Update

Well, my theory was incorrect. Last night, I gave Eden a healthy dose of advil and hour before bedtime. It made not a single difference. She still was impossible to deal with for the last half hour or so before bed, and getting her to bed was the usual disaster. She did sleep all night and until 7 (middle of the road time for her to wake up), but she usually does that anyway.

I'm really so, so tired of the nighttime routine. I think it is time to take drastic action and just let her cry scream it out at night. I hate the thought of doing it, and at this point, because of her age and how long this has been going on, I know it isn't going to be the simple 2-3 night fix it might have been six months ago. But really, I know it has to be done. We'll all be happier for it in the long run.

I have a theory (more of a desperate glimmer of hope, actually)

That Eden's crabby-ass ways and sleep issues of the past few months (fights going down at night and up too early in the a.m., with the occasional night-waking thrown in to keep us on our toes) are all tied to teething. For some reason, I had thought she was done...I thought she had the 2 year molars (not that I actually really bothered to look, I guess). I even have ignored the weeks of shoving a hand in the back of her mouth, or written it off as just another weird, gross habit/phase she was going through.

But last night, she woke in the night (her second time in two weeks) and was just awake from 2-3:30. She was obviously tired, but couldn't settle herself back down. This morning, in a bleary-eyed moment of genius, I actually took a peek in the back of her mouth. What did I see? 2 lower molars that are halfway through, with a lot of swollen gum tissue around both of them. So obviously, teeth are coming, and probably have been coming for some time now. The top looked a little puffy as well, but no obvious signs of teeth yet.

I feel really stupid for not thinking of teething at any point over the past several weeks as I have complained endlessly of how "impossible" Eden has been. I'm not entirely sure that everything can be attributed to teething, as she slept at her grandparents' house the other night and went down without a peep and slept late, too. But, I do think that some of the behavioral stuff must be tied to her discomfort. Oh well. Tonight, I'm dosing her with some advil before bed and hoping for the best.

Potty Training (or maybe not)

for quite a while now, Eden has been showing some of the signs of readiness to toilet train. I have been willfully ignoring those signs, as I really feel that until a child is completely and totally ready, potty training is just too much work. Call me lazy, I just don't want to deal with running to the toilet every 15 minutes and cleaning up accidents. We waited until just a hair shy of age three to do it with Sadie, and it was a breeze, so all along, I have been assuming we would do the same with Eden. For some reason, I veered from that plan and got her started yesterday. More on that in a moment, but first, an answer to why I strayed from my instincts on this one...

When we were doing this with Sadie, we were really on our own. Living hours away from family meant that even though we didn't have the benefit of the extra hands, we also didn't have the onus of the unsolicited advice. The fact that she wasn't toilet trained never really came up in the weekly phone calls. the only other person involved with her daily life was her babysitter, Ana, who was a big proponent of waiting until they are ready, so no pressure there. With Eden, it has been very different. Don't get me wrong, 99% of it has been wonderful, having so many people who love her involved in her upbringing. But, that said, there have also been a lot of comments from family and friends and a babysitter with a different ideology on toilet training that she was 'ready.' And so, I caved.

Now, having caved, I decided to approach it the same way I did with Sadie. I simply told her in the morning that today she was wearing big girl undies, and she needed to tell me when she had to go.




She does look cute in those big spanky training undies, doesn't she?

Anyway, within 10 minutes of putting them on, she soaked herself (and the couch). this seemed to be a bit of an 'aha' moment for her, as that was the only time all day that she was caught unaware. That said, I spent the better part of the day asking her if she needed to go, helping her get the undies on or off, and changing her when she didn't quite make it in time.

If I hadn't successfully trained one child already and seen how easy it could be when they are ready, I might have fooled myself into thinking we were making good progress. However, by 5pm, I was fried. She had gone through a half a dozen pairs of underwear, and it seemed that every time I turned around she was yelling "I have to go pee on the potty!" in a panicked voice. So, I've decided to back off for a while. I'm not ready to work this hard, and she clearly doesn't yet have the physical control. I would imagine we could do this routine for 2 months or so and then she would be trained, or I could wait two months and try again and it will go a lot more easily. I'm opting to wait.

