Sleep Updates
Well, so Monday night went really well. I was laying with Tyler by 6:46pm and he was out at 7:25pm. While that sounds like a long time, it was a nice, drifting off to sleep. He wasn’t crazy, fussing or whining very much. He slept until 6am. So that was 10.5 hours and it was so nice to have both kids out by 7:30pm.

This evening wasn’t that bad. This sleep thing is just killing me. Tonight we went over to Chris’ parents and tried to pack in dinner and a quick trick or treat trek to a neighbor’s house. I should have known we wouldn’t get out of there by 6pm. We had a lot of fun and the kids looked so cute. But as we were leaving to trick or treat at 6:15pm and Tyler was trying to grab some glass vases, I knew - he was tired and it was going to be an interesting night. We had him back home and in bed at 7pm, but he was too would up and throwing a tantrum about crackers. He was also trying to climb out of bed and i wasn’t fighting it. He needed to decompress from all the excitement. We had him eat some crackers, drink some water and I brushed his teeth. We were back in bed at 7:51pm and he was out by 8:25pm. The falling asleep was pretty much like Monday, but that first 25 minutes was much more energetic and fussy. I was expecting him to go a lot longer.

At this point, I am ready to just swear off all social interactions in the evening. It will be at least a week until we see the fall out from returning to Standard Time and seeing where the bedtime is going to fall. I don’t even care when it is, I just want to know for sure to we can organize around it. That way when we do decide to do things, I am not freaking out the whole time watching the clock. {sigh}

As I told Chris if he had been going to bed like a dream for the last two months, I probably wouldn’t be so paranoid about pushing it one night. But at this point, Chris and I are tired and tired of dreading Tyler’s bedtime. Things got so much better once Tyler was weaned and I know once we get the nighttime stuff figured out it will get even better.

Intensity
Geez, my Mom called me intense today. That stirred up some fun mental messages for me. Then I started wondering if my friends think I’m intense? Do people dread being around me? Is my blog too intense? How do I not be intense? {sigh} Doesn’t this tire you out? It sure does me. Whenever I feel I am trying the hardest, I end up feeling like I am failing. At those times, I get upset and say a lot of things that my son picks up. I say “stupid” this or that a lot - a word I hate because I use it on myself all the time. That gets said in front of my son. He says “dammit” and was saying “wuck you, mama” in bed the last two nights. Now this one I swear we haven’t used in front of him, but who knows, I probably said it when I was mad. He has no idea what he is saying, but we need to get that one nuked pronto. Yeah, I am doing a bang up job here, aren’t I?

Then to add to the excitement, Tyler said while trying to go to sleep tonight “penis tickles”. I am almost positive I saw him doing some exploring while laying in bed tonight. It is all normal and fine, but I am just not ready for that yet, ya know? One thing at a time, please? :-p

I am trying to change some thing about how I operate with this book study. And while several lights are turning on and I am having several “a-ha” moments, it is going to take me a while to get to a point where I can catch myself when I am about to flip my lid. I am trying though. Change takes time and old habits die hard. But at least when I do react or say something I regret - I think about it a lot more. I look at what my anger is really about and how I could have handled the situation differently. I will get there, but when I fail, I just feel really bad. Ug, I really want to talk more about the stuff I am learning in this class. Maybe tomorrow I will try to do that. The stuff makes so much sense if I could just articulate it.

Can Quinn stay a baby?
There is so much complexity surrounding my toddler that I relish the simplicity of my little girl. Her smiles are so sweet and so simple. It is not going to last because she will grow up, but I cherish her smiles and coos, especially during challenging moments. Tyler has his moments too - the “it’s okay, mama” is nice to hear when I need a pic me up. Poor girl probably wishes I realized how old she is - I keep needing to remember to have toys and thing for her to play with. She loves grabing at her toys and likes having her hands busy.

Onward folks. I need to get to bed. I’m telling you if there is one thing you learn from parenthood it is the importance of sleep for the entire family unit. When one person loses sleep, it affects the whole unit. It is such a difference maker. Chris took some pics of the kids that I will post soon.

Freaking me out
One quick thing. So I think I am going to change my template soon and remove all the albums - they are outdated anyway and I don’t have time to do more. I also think that I might move to Wordpress if I can find the time. Chris had put a site counter on his site that tracked referrals from other URLs. Here is the freaky thing - you can go to Yahoo or Google, go to the image search and put in toddlerhood and 40 images down, two of Tyler get returned. How wierd is that to know that random people can do a search and see a picture of my kid. It actually freaks me out and makes me uncomfortable. Those pictures were returned because of how Chris had categorized them in the URL. Still…I know the Internet is wide open, but it really hit home and now that I have kids, it bothers me a lot more. I will still have some kind of links to the pics we keep of the kids.