Finding the Time

This weekend I'm going to have Jeremy take some "back to school" photos of the children. It's just not so easy to find the time to get the camera out and get some good shots. Things are running pretty smoothly here with school and household management, I really can't complain. Jeremy is still working long hours and that makes it a bit more difficult to get dinner on the table at a reasonable time--especially since during nap time we try to do the reading part of our school work (where I read to THEM), and I've been exercising in the afternoon as well. It's a very quick workout, but 20 minutes in a PACKED schedule is precious time. So if you ever wonder why I'm not blogging as much as you'd like me to, don't wonder. My life is VERY full--wonderfully full.

Lilah has been a stinker when it comes to sleep. Up until last night, she had been waking every 2 hours during the night. UGGH! Last night it was every 3 hours, although I didn't sleep very well as I was anticipating her waking at any given moment. This too shall pass, right?!?! I thought that perhaps if I could give her a bottle, just a little supplement, she'd do a little better, but she wants NOTHING to do with a bottle. On one hand I really don't like that idea, on the other hand, this is what I've been praying for...being able to breastfeed for the entire first year. Yes, it's "inconvenient" in some ways, but what a blessing to feed her God's best! She is so amazingly strong. She will not stay on her tummy anymore, she rolls right to her back...but it's very rare that she get's put down on the floor anyway due to the fact that she has a very "doting" big brother. He just LOVES to give her kisses, but sometimes gets a bit rough. She is at the age where she MUST be strapped into her swing, or she'll wiggle right out. She is taking 2 pretty good naps and one cat nap most days. Usually her morning nap is a really good one, and the afternoon may or may not be a good one. It's nice to see a routine forming though, even if it doesn't necessarily coincide with Aaron's...they usually nap for at least an hour at the same time, so I guess I really can't ask for more!

Aaron is growing in leaps and bounds. He's officially running. He's certainly not very fast, but it's also not a walk! We just got squeaky shoes for him so that when he's outside with Luke during our school time, we always know where he is! It's quite handy! He is saying more and more....his latest word is "shoe", go figure! :) He is always asking to go "night night", which actually means OUTSIDE. He can open our front door from the outside, what a smart little cookie. He's really come a long way. He's generally quite happy now (PRAISE GOD), and is sleeping wonderfully. In fact, he's usually waking around 5-7am, but in the past couple of days, the girls have given him his bottle and I haven't even known that he was awake. Talk about the blessing of older children, they are SO wonderful! He's got a TON of teeth now. He's got almost 4 on the top front and 2 molars on the top...and he's got the bottom two front and 2 molars on the bottom. Such a strange tooth pattern, but hey...whatever! They're all individuals.

The girls are doing well with school. There are days that I wish they'd stay focused a bit more and not be such lolly-gaggers, but mostly it's my fault for not being on top of things because I have things I have to get done. When I buckle down and set the timer for their work, they breeze through it. It's when I get busy doing housework and letting them work independently that things don't go so well. They've been helping Luke with HIS school work too, it's very sweet to watch. Abby is getting very excited about her birthday coming up so soon. I can't believe she'll be 8!! I still have to decide what to get her for her birthday. Her wish list changes from day to day, so I try not to get a gift until the last minute. She amazes me with her aptitude for math. I've got her in 4th grade math and she is breezing through the majority of it. She also wrote her first paper in English the other day, and although it certainly wasn't "perfect", it's so cute to see her creativity come through in her written word. She is also very diligent and neat with her handwriting. She doesn't know how to make all of her cursive letters without looking yet, but she sure works hard on doing it as neatly as she possibly can, and it is definitely neat indeed!

I've noticed a lot of maturing character-wise in Savannah lately. Yes, she still does very silly things, like hitting her sister over something silly, and fussing because her sister is being nicer to her friend than to her...but in her ability to have a bit more self-control and really set her mind on obedience and pleasing US, she is improving. I often find myself expecting a whole lot out of my children and being disappointed when they don't conform to my ideal of what they should be doing. I have to remind myself that they are still rather young and character takes time, so it's very encouraging to see things slowly taking shape.

