Rethinking Co-Sleeping

Or I get enough sleep now.

Someday, Jacob isn't going to want to sleep next to me. Soon, he will be lifting his arms up to daddy to take him, instead of cuddling with me in the mornings. Someday he will sleep in a big boy bed, only coming in to me after bad dreams. Then he will grow up, become a boy, a young man, an adult. I will not always be the one who can soothe all things. In a day and age when children grow up far too quickly, I'm already imagining how he will turn away from me. My baby is going to grow up and leave me. He will not always need me.

So I'm going to try and relish now. Enjoy the nights where all he wants is to sleep with his body in my arms. Savor the mornings when I wake up a little stiff from sleeping on my side so his head is cradled in my arm, and I watch his lips purse and suck as he sleeps. How can I blame him for not wanting to sleep alone. I haven't for years, and if I had my way then CS would be in bed with us. Before CS and Jacob came along, there was always Hunter to keep me company. I am not one who likes to sleep alone.

I co-sleep. And it's going to be OK.

Nigh-Nigh And Other Bad Habits

I have created a monster. And it's becoming a problem. Jacob was well on his way to sleeping in his crib when we moved back from Alabama. He would go to bed around 9 and sleep until 12 where I'd nurse him and he'd go back down until 4 if I was lucky. At this point, I would let him sleep in bed with me until we woke up around 7 or 8. This wasn't the best sleeping situation, as I wanted him to learn to sleep through the night without needing to nurse or cuddle. But I was working on it.

Then we moved in with CS's parents and his crib was placed at the foot of my bed. He'd wake up at midnight and I'd end up placing him next to me in bed and then we'd fall asleep and sleep all night till early morning. I knew it was bad, but some nights I didn't even remember getting him from the crib. There wasn't enough space between my bed and his bed for me to wake up enough to go put him back. On one hand, he no longer needs to nurse when he wakes up at night. But now he only sleeps about two hours after bedtime before he's crying to sleep next to me. And since bedtime is now 8:30, he is awake before 11. This interferes with my evenings, as I don't enjoy laying in bed with him so he can sleep. But crying it out doesn't work. I tried. He would lay there and cry, cry, cry, fall asleep, five seconds of silence, cry, cry, cry, sit up, repeat. I don't have a Ferber book, or I might try that.

I know I need to sleep train him. But there doesn't seem to be much of a point until we have a room for him. And I'm scared of all the crying that's going to happen. The late nights where I'm just tired and all he wants is to be able to feel me when he wakes up in the dark. I don't mind co-sleeping but it doesn't work when CS is sleeping with us. A queen sized bed is not big enough for a family of three. I've felt terribly guilty about letting him sleep in my bed for the past three months. I know it's creating a bad habit that I have to break, but I didn't always have to power to keep him in his bed. Plus, I've been getting a lot more sleep and the night nursing is mostly done. Unless he pulls my shirt up during the night and latches on without my knowledge. He also likes to slide his hand up and hold on to a nipple. I hate this and it usually results in a nighttime hand slapping. This was accompanied with giggles this morning when the imp tried to feel me up at 7:30.

I call him the Boobie Monster.

Staying Home

Today, I watched my little boy wander around the backyard. He ran over to the dog and stole his ball before trying to throw it for him. Then he started jabbering away in his language to Hunter as he threw both arms over his head. Over and over, he did this. After he was done with that performance, he turned around and looked at me, big toothy grin on his face and wrinkled up nose. I am so blessed and lucky to be able to stay home and watch him grow.

One year ago, he was one month old and just learning how to smile. Now I have a walking, talking, climbing toddler. And I'm ashamed of how badly I've recorded his first year. How will I remember? Everyday is something new and exciting. There are not enough minutes in a day or words to describe it.

He can tell you what a horse says. He sticks his tongue between his lips and blows. A cow says "mmm" and sometimes a chicken goes "buck!" When I'm cooking, he wedges himself between the cabinets and my legs, then pushes me back and lifts up his arms. He climbs on top of my sewing machine to look out the window. He likes my spaghetti. I can easily feed him medicine for constipation but not the antihistamine. One's banana flavored. Emma is his favorite dog, he always falls onto her back or sits next to her and leans back to lounge on her flank. Playing in the driver's seat of a car is the best way to keep him happy. Rocks always find a way into his mouth.

