Leah, Emma and Claire (and Jen and John)

I haven’t felt like sitting at the computer for long these days so I’m sorry for the lack of updates. Everything is chugging along. John’s dad came up to give me a break this week and it was nice to have someone else help run after the girls. While I should have been resting I took full advantage of having someone here and went out and did things by myself. Who would have thought wandering around Sears by myself could be so enjoyable.

The girls have been all over the place. Last Friday I had just accepted that their nap time might just be becoming quiet time in their room when they decided to bite each other. They were both very remorseful and everything but I was pretty upset at the thought of not being able to leave them unsupervised in their room. They made it up to us by napping like little angels for John on both Saturday and Sunday. Monday the didn’t nap at all but we had some success every other day. It truly is all over the place which is hard when you’ve had children who were trained to sleep on schedule in the hospital and have maintained good sleeping habits for 2.5 years. Baby C is even getting in on the action by having his/her active time right when I lie down exhausted in bed at night. I don’t remember the girls ever kicking this hard and it is definitely not something you can sleep through. All my children are preparing me for January!

The girls are doing well. They have good days and bad in terms of behaviour. Yesterday when we got back from school Leah took Emma’s toy. Emma threw herself on the floor, beat her hands on the floor and screamed her head off in rage. It would appear they learn more than cute new songs at school. We all ignored her and she got over it. That behaviour enrages me to the point that it’s a good thing that they say you shouldn’t validate it by taking notice.

Now that they can string together sentences they are coming out with some really interesting stuff. Today Leah kept on saying “Where did my baby sister Emma go?”. The other entertaining thing is that they think all the rules they have apply to all of us. I have been told to “look at me mom, you have to share” or Emma quite regularly will say “don’t say no to Leah, it’s very rude”. The one that makes me laugh the most is when they see one of us take a sip of each other’s drink and they say “Good sharing mommy and daddy.” While we watch our vocabulary, we still talk pretty freely around the girls - I think those days are numbered.

No big plans this weekend beyond stuff around the house. We took the girls swimming last Sunday and Drew is coming this Sunday to take them with John. We haven’t been good about getting them in the water and that’s something we want to change. It’s the logistics of taking them swimming that make you sit and think about having 3 children. Hard to believe we only have a few more weeks left as a family of 4 and life as we know it. 

With all the recent sleep issues going on John and I decided it was time to take Leah’s soother away. As baby C’s arrival looms we thought it important that Leah be off her soother…I’m not really into all the psychotherapy surrounding a new sibling but I didn’t want to take my chances on Leah having lifelong issues blaming baby C for taking her precious soother away.

So as usual I was expecting this to be a disaster (parenting is opening my eyes to my negative attitude!). She only gets her soother in her room and she only uses it to fall asleep but she is extremely attached to her NICU soothies . We have tried orthodontic soothers in the past but no go - she prefers the one that is going to mangle her teeth.

So when she didn’t ask for it Monday night at bedtime it became night one. She didn’t fall asleep until 11pm but she wasn’t upset. She just kept on asking us where her soother went. She’s been chewing them lately (and throwing the broken ones in the garbage) so we told her they were all broken. That made her a bit sad but rubbing her back made that better.

She was up at 6 Tuesday morning and woke Emma up so the day began. Tuesday night she slept 7 hours again. Last night she slept 9. She misses it more when she wakes up than when she goes to bed. She has been pretty sad about it but I added “the garbage truck took them all away” to the story and she understands that means they are gone. She still looks around her room for one when Emma pipes up with “Leah, where did your soother go, want me to help you look for it?” (ARRRRGGG) but she’s ok with not finding one.

All this being said the sleep situation still sucks. They are messing around at nap time then napping late into the afternoon and then not falling asleep until after 10pm and are up at 7am at the very latest. I have had 4, 5 and 7 hours sleep in the past three nights and my nearly 8 months pregnant body is screaming for more. Today I decided that I was putting them to bed at 1:30pm and they were getting up at 4 regardless of when they fell asleep. They fell asleep at 3:15. They were not happy when I woke them up. Hopefully they will go to bed at a reasonable time tonight. This is going to sound ridiculous to people that don’t live in this house but I cannot relax and wind down when they are still awake even if they are laughing and happy as can be. It drives me insane that they are not sleeping and I sit there wondering why? why? why? how can two year olds need less sleep than me? It feels like the days are never ending. Maybe they are ready to drop their nap and I should just accept it and have them in bed for the night at 7pm. Then John will only see them for 30 mins a day and I will essentially become a weekday single parent. The pity party isn’t in full swing yet though -I still have faith they’ll sort themselves out. 

