Before my quick update on our week as far as Brayden is concerned, I just have to tell you all to be ready to see some super cute family pictures we got today! We swapped with the Porters and I think we got a bunch of keepers! Unfortunately, I'm way out of practice on my photog skills, but I think there's a couple decent ones for them too. Maybe. Haha.
As for Brayden this week. It was very interesting. He fought his naps this week every day, which usually never happens! 3 of the 5 weekdays he didn't take a nap. The other days I woke him up early, but he didn't fall asleep until 2 or later, so one day I let him sleep til 3:30. We were out later on a date, so it worked out anyway. Bedtime was also interesting. First, he didn't use his binky! What?? Our little binky boy is getting all grown up! He'd just play with it and then hold it while he tried to fall asleep. Also, he wouldn't fall asleep by himself like he has for the past year. He just kept coming out or crying unless I sat in there with him for about an hour until he fell asleep. Well, there were a couple of the no nap days that he went pretty quick, but then he woke up for an hour around midnight. I used a trick Brother Kiesling told me - use a finger to gently rub over the eyes until they finally don't open. Brayden surprisingly likes it. So was it a good/ better week? I'm not quite sure. Only time will tell if these changes in his sleep are for the better or not. I am pretty happy about the bink though :) One less Mommy to-do.
The last crazy thing about this week was potty training. I remember learning in a BYU class that the biggest reasons kids struggle with potty training is because the parents try to push them into it before they're ready. So, I've been trying to just have him wear underwear or sit on his tiny toilet on occasion, but he'd always just hold it or have an accident and then change to a diaper. He never went in his toilet. Last Saturday I had him in undies and when he had an accident I asked if he wanted another pair and he did, so I figured, why not? He went all day Saturday with underwear on (minus naptime) and had 2 accidents in the morning, but held it all afternoon. He still wouldn't go in the toilet though. So throughout the week while we were home we would wear underpants and he only had 2 other accidents all week! He would always hold it in when he had on the underpants. He even started whimpering when he had to go because he didn't want to wet his pants. But, I think he was still unsure about actually going in the toilet. He got a few drips out on Thursday and got a treat. He got a few drips out on Friday again and then 2 minutes later I heard him whimpering and knew it had been at least 2 hours since he'd had a diaper on, so I had him sit on the toilet once more. And he went!! He was laughing the whole time watching himself go in the toilet. He was so proud! We picked Daddy up that night and told him about it and then after dinner Brayden was asking for a treat. I told him if he wanted to wet in the toilet again then he could have one. So, Daddy took him in and he went again!! YAY!! Today we didn't have underwear on until after nap, but he held it until he was finally able to go in the toilet again. But the best was when we were getting ready for bed. He wanted to brush his teeth (he loves it!) and I said he needed to try to go to the bathroom and then brush his teeth. As he was walking out of his room he said "yeah, go brush teeth" which usually means that he ignored the part he didn't repeat. I heard him moving his toilet/stool to the sink so I called out "Brayden, you need to use the bathroom before you brush your teeth." As soon as I finished with Zander I went in and found Brayden sitting on his toilet with his pants off and already wetting! What a champ! He listened and obeyed. What a good kiddo. Anyway, we are officially potty training. He even asked to wear his underwear to bed! (I talked him out of it) Go Brayden! He really is growing up!!