Luke has been our designated Aaron-watcher while we're doing school work. I usually send them outside together in the back yard so I can keep an eye on them while we work and he is doing really good with making sure Aaron stays close by. It's so cute to see them playing together. Luke LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Lilah. He kisses her and talks sweet to her all the time. He's never said anything bad about her, he thinks she's the greatest thing. He's also been AWESOME with helping out around the house. He's a wonderful "garbage man". He takes all of the dirty diapers from me as SOON as I change them and throws them into the garbage for me. Then he even took the garbage out of the kitchen can and took it out to the big can on the curb! What a wonderful helper. He's quite diligent at housework when he actually gets into it. I really need to train him to do a few more things because he's getting to the age where he's really helpful. Today he helped me rake outside and got the gutters nice and clean! The children have a "Dog Fund" that they're putting all of their money into (I think it's so sweet that any money any of them earns goes into the "pot" and if they want to buy something, they ask each other), so that when we live where we can have a dog, they can use that money to buy things for the dog. :) So every time he helps with something, he's super excited that he has money to add to their jar.

Well, it's time for me to go take a shower and get ready for my evening beckoning. Lilah has been waking up shortly after I put her to bed because she wants to nurse again....cruel little taskmaster! :) But a cute one, indeed!

My Big Baby Girl

Last night was an amazing night. I put Lilah to bed at 8:30pm as usual, but I was completely shocked when I woke up at 4am and she was STILL snoozing. I of course had to check her to be sure she was okay, and she was, of course...but then I did something I never thought I'd do. I woke her up. I'm not a big fan of waking babies up in the middle of the night, but for the sake of my milk supply, I needed to feed her. I woke her up, nursed her and put her back into bed and she slept until 7am! What a GLORIOUS night. It was the first night since she's been born that I could stretch and roll over and sleep with no one snuggled up close to me. To be honest, I KINDA missed her. Not so much that I would RATHER have her in bed with me, but it is kinda sweet to wake up and look over and see her sweet little face. It really amazed me though because up until this point, the longest she's EVER slept was 4 hours. I wasn't expecting this...but we did have a bit of a tiring day, I suppose (shopping and a bit of driving).

Aaron now has 6 teeth--they're arriving in such a weird pattern. He has the top 2 and the bottom 2 of course, then that random molar...and now he's had the top, left tooth next to the middle ones pop through. He's also talking up a storm. Of course, no sentences or anything, but it seems like he says new words every day. He says "help", "baby", "more"--while signing "more", Lilah, of course, Abby, Mama, Dada, thank you and more I can't think of right now. Such a smart little guy!

First Day of School

We had our first day of school yesterday. It was mostly an overview of what we'll be doing this year, looking at our books and stuff, but the girls and Luke were all eager to jump in. Luke did great with his workbooks--he's got Get Ready for the Code, Singapore Earlybird Kindergarten Mathematics and Developing the Early Learner (or something along those lines, I'm not sure of the EXACT title at this moment--my coffee cup is still half full, so my brain is not quite functional yet). He did a few pages and really enjoyed it. He's so funny, when I asked him to tell daddy what letter he was learning about today he said, "FISH!". Hahaha...uhhh, fish is not a letter! :)

Abby got her math drill done in about 6 minutes and 25 seconds, Savannah took just over 9 minutes, which is typical for them. Abby is stronger in math, Savannah in language/reading. It's interesting to see where their strengths and weaknesses lie. They're both in 4th grade math because of this. I'm really loving our curriculum so far. I never thought I'd be more of a workbook kind of person, but I think it's going to work for us because not only do my girls LIKE workbooks, but it gives me something tangible to evaluate where we've been and how we're coming along. So I'm pretty excited.

The only thing that didn't go smoothly yesterday was Aaron...he was quite disruptive, so it'll be interesting to see what I can do with him in order to minimize the craziness!! Speaking of which, he's awake...better finish this cuppa quick!!

I'm ashamed of myself!

Lilah laughed for the first time about a week and a half ago. I was holding her and being silly and she laughed! She did it quite a few times. It, of course, was as darling as can be. She's always been a big smiler and squeaker...she'll smile real big and then give you a HUGE squeak. The girls told me she was "laughing" for our neighbor and I was disappointed that she gave her first real laugh to a stranger...but when she started laughing for me, I asked them, "Is that what she was doing for Scott?" and they said, "Oh no! She was squeaking at him". So I didn't even mark it down that she did her first REAL laugh for me! It wasn't until this morning when Facebook showed my status from a year ago today that Aaron had HIS first real laugh that I was reminded that I didn't record hers. Boooo, as Luke would say!