She was pretty upset when I put her back in a diaper last night, but I calmly and cheerfully told her we'd try again 'real soon.' She did call out to use the potty first thing when she woke up this morning, so I know her heart is in to it, which is a good thing. Once mine is, I think we'll be all set. So, here's to a few more weeks or months of Huggies.

Darn.

I was really hoping to post the video I took of Sadie swimming this weekend, but the keeper of the firewire cord in our office is out sick today, and I can't find the darn thing. Oh well, I guess I'll try for Thursday.

In the meantime, maybe I should upload a cute photo of you-know-who:
This way, it will lessen the sting of the $300 we just spent at the vet, in addition to all of the floor mopping and 5am walking we've been doing as he battles some sort of GI...ick. He's on an abx now, so hopefully we he gets some relief soon.

Speaking of needing relief, it is still ridiculously hot here. Our a/c has just been whirring continuously for days. I'm probably going to have a heart attack when the electric bill arrives. Between unexpected vet bills and crazazy electric bills, I may never get those new tires my car desperately needs.

In other weekend news, we have stuck to our (my?) plan of eating at five new (to us) restaurants before returning to one of our regular places (we were in a rut). Saturday night we took the girls to Mama Chuch's, which I've eyed up for the entire time we've lived here, but had never visited. It was really good, and the girls enjoyed their meal, and so it is nice to have another option to throw into the mix when thinking about going out. So that brings us to three "new" places under our belts - Mama Chuch's, Taka, and Casa Solar ... and we're slated to use a gift certificate and go to Le Bistro Fandy next week. Not bad for a couple of dirty stay-ins, eh?

Tomorrow I've got three of my friends and their kids joining us at the beach - should be a bit chaotic, but hopefully fun. And on Wednesday, we'll go up and see my parents, who are arriving back from their vacation. The girls (Eden, particularly) have really missed them, so it will be good to reunite.

Quiet Friday

I'm back in the office today after a nice several days off. Highlights of the past few days:

--hot, hot, humid weather.
--a dolphin sighting at the beach!
--Watching a hawk sit in the tree in our front yard, and then swoop down and snatch up a squirrel - who knew we lived in such a zoological paradise?
--a girls' night out with some friends from high school - lots of fun and lots of fun reminiscing.
--Watching Sadie continue to build confidence and improve with swimming (I am definitely going to capture it on video tomorrow).
--Enjoying Eden. I hate to jinx it by saying typing it out, but I think we may have crossed the peak as far as her terrible two's. She still has plenty of 'moments', but overall, I think she is sliding into an easier phase, which is such a welcome change.

That's about all there is to report. Our days are pretty much one and the same, it seems, but in a good way.

Goals.

Yesterday, Sadie completely surprised and blew me away by putting her face in the water and paddling several feet across the pool. This kid, who is somewhat terrified of the water, and who despite two years of weekly swim lessons, sinks like a rock the moment her feet hit the water, decided that she was going to teach herself to swim. And she's doing it. At the beginning of the summer, she and I talked about how I really wanted her to learn to swim and to ride a bike this summer. We talked about how those could be goals that she worked toward. To be honest, I really didn't hold out much hope on the swimming goal, and I figured if she learned to ride a bike, we'd call it a successful summer.

Besides being immensely proud of her progress, it has made me think a bit about where I stand with the goals I set for myself for the summer. After all, the summer is nearly half over (wah!). I had basically set one significant goal for myself, and that was to enjoy--really, truly enjoy--the time off with the girls. to stop myself from getting hung up on 'getting stuff done' at the expense of making memories. This time is so precious and fleeting and before I know it, they won't want to spend entire days with me. A year ago, I think it fair to say that I wasn't making the most of my time off with them and I made a promise to myself that this year would be different. And you know what? It is! It really, truly has been pretty great so far.