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
Meeting Alyssa
Over Memorial Day weekend we were able to have my brother and his fiance, Alyssa over for a visit from Utah. It was SO much fun! I had never met Alyssa before other than skype a couple of times, but she is awesome. We have a lot in common I think :) Brayden was so excited to have them come over that we ended up leaving for the airport 20 minutes early because I couldn't come up with any more excuses to delay. In the car Brayden kept saying "go get Alyssa." And I'd say "Yep, we'll go get Dan and Alyssa." Brayden: "Yeah, go get Alyssa." Haha. They got in Friday morning and I took them and the boys to Lake Ella for a little walk and it turned into a mini photo shoot for fun too. When we got home both boys took a nap while we made lunch and played Qwirkle. We had tuna melts that I totally dropped as I was pulling them out of the oven. Luckily with Dan's help we were able to salvage all but one that slipped out of the oven. Leave it to me to provide such adventures. Dan got to watch Rio for the first time on Brayden's request while I made dinner. Later that night for a family date night we went to Chuck E. Cheese and had some fun. We got 20 free tokens for Zander's half birthday (I love birthday clubs!) to add to our little collection of tokens from almost a year ago. We have only spent $15 on tokens and it seems like we always have a constant supply. But I'm not complaining!!
Saturday we ate banana pancakes and then headed off to the beach at Alligator Point. It was a blast! I realized while we were there that we have lots of random hobbies. I had my camera out a lot, we brought Preston's trick kite, we had our frisbee (which Preston and Dan are both very into ultimate), we played bocce ball, and just the fact that we like to travel to places like the beach. Not to mention piano, guitar, singing, harp, crafts, and so much more. But, the jack of all trades is the master of none. So, I guess it's really not impressive. Just something that occurred to me again. Anyway, back to the beach. We went swimming a lot, and played in the sand and ate pizza :) It was great! And nice weather! Not too hot and perfect water!!
Sunday was a nice relaxing day of church, games and just hanging out together. Plus we ate a roast, which is always yummy.
Monday was also fun, and very relaxed. No plans and not a care in the world. :) I wanted to take Alyssa to Country Dollar because I think it's a cute little store. Unfortunately it's closed on Mondays. Drat. But, it's next door to T.J. Max, so why not stop there? Alyssa found some cute jean capri's! And they secretly bought us a candle that makes our house smell like I'm baking sugar cookies. Preston was slightly disappointed to find out it was only a candle the first time I burned it. During Brayden's nap we played some more games and then we watched Newsies (which Dan had never seen!) before dinner. Sadly we had to say goodbye to them at 6:40am (well, it ended up being 7 and they ended up missing that flight and having to leave an hour later).
It was a fun trip! I tried to take lots of pictures, but I did forget my camera at Chuck E Cheese. Oops. Hope you enjoy what I did manage to get though!! Here's the happy little lovie doves.
Saturday we ate banana pancakes and then headed off to the beach at Alligator Point. It was a blast! I realized while we were there that we have lots of random hobbies. I had my camera out a lot, we brought Preston's trick kite, we had our frisbee (which Preston and Dan are both very into ultimate), we played bocce ball, and just the fact that we like to travel to places like the beach. Not to mention piano, guitar, singing, harp, crafts, and so much more. But, the jack of all trades is the master of none. So, I guess it's really not impressive. Just something that occurred to me again. Anyway, back to the beach. We went swimming a lot, and played in the sand and ate pizza :) It was great! And nice weather! Not too hot and perfect water!!
Sunday was a nice relaxing day of church, games and just hanging out together. Plus we ate a roast, which is always yummy.
Monday was also fun, and very relaxed. No plans and not a care in the world. :) I wanted to take Alyssa to Country Dollar because I think it's a cute little store. Unfortunately it's closed on Mondays. Drat. But, it's next door to T.J. Max, so why not stop there? Alyssa found some cute jean capri's! And they secretly bought us a candle that makes our house smell like I'm baking sugar cookies. Preston was slightly disappointed to find out it was only a candle the first time I burned it. During Brayden's nap we played some more games and then we watched Newsies (which Dan had never seen!) before dinner. Sadly we had to say goodbye to them at 6:40am (well, it ended up being 7 and they ended up missing that flight and having to leave an hour later).
It was a fun trip! I tried to take lots of pictures, but I did forget my camera at Chuck E Cheese. Oops. Hope you enjoy what I did manage to get though!! Here's the happy little lovie doves.
