Heat Wave, Hand-Holding Naps, Attempt to Give Up Binky, Buzz Cut, Opened Dog Crate, First Vegetable & "Mama Has Different Rules"

Wes:  28 Weeks Old

Ty:  2 Years, 7 Months & 2 Weeks Old 

Last Friday started our killer weather.  90 degrees and super humid!  We had snow the previous weekend –  you can’t get any crazier than that!  We had our usual grocery run in the AM and had naps in the later afternoon.  I am trying a new method of naps with Wes.  For his first couple of months, Wes was falling asleep on his own and I was so excited about this!  He was going to have this skill down and we wouldn’t have to do “cry-it-out”, but alas…he developed early separation anxiety and he has a complete panic attack if he is laid down by himself awake and all alone!  So he has been either nursed or rocked to sleep for months.  I decided to try to lie him down by himself and just lie down on the floor beside him and hold his hand if he starts to freak out.  Last Friday was the first time I tried it and he fell asleep “on his own” (with some hand-holding) within about 5 minutes!!  I was pretty excited about this.  I feel like it will be an easier transition to going to sleep completely on his own.  If he does well with this, then I hope to move to going asleep by himself, but his separation anxiety is going to have to ease up a bit first.  Another nap/sleep-related thing that I tried to do had to do with Tyson.  I started to talk to him about getting a “big boy” bed.  I don’t think he is really ready for it yet and he still does not try to get out of his crib, but I wanted to know what he thought about it.  He got super excited and seemed like he really wanted to do it.  So then, using my super smart Mom-skills…I segued into, “If you are going to have a big boy bed, then there is something that you can’t have when you have the big boy bed.  Your binky.  No more binkies when you have a big boy bed.”  He didn’t seem all that thrilled about that, but when I gave him a choice between the binky and the big boy bed, he said he wanted the big boy bed.  I thought it could really be this easy… (what was I thinking), so I said, “Why don’t we try this nap without the binky.”  He agreed, but when it came time to actually lie down in his crib without it, he had a panic attack with hyperventilating and everything and cried over and over… “Binky, binky, binky!”  I didn’t have the heart to push it, so the binky won out and I haven’t broached the subject again.  We HAVE to give up the binky, but I just don’t know how to do it.  I feel absolutely horrible to take away something he loves so much.  My intellectual side knows that it needs to happen, that it is not good for him…but my emotional side is dying to think that I am going to take away his most prized possession that gives him so much comfort and joy.  Anyways, Friday night two things of record happened.  First, I made Heath put the air conditioner in the family room since the 90+ degree heat was killing me and we could at least have one room that would be an oasis.  The other thing was giving Wes rice cereal instead of the hated oatmeal.  This went slightly better, but not great.

Ty picking up the "Pasta-ccine" at the grocery store

Wes wants to skip the cereal and go right to meatballs!

Ty sleeping in just his pull-up - notice the temperature gauge on the monitor - 93 degrees!!!

On Sabbath I had every intention of making it to church, but it just didn’t happen.  I was absolutely exhausted after multiple nights of 2 hours of sleep courtesy of Westin with more colicky behavior and from working until 3 AM one day that week.  I was done and needed to “sleep in” and not get up at 7 AM to try to kill ourselves to get to Sabbath School.  After the boys got up at 9 AM, Heath said, “We can still make it.”  He was delusional since none of us had eaten breakfast or gotten dressed and we would need to leave in 30 minutes.  Needless to say, we didn’t go.  Later  we did meet the Frosts and Sean’s twin brother, Keith, at a lake near their house.  It was cute, as we left our house, Ty looked out the window and said, “Bye house!”  We had a nice picnic at the lake and everyone (minus the old girls) partook in the unusually warm water.  The heat was just so oppressive.  In the late afternoon, we moved the party to the Frosts’ house and Sean made homemade pizza for us that was amazing.  Ty & Fin had a blast (most of the time) playing together, but Ty needed multiple time-outs for pushing Fin and not sharing Finley’s toys!  Yes, he would scream at her, “Mine” – even though they are clearly Finley’s toys!  I have decided that “mine” is a swear word.  One of the times he was sitting down a hallway in time-out and Finley quietly snuck down the hallway to just sit beside him.  It was so cute!  She must have thought he was lonely!  Wes did great all day – I kept him naked most of the time because he is such a hot dude normally anyway.  Ty didn’t get a nap but fell asleep almost immediately on the way home that night! 

Two hunks trying to cool down

Wes does like a heated pool better!

Ty was a squirting machine

Cutie Fin

Ty getting stuck in a stroller

Naked Wes playing with a ball

Reading a book by the fire!

I love this picture!  Ty was good pushing Wes in the stroller and Fin wanted to come along with her shopping cart!