In part, I have just adjusted my expectations about what having a day off means, and that has helped. So that means that my floors are filthy, my laundry is piled up higher than can humanly be tackled at this point, and dinner is often whatever is easiest to throw together. We get out and to the beach when we get there, rather than me being on a clock all the time and rushing the girls constantly. We stay until we feel like leaving rather than rushing home for naps or so I can run errands.

The other contributing factor has been my attempts at 'options for spontaneity'. Each week, I scan the community pages to see what is going on in the area (last week it was a children's theartre production of Rapunzel and a free outdoor showing of E.T.). I don't tell the kids about any of these things, and more or less at the last minute, if the fancy strikes me, I suggest something and we go. If the ice cream truck comes by 10 minutes before bedtime (which it has the infuriating habit of doing), sometimes I let the kids run out in their pajamas and partake. Again, this goes back to not having grand expectations about things. Going to see E.T. was a lot of fun for all of us, but by 10pm, Eden was done and we left, long before the movie ended.

So overall, I am really happy with how I'm doing on this one. Last year at this time, I had my doubts about whether or not any of us were truly enjoying the summer. This year, I have no doubt whatsoever that we all are.

Roots and Branches

We went to see the fireworks in the OT on Thursday night and were really pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. I was expecting an overwhelming crowd, tons of mosquitos, and a less than impressive firework show. What we found was a huge crowd, but plenty of space for people to move about and 'set up camp', no bugs (amazing!), and a really impressive firework display. I think we'll plan to see them there every year from now on, instead of fighting traffic and parking woes at the beach or in Red Bank.

What struck me most about this excursion, though, was how many familiar people we ran into. The realtor who sold us our house, parents and kids we know from daycare, the girl who occaisionally babysits our girls, our neighbors, friends from the beach, parents and kids from the J...it seemed as though every time we turned around, we were bumping into someone we knew. Of course, having both grown up in the area, we have a lot of 'roots' here, but all of the people we ran into were people that we have met only since we moved to town. So, I feel like after nearly three years here, we have really started to sprout 'branches', too. It feels good to have a community connection.

On (not) Napping

When it comes to napping, I want to have my cake and eat it, too. That is...on days when we are out and about and having fun, I hate to curtail the activities and hurry home for Eden's nap. But on rainy days, or days when I've just had it, I love to have that 2-3 hour break in the day.

Anyway, I have been toying with the idea of seeing if Eden could do without her nap when it suits me, and I was bolstered by our experience last Saturday. The icing on the cake has been the nightly battle to get her to bed at a 'reasonable' hour. Come 9pm and she's still up most nights, which is getting tiresome for me. So anyway, the past two days, I simply have not planned for her to nap. Tuesday, we stayed at the beach all day and she did great, even though she was clearly sleepy for a bit in the afternoon. Yesterday, she fell asleep at 11:45 in the car on the way back from the spray park. I let her sleep in the driveway until 12:30 and then woke her and we headed to the beach. Again, she was sleepy, but she held her stuff together all afternoon (she did sit sleepily in my lap for a while and just stare at the ocean, which is very unlike her). Both nights, she went straight to bed at 7 and slept soundly all night long until her normal waking time, which was really nice.

It is funny how different every child is. Sadie had to forgo her naps when she started nursery school (age 3), and it was a very difficult adjustment, and she usually ended up either melting down completely or falling asleep at 5pm each day for months until she got used to it.

So, my takeaway(s) from this experiment is this:
--Eden can deal, pretty easily, with skipping her nap when it suits me.
--She is still obviously tired enough in the afternoon to nap on any given day.
--2-3 hour naps are probably too long anymore, unless I'm specifically planning for her to be up late that night.

She is with my mom today, and my mom has instructions to nap her for as long as she wants (my guess is she'll sleep 3 hours), since we're going to the fireworks tonight. I think (hope!) that by having her nap at least every couple of days, she won't fall out of the habit.