James and the Giant Peach

I wake up every day and can't believe this sweet boy is mine.  He is so beautiful.  Now that he's sleeping better (more about that later), his personality seems to be mellowing.  He's happy most of the time; he smiles and laughs easily.  He loves to hear me talk.  And I love to talk.  So we're a good fit.  A few weeks ago I got irritated by one of the grandmotherly women who cares for Simon at his morning out program when she suggested I consider putting him on solids.  The lack of sleep for so many months left me kinda edgy, but let's face it, most of us who are mothers do not like to receive even kindly suggestions if they are not solicited.  I know when and how to feed my kid, okay?  Look at his juicy thighs, he's not starving.  Back in the day they started them on solids when they were just a few months old, but things have changed.  When I got back home I looked it up.  Sure enough, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization and a few others all agree that babies should be exclusively breast-fed for six months.  With Myles, I introduced solids at six months, but he wasn't very interested.  In fact, it wasn't really until 8 months that he ate them regularly and it wasn't until 10 months that he was really digging them.  So there. 

But the following week (three weeks before he turned six months), I was sitting at the table eating lunch and Simon was in his high chair with a few toys.  And he communicated very clearly to me that he wanted my food.  Simon is a good communicator, especially when he's crying for milk.  But this wasn't a cry for my breastmilk.  He was staring at my food and giving me that same whine, and I felt like he knew that I knew what he wanted.  Solid food.  So, against the advice of the AAP and the WHO, I got my baby what he wanted.  The only thing I had in the house was organic bananas, so I smashed one up and thinned it out with breastmilk.  It took him a few tries to figure out how to move the food back with his tongue and swallow it, but once he did pure joy ensued.  He whined for more between every bite.  So it's true; every kid is different.  He turned six months on Monday, and now he's up to eating solids twice a day (which kinda freaks me out) and he eats bananas, avocado, rice cereal, and sweet potatoes, with the caveat that they all have to be mixed with bananas. 

The sleep situation: When he was four months old, I didn't know how I was going to make it.  The sleeplessness was absolutely killing me.  I think I was starting to hallucinate.  I read the No Cry Sleep Solution, and after thinking about it, I was convinced I needed to get Simon out of my bed.  It was laborious, to say the least.  There was a lot of rocking, singing, holding, hushing, and then I'd go to transfer him to the crib and he'd wake up and cry.  Again and again and again.  But I kept trying.   And things improved.  With about a half hour's worth of work, I was able to get him into the crib successfully.  Then he'd sleep for 20 minutes and wake up like an alarm clock exploded in his head.  Every time.  20 minutes on the dot.  That was during the day.  At night, it was still every two hours.  But at least he was in the crib and I could roll around in my bed again without worrying about waking him up.  There were times when I was so exhausted I'd just let him cry; or times when he was so exhausted that there was nothing I could do to get him to stop crying so I'd let him cry.  But slowly, as I stuck with it, there were improvements.  Now, we are in a very good place.  He can take 1-2 hour naps in his crib (not all the time, but much of the time).  At night, he wakes up once between 2:30-3:30 for a feeding, and then again sometime between 5:30 and 6:30am.  (If it's 5:30 I try to get him back to bed until 7, if it's 6:30, we both just get up).  I feel sane again.  Life is so, so, so good.  It's amazing what five hours of consecutive sleep on a regular basis will do.

Myles: It may sound odd, but ever since Myles was an infant I looked forward to the day when I could read him chapter books.  When I was growing up I have these beautiful memories of my dad reading us chapter books after dinner.  One chapter a night.  They were some of my favorite books as a kid: James and the Giant Peach, the Magic Bicycle.  A month or so ago, I finally decided that Myles was ready (as evidenced by the fact that he began bringing Captain Underpants home from the school library and asking us to read chapter after chapter).  So I bought James and the Giant Peach.  Myles was mesmerized.  We finished it in a week and I realized I can't buy books at that rate, I need to get back to the library.  So we got Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and then we watched the old version of the movie together as a family after we finished that one.  My mom brought us Charlotte's Web, and we're about half way through that.  Any other suggestions of good chapter books for a six year old?  Myles loves to be read to, and I love to read.  We're a good fit that way.

This week was his spring break, and I had kinda been dreading it.  I'm preaching on Easter and Holy Week has typically been a very stressful week work-wise (not to mention the emotion of it for me, as I observe Maundy Thursday and Good Friday).  Having both boys home with me while I'm trying to work is not easy.  I expected a lot of whining from Myles..."I'm bored...what can I do, Mama?  But I don't want to do that!  Why can't we go somewhere?  Is there anything special going on today?"  Well, I misjudged.  This week Myles was the sweetest kid ever.  He kept telling me how special it was that we got to spend more time together this week and how he was happy to be home with me (uh, he never says that!).  We did bake some cookies, but by far the coolest thing he did (at my suggestion) was make a book about dinosaurs.  The book is like 20 pages long, and he drew on most of the pages and sounded out all the words.  It's very hard for Seth and I to read (which was frustrating for him), because his sense of how words sound and how they are actually spelled are very different.  But together, we can decipher it and it is the most precious thing he's ever made.  I want to keep it forever.  He also saved up enough allowance to buy this treasure chest that he's wanted ever since he saw it in the store (like a week ago), and was so delighted to get it today.  I'm very thankful that we had a good week together, and Simon too.

Seth's running the Dupont 12k tomorrow.  I'm excited for Easter Sunday, though my sermon's not as good as I wish it was.  Just being with our community is a gift.  And even though it drives me nuts to celebrate Easter on the Saturday when we're supposed to be remembering Jesus' death, I just take a deep breath and let my kid participate in the Easter festivities around town.

My mom came last weekend to watch the boys while I officiated a wedding and then went with Seth to the Grove Park Inn for a meal with the families of the couple.  She is such an awesome Grandma.  The photo of Simon was taken by her.  Love you Mom.

Well, that's it for now.  Thanks for tuning in.  Next week, I'm plugged back into facebook, but I do hope to keep updating the blog from time to time.  Happy Easter...