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| I love this picture minus all the shadows on their faces. |
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| Brayden was immediately best buds with "Auntie Lyssa" and was not shy one bit. |
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| Finding the turtles in the water |
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| Brayden made new friends and started telling them all about the helicopter. He started walking with them until I pulled him away to go back to Dan and Alyssa. |
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| Just a great picture. Brayden drinking and me making a face because I had just squirted B on accident. |
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| My Friday night dinner from Pinterest. Broccoli Chicken Braid or something. Turned out amazing. |
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| Eating pizza. Not the greatest picture of them, I know. But, they still look good! |
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| Burying uncle Dan's feet! |
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| Brayden through a mini fit where he tosses himself on the ground. His face got all sandy and I wanted a picture. This was his face in response to my request to smile. |
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| Zander in the Pea Pod. Took a good little nap :) |
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| Jumping over the waves. |
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| busy dumping water in a hole. |
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| Zander's formed a habit of getting laying down every time we get in the water. |
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| Feeding the birds. These birds would catch pieces of pizza in the air!! |
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| The group before we left. |
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| Playing with Auntie Lyssa |
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| Memorial Day Bocce Ball. They crushed us. |
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| I love Preston's tongue sticking out as he throws. Ha. |
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| Dan and Alyssa not looking thrilled with the toss. But they won. |
Serious Sleeping Issues
I have happier things to blog about soon, but this is not a happy post. My worst fear in having two children was messing up Brayden's sleep schedule and helping them both sleep in the same room alright. Nap time has become no problem other than Zander fighting it, but I can hand that. Bedtime, on the other hand, is just as bad as I had imagined it could be some nights and some nights are awesome. Unfortunately the awesome nights are few and far between. Zander is now on a pretty good bedtime schedule where he is ready and able to be put to sleep around 7 or 8. He still wakes up most nights around 530, but sometimes makes it til 7. Brayden on the other hand will not fall asleep until at least 930. We try putting him to bed at 7 and he'll fight it for two hours. And because they share a room, Zander usually gets woken up and so we struggle with getting both of them to go back to bed until about 930. It's incredibly exhausting! I'm at a loss of what to do for Brayden! He used to be pretty good, but ever since coming home from Utah in January he's been a bit off. We got him back on track for a little bit, but not for long.
Last night we started bedtime about 7:15 and left their room about 7:45, maybe 8. Zander was asleep and Brayden was in bed. 15 minutes later Brayden comes out saying he wants to play the guitar (we had just pulled ours out for the first time in a while). After getting him back in bed he cryed and woke Zander up. So Preston bounced Zander while I snuggled Brayden trying to keep him quiet and get him sleepy. Failed attempt. We decided to just leave them both in there and see if they'd fall asleep. For an hour and a half they were both playing with each other. It would have been cute if it weren't past bedtime. We watched them on our video monitor the whole time and finally went in to get them in bed. We locked the door when we left so that Brayden would go to sleep, but he stayed up for another hour just being crazy! He runs around in his room, lays on his bed for a while, then gets off and throws a fit, etc. It's just craziness. I was trying to fall asleep at 11:15 watching Brayden on the monitor wondering how he has so much energy. I wanted to be asleep an hour before, but I just can't fall asleep until B does. At least B was able to sleep through Zander's crying for 20 minutes this morning at 4:30, but for whatever reason, he woke up and came out at 5:45! Brayden needs more sleep than that, but he couldn't find his binky and neither could I. He actually went to sleep without it last night because he had tossed it somewhere during a fit and we didn't go in to get it. Anyway, he was awake until 7. Now what do I do? Let him sleep in or just wake him up and start over?
Preston was talking about how B might be ADHD or something, but we also have a couple other ideas. We've decided to cut his juice consumption. He has been getting way too much juice since my Mom gave him his first taste at 6 months. The sugar is definitely not helping. It will be a horrible couple of days as far as that goes, but he'll just have to get used to water or milk. We also think that part of the problem is his iron level. He's always low when he gets checked (which he must get from me) and that can make you very tired. Because he's very tired, he sleeps for 3-4 hours during nap. Sometimes he doesn't wake up until 5, so of course he's not ready for bed at 7. I can't find a toddler iron supplement, but we'll at least try to get him to eat more meat and wake him up from nap at 230. Hopefully that will help.