On Sunday I could have killed the Frosts.  And this is not news to them, I told them this to their faces!  Heath would have had the bathroom finished, but they had to call and say, “We are going to go swimming again, do you want to come?”  They were coming over to the lake by our house, where we have beach rights, so Heath jumped on that.  I declined since I had to work the next day and was planning on going to the pharmacies and picking up my house, which was trashed.  So Heath took Ty swimming with the Frosts and Wes & I hit up the pharmacies.  We had a plan to get Thai take-out after our respective activities, but we got bad news on that front.  Our fantastic Thai restaurant in town in closed – and not sure when it will reopen.  Shannon had called to give them our take-out order and there was a message that said that the cook had terminal cancer.  I feel guilty being bummed that we have lost our Thai restaurant since someone is dying.  Anyways, we changed our plans and ordered from the Chinese place and I was right near there at Rite Aid.  So I sat in the car, fed Wes, and then picked up the order.  That would have been no big deal but it was like the storm of the century all of a sudden.  It was pouring like unbelievably and areas near us got hail and there were severe thunderstorms.  I ran into the restaurant, carrying Wes in his car seat and we got drenched.  The problem was carrying the car seat and two large paper take-out bags on the way out!  It was dicey but I got it done!  We had a nice time together eating and then the Frosts headed home.  I forgot to mention the biggest thing that happened on Sunday!  We gave Ty a buzz cut!  I had been waiting for this for so long and I never thought that Heath would agree to it!  Ty’s hair had been getting almost unmanageable with his multiple cowlicks, so I thought this was a perfect solution!  I have always loved little boys with buzz cuts, but Heath hates them, but he agreed to try it once.  Heath almost couldn’t do it!  When he went to actually shave off the hair with the clippers, he kept backing away saying, “I can’t do this!”  But he finally did.  I loved it, but EVERYONE hates it.  They like the ol’ Ty spiky hairdo.  I thought I liked it more than I do, though…because I look back at some pictures and I do think he looks better with more hair!  But at least we gave it a try!  Ty loves it, though.  He keeps running his hands through his hair and says, “Fuzzy!”  Sunday night was traumatic for me.  Ty developed yet another cold and was up (not exaggerating) 15 times crying for me…mostly to wipe his nose that was running.  I tried to put tissues underneath his pillow, so he could do it himself but he freaked out.  He was obviously not feeling well.  Wes woke up (probably hearing Ty carrying on) and needed to be nursed back to sleep at 3:30 AM, so I didn’t get to sleep (or the boys completely down) until 4 AM.  On a work night.  Not good at all.

Ty watching Heath work on the bathroom

1 side of my trashed living room

And...the other side

Ty is into moving all his toys from one room and piling them in another room - it makes for a long time picking up every day

Before...

After!

Wes watching the haircut

The other thing I did on Sunday was pull up the walker & the highchair for Wes (he can not sit in the bouncer or the bumbo on the counter anymore - as evidenced by the previous picture of him trying to lean over to grab the meatballs)

For some reason, Ty thought they were for him!

On Monday I worked, and it was so great to be able to get up with the boys normally in the morning and have some time with them!  When I used to work 9a-9p every Wednesday….I would never see them.  They would still be sleeping when I left and would be in bed when I got back.  I would miss the entire day with them.  It was cute though, when Ty woke up, I heard him on the monitor say, “Noni, come.  Ty up.”  He knew that Noni was coming to watch him, because I had told him the day before that I had to go to work the next day!  He was surprised (pleasantly, I think) that I was still there in the morning!  One thing that was a big deal was that Ty finally figured out how to open the dog crate!  Literally, every morning he has tried to do it, and that morning…he got it!  He was so excited!  So I headed off to work just before 2 PM and had a really busy shift.  I got home, took a shower, and was crawling into bed at 4:30 AM.  I made a monstrous mistake.  I tried to move Westin into his crib, since he was sleeping with Heath and I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep as well.  I can move him anytime without him waking up normally, but this must have been too close to morning time…so he woke right up.  I was SO mad!  I will never, EVER move him again!  I ended up nursing him, but he would not go back to sleep.  I was absolutely exhausted and I could not get him back to sleep until 6 AM.  When Ty got up at 8:30 AM, I had gotten 2 ½ hours of sleep.  I was a hurting unit.  I figured out later what happened.  Heath screwed me over.  I told him that Wes needed to be fed at 8 PM and then a smaller bottle just before midnight.  What did Heath do?  Instead of 2 different feedings, he decided to just feed him once at 10 PM.  Well, he short-changed him a feeding and so, when he was woken up…he was starving to death and then wouldn’t go back to sleep!  I told Heath that he was dead meat if he did that again!

So psyched to be able to spend more time with his guy!

And this guy!

