Christmas 2012

It's 8:10pm on December 31, 2012.  I really want to get a Christmas post in before 2013 comes, so here it is!

Christmas 2012 was supposed to be pretty busy.  We purposefully skipped a few Christmas parties for various reasons, like the fact that Isaiah is hysterical on car rides, and that certain ones (read: work parties) were just going to be awkward instead of enjoyable.

The plans boiled down to this:

-My immediate family Christmas on December 23

-My MIL's side on December 24

-My brother Matt, his wife Lynsey, sister Giliane, and my Mom on December 25, followed by a couple of hours with my FIL's side on December 25

-Brunch at my inlaw's with their friends on December 26.


The first two days went as planned.  Christmas at my parents house with my siblings was great.  It was a little hairy with naps for Isaiah, since he just recently became less able to nap in a room full of people, even while babywearing, but I didn't stress about it and just went with the flow.  Noah had fun, although he doesn't always enjoy playing with his cousins because they just aren't as nice and gentle as he is.

Noah's present from my parents was a floor mat for cars, the first Cars movie, and 3 cars from the Cars movie.  He really really liked it!  After his cousins realized what he got, they went over and were crawling all over his mat playing with his cars.  Noah said to Josiah in a frustrated voice, "Go somewhere else!!"  So I said to Noah, "Noah, please be nice," and Noah said, in an equally frustrated voice, "Please go somewhere else!!!"  Hahaha.

Christmas Eve was at my inlaws and included the Nonna on that side, and my MIL's sister Mary, her husband Skip, and their son Josh.  This was huge, as they had a huge falling out before Noah was born and the two families never get together for anything anymore.  Justin and I get together with Skip and Mary a few times a year, but never with my inlaws.  It went well.  Again, I wore Isaiah all day so he was happy... except when I let Mary hold him and she started walking around with him facing out into the noisy room.  As soon as she turned him that way he started SCREAMING, and even though both my MIL and me told her to turn him back around because it's not comfortable, it's way too stimulating, and he had nowhere to hide from the stimulation in that position, she ignored us.  He stopped screaming for a couple of minutes and then started wailing again so I just took him back.  Poor little guy.

I should mention, the drives to and from my parents' house and my inlaws house were awful.  I sit in the back with Isaiah and Noah, but Isaiah still gets hysterical.  It frays my nerves.  I usually end up taking him out of the carseat and nursing him.  I know it's unsafe but I just can't let him scream for 25 minutes!

By Christmas Day I was NOT wanting to do any more driving because of all the crying.  I had kind of decided that Isaiah and I would be skipping the rest of the Christmas festivities, but told Justin he could take Noah for a couple of hours.  Keep this fact in mind.

Christmas morning we woke up and stayed home from church (because of the crying).

We opened presents as a family.  Well, Isaiah just watched:

Isaiah got a book and a whole bunch of BabyLegs, the boys got matching handmade hats (not handmade by me, I don't have those skills):

And Noah got a Duplo gas station set and 5 different wooden Thomas trains.

We purposefully kept it lower key this year and just stuck with things we knew he would love (and he did).  I didn't want to bring a bunch of useless plastic crap into the house like we did last Christmas.

Blurry picture of me and my boys, but I have to add it... look how happy Isaiah is!:

Noah fell asleep in the downstairs spare bedroom around 10:15, which was weird.

Then my family started arriving around noon, and he acted very unhappy to see them.  This was weird too.  I gave Isaiah to Justin to hold and brought Noah to him room to ask him what was going on, and when I picked him up he was burning hot.  He had a pretty high fever.  I gave him Advil to bring it down, which it did.  At this point I told Justin that none of us would be going to his family's Christmas that night, as there were two other kids who would be there and I wasn't about to be the family bringing the sick kids into other people's houses.  Justin seemed like he thought I was overreacting, but he agreed.

By the end of the day it was pretty clear Noah was quite sick.  He was burning up again and was very lethargic.  Justin slept in his room with him that night.  At around 5am he brought him into my room because he had been asking for me.  At first I was annoyed, because I'd been lying awake since 12:30am, but as soon as Noah got in my lap I realized he was even sicker.  He was limp like a rag doll and sooooo hot.  We gave him more Advil, I nursed him, and the two of them went back to sleep in Noah's room.

