kim through
   the looking glass

Well, it’s 3:56PM and my first day alone with two children is coming to a close. I’m considering it a success because both of my kids are still alive

A great friend came over for most of the day to help me out and it was a lifesaver! She came over in the morning and kept Gwen occupied while I attempted to take a nap with Gil … who woke up as soon as we laid down. She’s coming back shortly to bake cookies with me and distract me from the fact that I did NOT get an afternoon nap - Gil woke up at noon when we came in from a walk and was still awake at 2PM when Gwen needed a nap desperately, so I put her down and decided that it wasn’t worth laying down once Gil (finally) fell asleep (at 3:15PM) since the liklihood of him staying asleep AND Gwen staying asleep for an appreciable amount of time was slim-to-none. (Of course, it’s 4PM and she’s still sleeping. I should have gone down!)

I will admit that things got a bit difficult while trying to get Gwen down for her nap with a screaming newborn. I was maybe a bit harsh trying to get her to lay down and stay still. I may have emphatically told Gil that he sucked when I tried to lay down to sleep and he woke up … for the third time.

But overall? I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and Brad will be home in a few hours.

I can do this.

Gil is just over two weeks old. Although in some ways it feels like he’s fit right into our little family like he was never missing, in other ways, he is still very new, as are our experiences with him.

Gil has an almost constant need to nurse. Forget every 2 hours. Forget every hour. When this boy is awake, he is stuck like glue to my breast. When he sleeps, he sleeps hard - 1 or 2 hours at a time, minimum.

Gwen seems to be taking this in stride - most of the time, anyways. She seems to realize that “baby” needs mommy and needs to nurse. In fact, two days ago, Gwen was in my room with Gil and I while I was dressing for the day. Gil was propped up on a pillow on the bed looking around and Gwen was watching him. “Mommy. Baby.” She said. In Gwen speak, this means, ‘Mommy, I want you to hold Gil.’ I told her that just as soon as I was ready, I’d pick him up. “Mommy. Baby. Sling.” She said, again. I think I’ve got a novice babywearer on my hands! Read the rest of this entry »

… is about to get a whole lot more difficult!

The past two weeks, I’ve had some combination of Brad and my mom here with me. An extra set of hands to wrangle Gwen into her coat. A pair of hands to get a snack ready. Hands to hold Gil while Gwen and I enjoy our special time together snuggling down for her nap.

Sadly, I will be all alone tomorrow.

And I’m more than a little scared.

Gil is a very frequent nurser. As in, when he’s awake, he’s generally attached to the breast. The. Whole. Time. He’s hard to wear for extended periods because I’m frequently switching him from breast to breast. He’s very rarely awake and settled, happy to be carried around - his need to suck is great, and I’m happy to meet it. Unfortunately, that makes it hard to attend to Gwen’s needs as well!

I know I’ll survive - goodness knows other mothers have been met with more difficult challenges (ie. twins/triplets, two closer in age that mine, developmental disabilities, etc.) and survived - even thrived! Think of me while I find my way to mother another, would you please?

If you don’t frequent Hathor the Cow Goddess‘ comic site, check out the comic Extinction!

I love her comics … although this one’s a little bit scary!

I bought a Graco Soft Seat Potty Trainer a few weeks ago and have been sitting Gwen on it once or twice a day. Normally, she sits for a minute and then emphatically announces, “UP!” and then stares in it. And giggles.

(She’s really far too cute.)

Today, though, it had been almost 3 hours since she’d been changed, so we headed upstairs to change what I thought was going to be a SOAKED diaper. She was dry, so on the off chance something might happen, I plopped her on the potty and handed her a book. I was going to read it to her, but she pulled it out of my hand to look at the pictures and immediately peed!

YAY!

I know it doesn’t mean that she’s going to potty train even REMOTELY soon, but I was pretty excited that she peed on the potty. I think we’ve got a pretty smart cookie on our hands who will figure it out fairly quick once she puts her mind to it, and hopefully with a few more happy accidents like the one today, she’ll figure it out sooner rather than later!

So you know how I wrote a while back about being so disappointed in not being able to find a used Phil & Teds buggy?