Unfortunately I couldn’t just chill out on Tuesday because I was a moron and made a doctor’s appointment for myself in the afternoon.  I had thought against it, but since I have to be up with the boys, I figured why not?  Well, I found out that the why not is just in case the boys do not sleep for some reason and I only get 2 hours of sleep.  Noni came back for a couple hours, so I could go to my appointment sans kids.  I had finally made appointments for Heath & I to get a primary doctor, since we haven’t had regular physicals in over 10 years.  We are pretty much middle-aged, so we have to stay on top of things.  It went well – I do have to find some time to do some fasting blood work done, but it is not emergent.  When I got home, Ty was finishing lunch and I ate too.  It was so funny.  I was sitting there with Ty, eating my new favorite thing…Snyder pretzel pieces…when he said, “Water, water.”  I gave him some water and said, “I know Ty.  These pretzels are making me thirsty!”  I busted a gut laughing because I unconsciously said a famous Seinfeld phrase!  Ty was funny later on.  I was watching the Bruins game on my iPad, from the night before, and Ty got really into it.  He said to me, “More game.  More game” after I had shut it off.  Something else that was notable happened while Ty & I were taking the dogs outside for a potty break.  Ty decided that he wanted to pee outside too!  Well, Heath has taken care of this task before, but I figured it was my turn.  That was a disaster.  I don’t know how you do it without taking off all his clothes first!  He got a good arc going, but it was the finishing dribbles that got all over his undies and pants, prompting a full change.  What a pain!  I’ve got to get better at this!  Tuesday night we went out to the OG, instead of Thursday night, since Heath was going to have a late meeting on Thursday night.  We went with my parents and Adam.  We had good eating and Wes tried his first vegetable (sweet potato) for the first time!  He did a bit better, but not great.  The unfortunate part of the night was that Ty had a poop accident there – the first one in more than a month.  

  Helping Mama do the laundry

Sometimes he does the craziest things - sitting in Westin's car seat, watching the iPad that is propped up on his toolbox

First taste of sweet potatoes at the OG

Wednesday morning I felt like myself again!  6 hours of sleep will do wonders for you – I had gone to bed at 1:30 AM the night before since I was so tired.  We didn’t do too much that day, besides putting laundry away.  A couple things to mention...first of all, Tyson really demonstrated some OCD behavior.  I was putting him down for his nap, when he asked me to turn on his night light.  I was holding him and I reached down and flicked it on.  Well, I had hit the metal part that covers the night light and made it crooked.  Ty flipped out, had to be put down, so he could go over to the night light and make it straight again!  Then when we were putting the laundry away, I had thrown Westin’s bathing suit into his drawer and part of it got stuck hanging out of the drawer.  Ty again, would not rest until he opened the drawer, put the bathing suit completely in and shut the door!  The other thing that was cute happened in the bathroom.  Ty had the gall to say to me, “Mama go.  Poop like a big boy.”  He wanted privacy while he pooped!  My little boy is growing up!!!!!  Speaking of growing up, my littlest boy took a big step with his food.  I tried mixing the sweet potato with the rice cereal and he absolutely loved it!  I’m going to keep mixing it!  Anything for him to like solid food!

Westin is getting to be a problem with folding laundry - he wants to touch and pull apart everything

Ty taking out the puppies with Mama - yes, he is wearing a fire hydrant for a hat and he is wearing my shoes (you can't really tell)

Westin loves the big balls

Playing cars together - Ty will NOT look at the camera

Story time!

On Thursday we puttered around the house again, but there were some cute things that happened.  Every morning this week Ty has woken up saying the same thing…”Ty sick.  Need medicine” and points to his throat.  I am onto this game!  He loves the taste of the Children’s Tylenol and Advil!  Then he stepped up the manipulation at breakfast.  I told him that he needed to sit down to have one of his favorite “sippies” (fruit/vegetable pouches).  He did not like this and told me, “Finley walks around sippies.”  I could not believe he was already throwing those types of things in my face!  So I said, “Auntie Shannon might do things differently, but Mama has different rules.”  I couldn’t believe I had to bring up that tried and true phrase already!  Both boys napped great for me that day.  Wes took a 2 ½ hour nap and Ty took a 3 hour nap!  Love it!  A couple other funny things were, what else…potty-related!  First of all, Ty had to go potty but felt that he couldn’t make the long trek to the bathroom without stopping first to kiss Wes goodbye!  I said, “Ty, hurry – you don’t want to have an accident!”  And he said, “Kiss Westy bye!”  So cute!  Then, we did actually make it out of the house and went grocery-shopping a day early.  I was going to a class the next day and knew it would be too hectic to go then.  I had both boys in the car, after having Ty go pee…and then realized that I had to go pee myself.  I didn’t even realize I had said anything out loud, but Ty said to me, “Mama, go pee outside!”  That launched me into a discussion how it is much easier for boys to go outside and not girls.  Thank goodness he isn’t into asking too many questions in that area yet!  OK – that’s it!  Have a great week!  

RANDOM PICS

 

Ty singing "Rock-a-Bye Baby" to Wes

Working on his sit-up