My Kingdom For A Nap

Mommy, Open Gate!

This latest nap strike is driving me crazy.  For the last two weeks, Jack has skipped most of his naps.  He naps when the babysitter is here.  He naps when we’re at a friends.  But at home, with just me?  Forget it.

I’ve tried the putting him in his crib without doing much beforehand.   I’ve tried rocking and singing to him for a half hour.  I’ve tried putting him down earlier, and later.  No dice.  He will at least hang out in his crib for an hour to an hour and a half without much fuss.

It’s not that he’s not tired.   If we go out in the car in the afternoon, he’ll fall asleep.  Last week he fell asleep on my dad’s lap.

I know I should just be zen about the whole thing, and accept that he’s not napping much right now, but it really, really frustrates me.  If I’m busy in the kitchen or something while he’s making noise in the crib, it’s no big deal, but if I want to relax more, it doesn’t work very well.

He is not even 2 yet.  There is NO WAY he’s done with napping.

On Monday afternoon I went up to Walnut Creek to see my parents.   Our babysitter was here Monday morning, and I told her to go ahead and put him down early since I wanted to leave early afternoon.  Of course he picked that day to have a nearly 3 hour nap!  Arrrrgh.

Potty Training Update

We’ve been doing potty training with Jack for almost 3 months now.  It’s going ok, I guess.  He typically sits on the potty about 4 times a day, usually without complaint.  He always has books to read and I think that’s why he likes it.  I don’t ask him if he has to go, I just try and do it at semi-regular intervals.

Occasionally he pees and poops in the potty, maybe 1-4 times a week.  I am just not sure if he’s making the connection yet, or if he understands we want him to use the potty all the time.   I did buy him some underwear, but so far he hasn’t shown a lot of interest in it.

One thing that is different lately is that now when he has a poopy diaper he actually tells us and says “Change diaper!”  So maybe he’s becoming more aware of it all.

Even though we haven’t made a ton of progress, I’m glad we started on it, because hopefully it will make him less resistant to the process in the future.  Maybe after he turns 2 in April we’ll step it up a little.

Jack’s First Trip to the Snow

Last week we went to Lake Tahoe, which is in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.  On a good day it’s about a 3.5 hour drive from our house.  I went to Tahoe many times growing up, both in winter and summer, and went skiing, sledding, snowboarding, and swimming.  We hadn’t been up there for almost four years, though, and it was Jack’s first trip.

It snowed when we were in England a year ago, but Jack didn’t really get the chance to play in it.

We rented a cabin with our friends Lisa and Jason and their son Jon, who is 4.5 months younger than Jack.

We had a pretty good drive up, and stopped at the Nut Tree for a break.  The Nut Tree is also a place of childhood memories.  It closed in 1996, but re-opened in 2006.  It’s a lot different now, but there was a nice area for kids to play in.

We made it up to the cabin around 2:00 on Saturday afternoon and Chris and Jason took the boys out in the snow while Lisa and I went to a jam-packed grocery store.  Lisa made us dinner (AND cookies… AND pancakes…) and we had a nice evening playing games and listening to the crackling fire.

On Sunday we had a great time sledding behind the cabin; Jack liked going down on the saucer with Chris holding him.  Chris and Jason went snowboarding/skiing in the afternoon.  The snow was falling heavily by then and they often couldn’t see down the hill, but they had fun.  Lisa and I stayed cozy in the cabin and watched the snow come down.

We had pizza for dinner and another nice evening hanging out.  The weather forecast was for a big storm starting Monday afternoon, so we got out of there about 10 AM.  If the weather had been better Lisa and I would have done a little skiing, but we decided to try and beat the storm instead.  It was snowing on the pass, but we didn’t have to put on chains because we’d borrowed a friend’s SUV.  We made pretty good time, despite the snow and then rain, and stopped for lunch in Davis at Redrum Burger, formerly known as Murder Burger.  I guess in 2001 they got a lot of complaints about the name, so they changed it.

Anyway, it was a really nice weekend, though a lot different than our former Tahoe visits.  I’m sure when Jack’s older and gets out on the slopes we’ll spend more time outside, but I enjoyed having a slow relaxing weekend.

Bad Parenting Day

Reading the paper at breakfast

Yesterday will not go down as one of my stellar parenting days.   It started off ok.  It was back to preschool after a 2-week break, and Jack was having a good time.  He wasn’t clingy, but he was in a mode where he needed to at least know where I was, and when I disappeared a couple of times he did melt down.  But he quickly recovered and went back to playing.