He is my Jacobey and I love being his mama.

Oh Look!

I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It leads straight to trailer trashville, but it's a faint glimmer of hope that we will be moving out of CS's parent's house and into a place of our own.

CS's boss told him the other day that he could fix up the trailer that the company owns and we could move in if we wanted to have a place of our own. This is a very nice offer, I suppose, it's just that the house he's offering is more suited to middle age men who have never married as opposed to a stay at home mom with a toddler. It's not awful, but it's not good either. The trailer sits behind the company shop and it has a fenced yard but it's overtaken by weeds. We had to walk on pallets to get to the door, and even then we had to fight through some nasty brush. Once inside, it's clear that no one has been in to do anything in a while. There are beer cans in boxes and all the furnace covers are out of the floor. There are clear sticky flytraps covered with flies in the windows and a plunger in the toilet. There is a hole in the floor by the back door, and I suspect the hole is larger now because CS went over the other day to try and replace it but didn't have all he needed at the time. The carpet needs deep cleaned and the kitchen/bedroom/bathroom needs tile or something to cover the particle board.

I could go on, but I think I'll stop here. It's too depressing. My options are continue to live in a real house and watch my relationship fail a little more each day or go live in a fixed up dump until CS's job decides to pay him what they agreed. I guess if we can fix up the inside of the house, I can just ignore the outside. All I really know is that we can't stay here anymore. CS's mom had his dad put baby locks on all the kitchen drawers to keep Jacob out. Maybe I take things too literally, but that just screams "You are not welcome here" so I'll figure out a way to leave so she can go back to living her life like people never make mistakes, messes, or put the silverware in the dishwasher wrong.

Maybe I'll post some pictures of the house after this weekend. Hopefully the before and after are remarkably different.

Crafty. Like A Fox.

I don't know if it was the change of seasons or if I am so starved for creativity that it had to come out somehow, but I have been on a rampage of crafting. I can't stop! I keep buying fabric or knitting needles and picking up books on knitting. I'm searching Etsy daily, looking for ideas of things to make or fabric I covet. (Why is fabric so expensive? It's the only thing holding me back.) I've already started a stash of Christmas gifts. I finally made myself finish a scarf for my uncle that I started FOUR YEARS AGO. I started it twice, to be fair. But seriously, four years. And it was delicious yarn, so why was it so hard? I made Jacob a tiny bedwarmer, filled it with dried peas instead of rice. I got buckwheat over the weekend and I'm excited to see how that pans out for the next batch of bedwarmers. I made Jayden a crayon roll. Actually, I made two, but I gave up on the first and started a second one when I didn't think through my "quilting" part of it. I learned that I am terrible at quilting. Good thing she's only five. I felted a knitted bowl and I have a plan to needle felt it, except I discovered that my needles are bent. I have no idea how they are bent and I broke one trying to bend it back into place. It still works, just looks wrong. I probably need new ones, but that can come later. The worst part of this "crafty sickness" is that I used part of my Verizon rebate/birthday gift card to buy more crafty items. Fabric that I will probably sew up and give away! I fail. But in my defense, I did buy a set of Halloween PJ's from Target with part of it. That was probably a mistake though, as I now want three more sets. Target is a bad place for me. Bad, but oh so good.

Not Me! Monday

In an effort to avoid watching football today, I certainly did not spend a significant amount of time in bed this evening. Complete with baby, clementines and a bowl of popcorn. Nor did I eat a spoonful of Nutella after I got the baby to bed.

Nor would I let the baby bring a rock from outside into the house and leave it on the side table for days. I never put up a small syringe plus for the laxative medication into my purse, only to forget that I put it up and then find myself on a frantic search of the room and under couches because I'm sure the baby found it and swallowed it and OMG he already has issues pooping and now he might have to poop out a cap-like object. Of course, I would never do that. I always put small objects up and out of reach to avoid panicky moments like that. (I did find it the next day, but then the baby found it and I had to put it away again.)

I also would never put the baby to sleep while watching Desperate Housewives really quietly because Mad Men is recording on the big TV and the guys are watching the game so I couldn't DVR both. My son always falls asleep knowing his mama is paying full attention to his sleepy little eyelids.