Very Strange

So in my last post I said that Aaron has been waking me up. It's normal for him to wake up once a night and have a bottle (on his own) and sleep in until around 8am. He's been doing fantastic actually...until the past few nights. I kinda figured he was teething because, come on, he's only got 4 teeth...he's BOUND to be getting more, right? But I hadn't really seen anything going on lately...but every time he gets like this: fussy during the day, sleep not so great, shorter naps...I KNOW that's what's going on. So I had him laughing the other day and saw that the tooth next to his left top tooth is starting to show. It hasn't popped through yet, but I can see the outline of it. Good, it IS teething. But then I saw some white spots in the top BACK part of his gums. I felt one...it didn't really feel like anything, I felt the other and lo and behold...it's a TOOTH! I'm not sure if it's a molar or one of his bicuspids, but it's definitely NOT part of the "normal" tooth pattern. I'm excited though because the sooner we get these teeth in, the sooner things will smooth out. I'm not a fan of teething!

Making Progress

I've been working on putting Lilah in her crib and then when she wakes, nursing her and putting her BACK into her crib, rather than being lazy and bringing her to bed with me. Let me first say that I am a lot more tired these past couple of days then I was before...but it's part of the price one pays, I suppose. I really don't think the tiredness has to do with Lilah though, because she's been great...I think it has to do with her brother waking me up too!! But that's a different post!

So last night she went from 8:30pm until 1:30am (GREAT stretch!) and then from about 1:45am until 3am! I brought her into bed with me then and actually forgot she was in there with me until I was awakened at 6:30 by a crying Aaron. He was soaking wet and thankfully seems to have gone back to sleep because a day starting at 6:30 with him would not be a good thing!! Thankfully I managed to sneak out of bed without waking Lilah! :) So yes, we're making progress. Something that gave me a kick in the pants was that my Facebook status from a year ago said, "Aaron slept from 8pm-2:40am and then from 3-7am!" I thought, "WOW! I thought Aaron wasn't the best sleeper...Lilah NEEDS to be doing better!" Time to stop being so lazy and work on her night time sleep so I can get more sleep!

If I were sleeping, I'd be dreaming of sleep!

My baby girl is NOT the greatest sleeper in the world. I sometimes wonder, did I just get lousy sleepers (other than Luke) or is it something I'm doing wrong?!?! Lilah is almost 11 weeks old, and the longest stretch of sleep she's had to date has only been slightly over 3 hours. I put her to bed (as usual) around 8pm last night...and by just after 10, right when I was FINALLY climbing into bed, I saw arms flailing in the crib. Have I mentioned I really don't enjoy sharing a room with a baby? She had unswaddled herself. I re-swaddled her, nursed her and put her to bed. 5 minutes later, she's grunting and fussing. I got her up, nursed her again and put her back in bed. FINALLY, at 11pm, I went to bed. Aaron wakes at 1am for a bottle--I have to go potty anyway, so rather than wake Jeremy up, who, incidentally, fell PROMPTLY to sleep at 10pm, I get up to get his bottle. 2am, she's awake again. I don't even bother to nurse her...what's the point of sitting up for another 30 minutes to an hour at this hour when I FINALLY went to sleep 3 hours ago?!?! I bring her to bed with me. We sleep for a while...until I decide to get comfortable. My movement wakes her up and she starts grunting/fussing. I turn over and nurse her again and succumb to sleeping on my side and trying to ignore the ache that's starting in my hips and back. I don't know how many times this happened...I think she slept reasonably well--it seems that the more tired I get, the less I realize that I'm really uncomfortable. Aaron woke up at 6:45am. Quite early for him...he's teething, plus he DID have his bottle at 1am! I give him his bottle (what's left of it) and he is quiet. There is really no point of TRYING to sneak back into bed, amazingly Lilah did NOT wake up when I got up...so I come downstairs to at least enjoy some coffee and computer time while it's quiet--and to try to figure out what in the world I'm going to do about getting Lilah to sleep better...shouldn't we be well on our way to sleeping thru the night by this point?? At least sleeping in a couple of large chunks? Sleeping in her OWN bed would be fantastic! Oh, did I mention that her naps are rarely more than 45 minutes too? Unless, of course, it's in her swing. I'm sure all of this is related and I'm perpetuating the problem...but at 2am, all I want is sleep...no matter how lousy it is...I take solace in the fact that in approximately 9-10 months, she will probably be sleeping mostly through the night. *sigh*