Category: motherhood

Well, Meredith sleeps in her own bed now. Sort of. I say that after two good nights and one disaster. This is how it went down:

We talked about it a lot on Saturday. I told her what our new bedtime routine would be (bath, brush teeth, read books, sing songs, say prayers, lights out – we have been very lax about the bedtime routine in the past) and I tried to be very straightforward about the fact that she sleeps in her own bed now. Not: if you sleep in your own bed you get a reward! Just: this is where you sleep now; you’re a big girl. She whined about it a little, but not much.

Saturday night she got a 103.2 degree fever, but I decided to push through with the plan anyway. I did skip the bath because she was overtired and not feeling well. (By the way, she was fine the next day.) But we did the rest of the routine, and then I turned a white noise app on. I didn’t lie in bed with her but I sat on the floor next to the bed and she was asleep in, oh, five minutes. (There were two wakeups that night; the second time I just brought her to bed with me.)

Sunday she cried a lot more about it during the day. But we stuck to the plan and she was asleep in less than two minutes. (That night she came to bed with me at 1 a.m. because her wakeup coincided with Liam being awake and fussing, so I couldn’t get up to put her back to sleep. Husband and I later communicated about that and he will be putting her back in her bed if that happens again.)

Yesterday she took a late nap and wouldn’t fall asleep; I had to let David take over the vigil and I don’t know what happened except that she came in my bed at midnight and I was too tired to get up with her. So we are regressing day to day, but I’m not giving up!

It’s most important to me that she go to sleep in her own bed. I actually don’t care much if she comes to my bed in the middle of the night or early morning. But I really want to reclaim the evening, and this is the first step. I think once we get this down we will let it settle in for a couple of weeks and then think about Liam.

The heat is relentless. Is it where you are, too? Our air conditioner is broken yet again. Such a bummer. We push forward. We go to the park anyway. We fill up the kiddie pool. We also stay inside a lot. We watch TV and we do crafts and we pet the cats and we visit grandparents and we go to book club and we play silly games.

I’m reporting to you after what felt like a very long week, and rarely have I been more grateful for a 3-day weekend with zero plans.

Liam was sick with fever for two whole weeks. What started as a virus led to an ear infection and then to a stubborn sinus infection. I mean, 17-month-olds barely even have sinuses, but whatever Liam has wasn’t very happy. You can imagine that he also wasn’t sleeping well and was pretty fussy.

Thanks to incredible support from my mom, mother-in-law, and of course my husband, I only missed one day of work and went in late another day. It’s stressful because I have already been “verbally warned” about unscheduled days off at work even though I’m doing the best that I can with a son who has been sick literally ten different times in the past half year. Obviously, I am so grateful that his illnesses aren’t major and that I have a job – and my director is so understanding, she even hated to give me the warning but she has to be fair. So that’s been the undercurrent of life lately – classic working mom probs.

Some other stuff I’ve been thinking about…

• Establishing a solid strength training routine
• Meredith’s 4th birthday party – it’s just for family (25-ish people) at the park. What’s the cheapest way to feed everyone (no grills)?
• A good night’s sleep…I daydream about it.
• Ice cream. I want it all the time.
• How to spend as little time in the kitchen as possible.

Alright, let’s have a great, restful weekend and meet back here on Monday. Sound good? Okay!

How was your Father’s Day weekend? Ours was incredibly full and busy – but so fun.

At the end of last week, Liam got sick with fever again. Poor guy seriously catches every little whiff of a virus. He still has congestion and low-grade temperature, but with the real fever behind him we’re just going on with life.

On Saturday, after chores and errands (and while David was at work), my good friend Lauren came over to help me declutter and reorganize the kitchen. I wanted to start there since I spend so much time in it, and I figured I’d get the most bang for my buck. Lauren was a big help in providing feedback, and keeping the kids distracted. I have a bunch of stuff to get rid of now, and I’m loving the extra space in my cabinets.

David and I had planned a date for Saturday night, but he decided what he really wanted to do was take Meredith to see Inside Out, so the three of us went. I tell you, they should shorten previews for kids’ movies because it didn’t start until 45 minutes later and 20 minutes into the movie Meredith had no more attention to give. We had to leave and I was so bummed not to be able to finish it! We rarely get to see movies, not to mention the waste of money. I guess that’s life with a preschooler, and we can’t even blame her.

Father’s Day was packed with seeing both of our families. I whipped up cute little cards for the grandpas using chipboard, stamps, the Instax, and washi tape. I ate my weight in barbecue, watched some Women’s World Cup, the kids played in the kiddie pool, and my mother-in-law busted out this amazing kids’ activity that I highly recommend. All you need to do is plan ahead a little bit, gather some bins, little toys, food coloring, salt, medicine syringes, and spoons and you’ll have the littles (ours were ages 1-6) occupied for at least an hour.

This week I’m intent on getting back to the gym, finishing my book club audiobook, and completing a Project Life spread using the app. I’d love to hear about your weekend and what your goals are for this week!