After we got home I got him ready for his nap and he seemed happy enough to lie down.  But it turned out to be one of those no-nap days.  I was pretty tired and was looking forward to lying down for a bit, so was bitterly disappointed when he would not sleep.  (Yes, I could have lay down while he was in his crib but it’s not exactly restful.)  I think it can be hard to understand for non-stay-at-home parents just how important the daily nap is to our sanity.

I finally gave up and he had his lunch and then there was a lot more wailing when I wanted him to play by himself for a while.  I started to feel sick and got a bad headache (I rarely get headaches; maybe once or twice a year).  Chris had driven to work that day and was actually able to come home an hour early.  When he arrived he found me lying in a fetal position on the couch, covered in Legos, with Jack jumping on my head.

I went upstairs and lay down for a while and my headache improved enough for me to go out to a parent ed night class (we have to go to a certain number of these for Jack’s preschool, because part of their funding comes from the school district).  It was nice to get out of the house.

Today’s going much better!  Jack’s playing with his Legos as a I type this.  Crossing my fingers it’ll be a good nap day.

Interesting Holiday

Jack and Papa play with trains

Well, our Christmas vacation did not go quite as planned.  Chris had the week off (forced vacation) so we had made plans to go down to Cambria (about a 4-hour drive down to the coast near Hearst Castle) for a couple of nights.  It was to be our first vacation with just the three of us and I was really looking forward to it.

Christmas morning Jack gave us a present and slept in until nearly 9:30!  Amazing.  He opened his stocking and immediately started playing with the little toy airplane and car that Chris’s parents had gotten for him.  We packed up and headed to Walnut Creek and had a nice day with my parents and my aunt.  My mom got a train for my dad and Jack to play with, and they had a lot of fun with that.  We came home after lunch the next day.

Monday we set off for Cambria around 11.  We stopped for lunch along the way, and then Jack crashed in the car for about an hour.  We go to our hotel around 4 and took a nice walk along the beach before going out to dinner.  During dinner Jack was unusually fussy and felt warm; when we got back to the hotel we took his temp and it was 103.  We gave him some Tylenol and settled in for the night.  Jack was quite restless and none of us got much sleep.

By Tuesday afternoon it was clear Jack wasn’t getting any better, so we left around 4 and headed home a day early, and missed our reservations for Hearst Castle.  Some day I’ll see it!  Jack slept a fair amount of the drive home, and we spent a lot of time singing songs to him to keep him happy.  He did pretty well until he woke up about 20 minutes before home and was miserable.

His fever was up to 104 on Wednesday and we continued to give him Motrin and Tylenol.  We were supposed to go back to Walnut Creek on Thursday (New Year’s Eve) to have Christmas II with my sister’s family, but stayed home since Jack was sick.  Finally, on Friday, his fever disappeared.  He is congested and still not quite himself but doing much better.

So we had a quiet New Year’s Eve, drinking egg nog and watching CNN.  We did manage to stay up until midnight at least!

I am hoping Jack will have a good streak of healthiness for the next few months!  Not sure what he has now… could be the flu.  We took him to the doctor but she couldn’t say for sure what he has.  Poor little guy.

Despite Jack being sick and not being able to get together with the whole family, we still enjoyed Christmas.  I love our tree, and we had a nice time with my parents and aunt on Christmas Day.  The weather in Camrbia was beautiful, and we had some nice walks and saw lots of elephant seals up close.  We’ll just have to go back!

Christmas at Home

Tomorrow will be the second time in my life I won’t be waking up at my parents’ house for Christmas.  The first time was 10 years ago when I went back East to have Christmas with my boyfriend’s family.

My niece is sick, so my sister’s family won’t be able to come.  Chris and Jack and I will go to my parents’ tomorrow and have Christmas dinner with my aunt, and then we’ll do a celebration with everyone next week instead.

Jack seems to be feeling fine still, so I don’t know what that fever was about on Tuesday.   He never napped yesterday and he seems to be going that way again today.  Not a big fan of the no-nap days.

This morning Jack was on my lap and I was talking to him when he stood up suddenly and hit his head against my mouth, giving me a bloody lip.

We’ll open Jack’s stocking tomorrow morning at our house.

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it!

Fun Month

Jack’s sick again.  Fourth time in 6 weeks.  He had a fever of 102.3 last night; he slept fine (and in fact slept until 8:30!  Nice!) and he’s been fine so far today.  No fever.  Who knows what it is!  We’re supposed to go to my parents’ for Christmas tomorrow but we’ll have to see.