Even though it seems obvious, I've recently realized that this lack of post-bedtime time is causing personal and marital strife right now. I find myself feeling so needy of personal time to do hobbies or blog or whatever that I have started wasting time on the computer to give a little relief to that need, but in the end it leaves me feeling worse because I'm not spending the time I should with the kids or on the house. Preston and I aren't having big issues by any means, but it seems like we're just not quite on the same page all the time. I think it's because we have no time to talk about things or make plans or share thoughts. We don't have any alone time except for whatever nap overlap we get on Saturday and Sunday. It's not good for our relationship. I could tell something's been missing and getting worse, but couldn't put my finger on it until now. This is really serious. We need to fix it. Now. So, besides the diet, waking Brayden up from nap and cutting juice, please let me know if you have any tricks that have worked for you. I feel slightly desperate.
Last night we started bedtime about 7:15 and left their room about 7:45, maybe 8. Zander was asleep and Brayden was in bed. 15 minutes later Brayden comes out saying he wants to play the guitar (we had just pulled ours out for the first time in a while). After getting him back in bed he cryed and woke Zander up. So Preston bounced Zander while I snuggled Brayden trying to keep him quiet and get him sleepy. Failed attempt. We decided to just leave them both in there and see if they'd fall asleep. For an hour and a half they were both playing with each other. It would have been cute if it weren't past bedtime. We watched them on our video monitor the whole time and finally went in to get them in bed. We locked the door when we left so that Brayden would go to sleep, but he stayed up for another hour just being crazy! He runs around in his room, lays on his bed for a while, then gets off and throws a fit, etc. It's just craziness. I was trying to fall asleep at 11:15 watching Brayden on the monitor wondering how he has so much energy. I wanted to be asleep an hour before, but I just can't fall asleep until B does. At least B was able to sleep through Zander's crying for 20 minutes this morning at 4:30, but for whatever reason, he woke up and came out at 5:45! Brayden needs more sleep than that, but he couldn't find his binky and neither could I. He actually went to sleep without it last night because he had tossed it somewhere during a fit and we didn't go in to get it. Anyway, he was awake until 7. Now what do I do? Let him sleep in or just wake him up and start over?
Preston was talking about how B might be ADHD or something, but we also have a couple other ideas. We've decided to cut his juice consumption. He has been getting way too much juice since my Mom gave him his first taste at 6 months. The sugar is definitely not helping. It will be a horrible couple of days as far as that goes, but he'll just have to get used to water or milk. We also think that part of the problem is his iron level. He's always low when he gets checked (which he must get from me) and that can make you very tired. Because he's very tired, he sleeps for 3-4 hours during nap. Sometimes he doesn't wake up until 5, so of course he's not ready for bed at 7. I can't find a toddler iron supplement, but we'll at least try to get him to eat more meat and wake him up from nap at 230. Hopefully that will help.
Even though it seems obvious, I've recently realized that this lack of post-bedtime time is causing personal and marital strife right now. I find myself feeling so needy of personal time to do hobbies or blog or whatever that I have started wasting time on the computer to give a little relief to that need, but in the end it leaves me feeling worse because I'm not spending the time I should with the kids or on the house. Preston and I aren't having big issues by any means, but it seems like we're just not quite on the same page all the time. I think it's because we have no time to talk about things or make plans or share thoughts. We don't have any alone time except for whatever nap overlap we get on Saturday and Sunday. It's not good for our relationship. I could tell something's been missing and getting worse, but couldn't put my finger on it until now. This is really serious. We need to fix it. Now. So, besides the diet, waking Brayden up from nap and cutting juice, please let me know if you have any tricks that have worked for you. I feel slightly desperate.
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