The computer died yesterday. I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time (some might remember when I brought it back to life by kicking it in frustration) so it didn’t come as a shock. I’m sure we could have saved it with some new hardware but it was 6 years old, sounded like a tank, didn’t shut off properly, and had some genuine issues with the software Of course this is the weekend John didn’t bring his power cord home for his laptop so we were completely cut off. Yesterday we were faced with the problem of buying a new computer without internet access to research it. Oh it was tough having to leave the house with two toddlers in tow but we survived and managed to get a new computer today. Merry Christmas to us.

So in not having internet access for a full 24 hours we both realized how much we rely on it and how much time we waste on it. More than enough reason for me to keep this short.

The girls are doing fine. They are having some pretty intense sharing issues lately that we are trying to patiently work through. For the first time I would love to be able to finance two of everything as most of the fighting and crying is caused by each other. Today John took Leah to pick up the computer while Emma stayed with me and helped me cook dinner. We both agreed that it was a very pleasant experience only having one. No crying, whining or any other type of behaviour that would drive you to drink…excessively…if only you weren’t pregnant.

I was 30 weeks yesterday and had an ob appt on Saturday morning. Everything is fine. Heartrate was 165. I have to go for another ultrasound in the next few weeks because the one I had at 19 weeks showed a low lying placenta. Dr Shuen doesn’t seem overly concerned and I know he is a very cautious man so I’m not concerned either. I am still measuring big (32 weeks) and he did jokingly say that I should start thinking about Christmas shopping since by Christmas time I might not be able to walk. He’s a funny man. 

The girls welcomed a new friend this week. Susan and JP had their little girl Madeleine on November 7th. Susan was 10 weeks ahead of me so she’ll be a pro by the time I am handed a newborn and told to go home without 3 weeks of intense hospital training!

The speech appt went well this morning. They booked us in for 2 hours and it only took 30mins. It actually only took the therapist about 1 min to declare the girls fine but we went through the exercise of the informal evaluation anyway.

Emma (looking at a moon sticker on the wall): “Mommy, that’s Mr Moon. He’s stuck on the wall.”

Leah (not seeing sticker): “No Emma, Mr Moon sleeping up in the sky. He’s hiding behind the blue clouds”

Therapist: “I think this is going to be a quick appointment.”

The appointment consisted of some basic questions for me then playtime with the girls. They were both very chatty and loved playing with all the toys and the therapist. They are both doing very well with their vocabulary, grammar and comprehension. The therapist had no concerns but said that we should just continue to model proper grammar and pronounciation.  Emma says “ann mal” rather than animal so I just have to watch things like that as well as “the baby is sleeping” rather than “baby sleeping”. They still won’t discharge us and I didn’t fight it. They’ll go back at 3 for another quick check.

After the appt we headed over to the Town of Oakville office to get a plan of our lot. Our neighbour wants to put up a fence but the plan we were given when we moved in doesn’t have our neighbour on it. The girls and I managed to find the right office and the right person and even the right plan but unfortunately my bank card was in the pants I wore to Costco at the weekend so we’ll have to go back. The guy wouldn’t even give me a pen to write down the dimensions I needed because I couldn’t pay for it. Nice guy. The girls had been sitting in an open concept office for 20 mins quietly practicing how to whisper while he looked for the plan. I felt like telling them to start singing Twinkle Twinkle at the top of their lungs for the nice office man.

It took them 45 mins to fall asleep today.

After they woke up it was time to go to the dentist. They went in one at a time with John for about 10 mins each.  John reported that they were both very good and let the hygenist count their teeth and look at them. Leah has 20 and Emma has 19 with the 20th currently on it’s way up. They both got toothbrushes and a treat from the treasure chest so for now they think the dentist is just about on par with the doctor (which they ask to go see daily).