Jack’s vocabulary has been exploding lately.  It seems like every day he says a new word.  The words aren’t always recognizable, especially out of context, but I can usually get when he means.  Today he said “shake” when he was holding a stuffed Yak (it was mine as a kid; when you shake it, its fur sticks out).  He is finally starting to say some names besides Mama, Dada, and Jack (and actually he’s switching to Mommy and Daddy).   His first (ungrammatical) sentence is “blue car Daddy”.  My favorite of his phrases right now is “Ah ha!”  This morning I couldn’t see his spoon and I said, “Jack, where’s your spoon?”  He picked it up to show me and said “Ah ha!”

Goodbye, Running

Wednesday night I was on the treadmill at the gym.  During the last running interval, my calf tightened up, so I stopped and walked a while.  Afterward, I did my normal calf stretches, when I felt it:  that same little “pop” in the muscle I felt back in 2005, when I tore a calf muscle.  I’m so frustrated.  Yesterday I limped around, and this morning I had what was supposed to be my last physical therapy appointment for my knee.  My knee has been fine.

The therapist wants me to go back to the doctor and get another prescription for PT for the calf, but…. right now I just feel like giving up.  I’ve been working so hard on this for the last four months, and here I am again with an injury.  I think my body is just saying, forget it, running just isn’t for you.

It’s not that I love running so much, it’s just that it’s the best cardio for me.  With swimming, it’s too easy to take a break between laps, or cruise along with easy breaststroke.  Riding a bike, when I’m not going up hills, it’s easy to coast or pedal slowly.  With running, even if I go slow, I’m still getting a good workout.  Plus all you need are some good shoes and you’re ready to go.

Maybe I’ll change my mind in six months and try again, but right now, I am just too mad and frustrated to go back yet again to the doctor to get more xrays and then more months of PT and more months of slowly building up my running.  Time to focus on something else.

At Home

I’m having a bit of a rough time right now.  Having Jack be sick so much in such a short time span means staying cooped up in the house a lot.  I didn’t even like working at home when I had a fulltime job, so being cooped up all day with a toddler for several days in a row is not my favorite thing.

It’s great that as a stay-at-home mom it’s no problem for me to stay at home when Jack’s sick.  If I were working full-time, it would be stressful for Chris and me to have to juggle our work schedules to figure out who could stay home.  And I can’t imagine the stress for single parents. On the other hand, it means it’s always me.

Yesterday Chris had a work function in the evening so it was an even longer day than usual, and Jack chose that day to nap only 30 minutes.  So, what does a 19-month old do for 12 hours (11.5..) when stuck inside at home?

• Read books.  We must have read about a million of them.  Interestingly, it’s getting harder to read the whole book to Jack because now he gets distracted by details on the pages, and wants to flip back and forth to his favorite parts.
• Look out the window and watch cars and trucks go by.
• Do forward rolls.
• Build block towers and knock them down.
• Color.
• Pull the cat’s tail.
• Stand on the coffee table triumphantly, knowing it’s not allowed.
• Push toy cars around.
• Make a big mess with blueberry yogurt.
• Wail.

There’s a small sampling, anyway.  Last night I was relating my day to Chris and he asked me for my top three BEST moments of the day.  This is why I married him:  he always looks on the bright side.  Here they are:

1. At the end of the book Oops!, David snuggles his mama.  Whenever we got to that page, Jack insisted on giving me lots of hugs.
2. On the first page of Go, Dog.  Go!, there’s a picture of the sun coming through the window.  Jack points to it and says “moon!” and I say “no, it’s the sun, not the moon,” and he says “moon!” again and we repeat until we’re both laughing.
3. He saw a picture of my dad and said “Pa,” [the grandkids call him Papa] which was the first time I’d heard him say that.

Here We Go Again

Jack’s sick again.  Third time in a month, whee.  He has a fever but no other symptoms so far.  Wonder what it is.

We went to a birthday party yesterday.  We had no idea Jack was getting sick.  He didn’t have a fever, he was playing and eating totally normally.  Ugh, I feel really bad about it.  If we’d had any idea, obviously we wouldn’t have gone.

We had an appointment to get Jack his H1N1 vaccine today but had to cancel.

Poor little guy.  He slept ok last night, but woke up miserable and soaking wet.  He ate his breakfast and played in the morning, though, and went down easily for his nap.  I hope it’s a long one!