Believe in the Flowers.

Carol of the Zombie Jesus!

Things in this household have been nuts.


We're making progress in small places. Gabe has been without a binkie for about a month now, and it only took about four days or so for him to more or less stop asking for it. I think that's pretty impressive, considering it was a habit 2 1/2 years in the making, and that it was a 24 hour-a-day need before this. Something in his brain clicked, the binkies have been thrown away, and he is now bink-free. We went cold turkey, which actually worked better than I thought it would. Our next big hurdles are potty training and getting him to sleep in his own room. We're kind of slacking off on the first for the sake of the bink being gone, and for the second. We don't want to make him go through a lot of changes at once, especially since we're working through some pretty bad behavior issues at the moment. This will make night five of sleeping in his own room, and for the last four nights he has been accompanied by a parent sleeping on his floor next to his bed. As you can imagine, that is an uncomfortable endeavor. Tonight, because Colin is at his game night, and I have to stay out in this room with Alex, he's spending his first night in his room completely alone.

This is working, to a degree. The problem is that he's still awake, and every half an hour or so, he wanders out of his room to stand in the doorway to the kitchen and call to me. A minute ago he came out to tell me that he had farted. I appreciated this information, of course, but it really didn't do me any good and I couldn't exactly help him with anything. I congratulated him, put him back into bed, kissed and hugged him, and came back out as he begged me to hold him. Sigh.

Things are going a little better with Alex. This kid can sleep through anything, I think, and once he's asleep he spends five hours or so not particularly caring where he's sleeping or who he's sleeping with. In the playpen, on the floor, on the couch, alone in another room - it doesn't make much difference to him. A hurricane could sweep away the state and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't affect him in the least.

I wanted to exclusively breastfeed Alex, but unfortunately I've resigned myself to a half-and-half lifestyle. At night he's nursed and during the day I'll nurse him off and on, but most of his nutrition comes from formula now. I feel like an ass about this for a number of reasons, but at the moment I have a lot more to concentrate on. I hate the mantra of "happy mom, happy baby" because I feel like it's an excuse for me to not try harder to work through our numerous problems, but at this point, it's the truth for me: I can't handle the stress I'm putting myself through when it comes to breastfeeding. So for now our half and half lifestyle will suffice, we'll survive, and everything will be okay.

Our finances are still a mess, as usual. I'm pushing Colin to find a new job, but he's slacking off pretty hard with it. To add insult to injury, his computer bit the dust today, and neither of us are positive he can fix it. A new computer, or at least parts to fix an old one, were not budgeted into our tax refund money, so I can't even say that if he can wait until then, that we can fix things. We have a lot of bills to pay off and other things that need to be purchased (like new glasses and shoes for him) before we can toss a computer onto the list. I'm going to see what I can do, but other obligations obviously will be dealt with first, and I hope that will be okay with him.

Beyond that, I'm pretty much going insane over here. I've begun sorting out the baby clothes, trying to figure out what no longer fits Alex and can be put away, what currently fits him, what will fit him later but doesn't fit Gabe, what fits Gabe now, and what doesn't fit Gabe yet. It's dizzying, and I can't find space for everything, much less keep the piles and bags of clothes straight in my head. Add onto that the fact that I'm attempting to sort through the mountains of clothes that Colin and I have collected, and it's just a disaster waiting to happen. I want to eventually go through everything and throw away the junk, then donate what can be donated (or, you know, maybe sell it to a thrift store - there are a couple of good consignment shops around). I know we won't be having any more kids for a while still, but I'm loathe to get rid of the baby clothes. Partially it's sentimental, but really, it just comes down to the fact that I'm no good at getting rid of things I know I could maybe use later on. I'm a pack rat, so sue me!

Well, it's nearly 1 AM. Gabe's still awake, Colin's still gone, and Alex is still asleep (thankfully). Unfortunately, for me to go to sleep I'm going to have to move Alex and probably wake him up. Off to another night of changing a baby, consoling a preschooler, and sleeping sitting up so I can nurse a baby and pass out as a pathetic lump of person.

1 comments:

Hello my lovely friend. I am super excited to tell you that I will be back in town for "good" as of Saturday. Christian and I want to get together with you and Colin on a fairly regular basis. :) So we should work that out. We were thinking games night at your place or ours (the children are welcome) because we are broke too. :)

Gabe will start to sleep in his room, it will be hard at first, but you can get him through it, you just have to make him do it.

My suggestion for the clothes, is to pick a pile every day, and sort it, and take the stuff you are getting rid of and put it in the trunk of your car, pick a day ever week to go donate/sell it. It will get the piles out of your house, and you will feel like you are actually progress instead of having to convince yourself that you are everyday. And I will be more than happy to come and help you in the afternoons next week. Between the two of us, we can knock it all out and get it done, No problem. :)