Shortly after that post I noticed an aquaintence had an almost three-year-old and a Phil & Teds. So, being the crazy kook I am, I straight up asked if they were almost done with it and would they be willing to sell it to me?

They decided that they weren’t quite ready to live without a stroller as their daughter wasn’t terribly interested in walking everywhere and she accompanied them daily to drop their oldest at school.

So, after a good friend was able to trade her UPPAbaby Vista for a Phil & Teds for the upcoming arrival of her second baby, I thought to myself …

“Hmmm … I’ve got a Bertini in my basement that I was going to sell on Kijiji to put toward my Phil & Ted fund. Maybe I could offer to trade them?”

Followed closely by …

“Good gracious, my grandmother would have no idea what I meant with that sentence.”

So, I put the question out to them, brought the buggy over for them to view and it was a done deal!

Tonight, I became the proud (and terribly excited owner!) of an Apple Green Phil & Teds E3 Sport Buggy with storm cover and doubles kit.

YAY! I’m so excited, I want to go wake Gwen up and take her for a ride! Or maybe not! I think I can wait until morning I’ll take some pictures tomorrow.

I’ve been doing some reading on co-sleeping and found a great article called “The Con of Controlled Crying”. Here’s an excerpt:

Controlled crying and other similar regimes may indeed work to produce a self-soothing, solitary sleeping infant. However, the trade-off could be an anxious, clingy or hyper-vigilant child or even worse, a child whose trust is broken. Unfortunately, we can’t measure attributes such as trust and empathy which are the basic skills for forming all relationships. We can’t, for instance, give a child a trust quotient like we can give him an intelligence quotient. One of the saddest emails I have received was from a mother who did controlled crying with her one-year-old toddler.

After a week of controlled crying he slept, but he stopped talking (he was saying single words). For the past year, he has refused all physical contact from me. If he hurts himself, he goes to his older brother (a preschooler) for comfort. I feel devastated that I have betrayed my child. - Sonia

Can you imagine? I can’t. I’m so glad that I read this article - on the nights when it’s the hardest, I’ll be able to remember that quote.

For more articles on baby sleep, co-sleeping, baby training, etc. check out this page. Enjoy!

Gwen tries to mimic everything. But she’s got quite the little vocabulary of words she actually uses correctly! Here are her newest words.

• elbow
• light
• up
• outside
• ears
• glasses
• apple
• hat

My favourite is when she tries to say ‘architecture’, as it comes out ‘akipoo’. And glasses sounded like ‘asses’, which is also very entertaining.

MISSING:

Infant. Named Gwen. All I have is this toddler …

And I’m not sure where she came from …

I know, I know. It’s been a LOOOOOONG time since I’ve gotten to update you all on Gwen via pictures. Since the beginning of July, actually! I totally lost my camera cord and couldn’t even find the memory card/USB reader we bought a couple of years ago so I could NOT get my pictures off my camera! But, thankfully, I found both the card reader AND the camera cord and now we’re up and running again. I figured I’d shoot some pics up here and show you how much she’s grown in the past month! Read the rest of this entry »

I have spoken to enough moms about this subject to know that in mommy-land, I am playing with fire. Please, if you are going to leave a comment disagreeing with my position, I am happy to read it and have a discussion about the subject. Please keep in mind that just because we have chosen a different parenting style does NOT mean that I think you’re a bad parent. If any nasty/derogatory/flaming comments are posted, I will not respond, and I will delete them. Let’s be courteous everyone - thanks!

A couple of weeks ago I was at the park and met up with some friends. One asked me how Gwen was sleeping and I replied with a “Oh, the same … she still wakes up really frequently.” After a bit more chit-chat, she asked why we didn’t let her cry-it-out (CIO) so we could all get some sleep. I’m afraid my answer was woefully inadequate to convey why we are not advocates of the CIO method.

I thought about her question some more once I got home and came up with some better reasons than just “studies show it’s bad for babies’ brains” and “it just doesn’t feel right”. I thought I’d write them down here so I won’t be tempted to forget next time Read the rest of this entry »