After the dentist we treated them to dinner in a restaurant. All you have to do is say the word restaurant and they both get super excited and start this funny little dance. Then they scream that they are going to have apple juice, pizza and french fries. It’s pretty funny to see. They both had 2 glasses of apple juice each and they’re still awake in their room laughing and talking.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Things are fine. Nobody is sick…John and I are just a bit tired. The girls are being little monkeys about napping. Today was the best day we’ve had in 10 days and even then it took them 40 mins to fall asleep. They are still napping - they’re just fooling around for 2 hours before they fall asleep. They are cranky and miserable and just generally not very pleasant to be around. If there was ever a good time for me to go back to work without a care this would be it. I could take this big belly and relax in an office chair all day no problem!

I don’t know what’s up with the napping but like I said last week I’m not giving up. They are also getting up before 7am everyday again so they aren’t getting enough sleep at night to do without a nap. I have considered keeping them up all day and putting them to bed early but by 1pm they are just so crusty I let them go. Leah is still asking to go to bed and Emma trots up the stairs no problem - they just won’t fall asleep. Little monkeys. They’re going to do me in. Just thinking about a newborn and two crusty toddlers that won’t nap makes me think I am going to lose it.

We have a routine speech appt tomorrow morning. It should be interesting. I don’t really have any concerns and if all goes well I won’t leave the appt with any.

John has a dentist appt tomorrow and I was thinking I might bring the girls so they can go in with him. They can take turns and if things go downhill (as most things are these days) I will be there to take them away. This is the dentist we used to have in Mississauga and they have since moved to a posh building in Streetsville. It’s not what you would call a child friendly dentist so we’ll see how it goes. I think we’re going to find a new family dentist in Oakville but I’ll at least give them a chance since they’ve always been good to us.

I was 29 weeks pregnant yesterday. Things are about the same but a bit more overwhelming because I’m missing out on my naps as well. I had my first real braxton hicks contractions today which is normal. I just sat down, put my feet up and drank a ton of water…ha ha ha ha ha…as if.

So the girls wanted nothing to do with costumes so we saved ourselves 100 bucks and improvised. Emma was open to bunny ears so we went with that and dressed them up as bunnies and painted their faces like they were going to war! I think they were pretty cute but I am their mother

They really enjoyed Halloween this year. We carved the pumpkins on Sunday afternoon and then we made pumpkin seeds Monday morning. Yesterday John’s dad came around noon and by the time they woke up from their nap they were raring to go. We got them dressed and John and his dad took them out while I handled the rather disappointing turnout (only 25 kids). From all accounts the girls had lots of fun going trick or treating. They ran up to the houses themselves and insisted on carrying their own “trick or treats”. Everything was fine until some kid in a costume Emma describes as the scary snowman scared the crap out of her. We have since convinced her that the scary snowman has gone home.

They brought their stash home and sorted it for 30 mins before they asked to eat it. We let them eat a bag of chips but told them they had to wait til tomorrow for the chocolate. First words out of Emma this morning…”Can we eat the chocolate now mommy?”. The answer was still no but I did let them have something after their nap.

We are having some challenging days around here lately. The girls are on a bit of a nap strike. I don’t know why but they are still tired so I’m not convinced they’re giving up their nap. We have been putting them in their room at nap time and they’ve been playing.  They don’t want ouf of their room and it has taken on average 2 hours for them to fall asleep over the past 4 days. It all goes back to the time change so maybe that’s the cause. I don’t know.  Leah was tired at noon today so I put them down with no luck. Tomorrow I’ll try a bit later again. I am not giving up. I need the down time more than ever these days and it is very frustrating.

In other news John got extended in North York until the end of December. His last day was supposed to be yesterday but they announced Monday that they were keeping them on. There are pros and cons to him being 1.5 hours away from home all day long (mostly cons but I’m trying to stay positive!). We’ve started thinking about how we’re going to work things when I go into labour. It’s going to be interesting. We really lucked out when I went with the girls - it was a Sunday afternoon in June with no traffic and just Jackson to think about. This time we have two toddlers to consider and we could get a winter storm and rush hour. I try not to think about Baby C being born on the 401.

On their way out with John and Papa

Bunny Leah by John

Bunny Emma by Papa

Bunny Mommy by Leah and Emma (with a special thanks to John for not including the belly!)