that happened over night into Friday was that we caught something in our trap that I had gotten from animal control on Thursday. We had it covered with a blanket, per the suggestion of the animal control workers, so we couldn't see in it, and I was afraid to look. However, I figured I should probably check and make sure it was actually a skunk before calling and having them come get the trap. I took a long metal pole over by the trap and lifted a corner of the blanket. I saw grey fur and knew it was not a skunk, but I couldn't tell what it actually was. I then lifted the rest of the blanket off, and the animal stirred from it's sleep, and that's when I saw it was just a cat. I carefully opened the trap door and held it open until the cat realized it could get out, and then it ran away from me, down the street, as fast as it could possibly go. I wonder whose cat we trapped for the night!
When Friday came we all gave a sigh of relief. Samantha had a great first week of school. She seems to enjoy her class and her teachers, and she has gotten over the nerves of going up for 3rd grade math. She told us about a new girl that she made friends with and fun games she was playing on the playground and at P.E. She said her favorite subjects are Writer's Workshop and Science. We went to her Back to School BBQ on Wednesday night, and it was fun to see her interacting with different kids and teachers and getting excited for being back in school again. It's a transition, for sure, but we will get there. I am so proud of Samantha and how well she does at school. She is a hard worker, she is respectful to her teachers, and she is a good friend. I love watching her personality develop as she gets older and comes into her own more and more.
After a first week of school and trying to get used to new routines and schedules, we didn't have any grand plans for the weekend. We had a relaxing morning at home on Saturday and just enjoyed giving Samantha and Aedan time to play together. I know they really missed each other that week after having the whole summer to play with each other. The only thing we did was run to Meijer so the kids could pick out presents for Owen for his birthday, so Aedan could pick out a present for Gavin, and so that I could buy my materials fro MOPS.
Aedan has become much more interesting in drawing lately, and he spent a lot of time drawing these people on the white board easel in our basement. It's a family portrait, and I know he said that Ben, Samantha, Owen, Aunt Jeni, Uncle Tim, Alaina, and I were in it (along with a couple others), but I don't remember who was who. I love when kids start drawing stick figure people with the legs that come out of the head and the arms that come out of the legs. He spent so much time on this and was very insistent that no one erased it or messed it up, so I wanted to be sure to take a picture of it and the proud artist standing next to it.
That evening Aedan was invited to a birthday party for his friend, Gavin. Since he rarely gets invited to parties, I figured he might have fun going to this one. I took him there, since I know the mom through MOPS, and it was a difficult thing for Aedan. He didn't know anyone there, except for Gavin, and Gavin was playing with his other friends, neighbors, and cousins, so Aedan was a bit left out. The party was in the gym at Big Bear, and it basically is just a large gym with a bounce house, balls, scooters, and hula hoops to play with, and lots of space to run around. Aedan stuck pretty close to me the whole time, and I was more than happy to play with him, pull him on the scooter, bat the balloon back and forth with him, and give him some one-on-one attention. With Owen being so mobile now, he takes a lot of my attention when I am home with the boys. Aedan started to warm up after a little while, but he still didn't branch out too far from me. He was excited about the cake and presents. In fact, Aedan was very helpful and carried all the presents from the present table over to where Gavin was sitting to open them. He really is such a sweet and helpful boy. I am proud of who he is, and I am proud to be his mom. :)
Here are Samantha and Owen playing together in the bath tub that night. :) Normally Aedan and Owen take baths together, so Samantha loved this chance to be able to play with Owen in the water. I think he was having a blast with her as well.
(Blog about September 2-8, 2018)
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