The next morning we skipped Boxing Day brunch because of Noah being sick.  During the course of the day he developed a bad cough and still had a really high fever.  That night Justin brought him to me again at 2am. I think the next night the same thing happened, but since then it hasn't.

Basically, Noah has never been so sick in his life (and he's been sick at least 20 times).  High fever, sore throat, headache, body ache, horrible congestion, horrible cough, major lethargy, spending all day on the couch, choosing to nap for hours even though he stopped napping in August... He even stopped eating for a few days, during which I was so thankful he was still nursing and that I have so much milk.  It's been rough, and right now I'm not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel.  I can't wait until he's healthy again... I know it's only been a week, but it's been so brutal that I'm starting to forget what normal, happy, healthy Noah is like.

Magically, Isaiah hasn't gotten sick, which is amazing since it's been 7 full days of Noah being like this.  I'm a little sick, but nothing like Noah.  Justin is the one who brought this into the house, but he was never sick like Noah is.  It has really been awful to watch, but I'm so thankful it's happened during Justin's Christmas vacation.  I don't know how I would have taken care of both kids by myself.  Plus, Justin has slept in Noah's room every night for the past week, which has really saved me from many sleepless nights.  He's such a good dad!

Incidentally, this illness (and Justin sleeping with Noah) has been the catalyst for Noah sleeping in a big boy bed.  We realized about a month ago that Noah would finally do really well in a big boy bed (as in, not leaving his room when he's not supposed to), but he was perfectly happy to stay in his crib, so we left things that way.  However, with Justin in there over the past week, the sleeping arrangement slowly evolved so that Noah is no longer sleeping in a crib, and he is doing great.  I'm thinking we'll leave it this way after he's well.  Actually, Justin is wanting to continue cosleeping with him after vacation is over, because they both enjoy it so much.  Noah keeps telling me to sleep in there with them too.  He can't seem to accept my explanation that I am a terrible sleeper who doesn't sleep well with people in the same room as me, much less two other people in the same BED as me.  As much as I would love to have my entire family sleeping in one giant bed (and since our master bedroom has two queen beds pushed up against each other, this would be totally feasible), I suck at sleeping too much for this to happen.

Okay, it's 9:00, which means it's past my bedtime.  Goodnight all, have a Happy New Year!

Isaiah is 3 Months Old

Hi people!  I haven't been blogging or even reading any blogs because my laptop busted and Noah has been sick with the darn plague for the past week, but I had to make some time to write a 3 month post before 2013 gets here!

Isaiah was 3 months old on December 22.  (Incidentally, I need to have my kids earlier in the month so that I have more time to get the appropriate post up in the actual month that it occurred.)  Here's the quick low down:

-Isaiah weighs 15.5 lbs (this was naked, on our digital scale, on his 3 month birthday).

-I believe he's around 25 inches but I'm not sure  I can't remember when I last measured him.  He's in 6 month clothing, some of which is too small because of his cloth diapers.  If we used disposables they would all fit fine (although a few things are getting too short).  He's tall, but not as tall as Noah was at this age.  However, he does weigh more than Noah did.


-He is on the medium rise setting on his diapers.  Even though we have hundreds of diapers, we exclusively use Flip covers with various inserts (stay dry, organic cotton, Thirsties inserts, flats, or prefolds) during the day, with a few bumGenius Freetimes thrown in.  This means I never have to stuff diapers, which I HATE HATE HATE doing.  I may as well get rid of all my pocket diapers.  At night he wears an sbish snapless fitted (with both doublers) with a Blueberry one size cover with aplix.  The rise on the cover is completely unsnapped to fit over the fitted.

-He still has those two bottom teeth playing peekaboo.

-He has no bottles ever, nor will he ever have one unless something horrible happens, like me ending up in the hospital on my deathbed unable to breastfeed.


-He is a super sleeper at night time!  His record is 11 hours and 15 minutes straight.  He's also done 10 hours and 45 minutes.  Those were his two longest stretches.  Generally I get a 6-9 hour stretch out of him at the beginning of the night, which is amazing.  He's only getting up to nurse once most nights, which is wonderful to me.  Noah was up nursing once a night until he was 18 months old, so I'm happy with this and I won't be looking to night wean Isaiah until he's a toddler, probably.  I do expect some regressions in this area, though.

-Right before he turned 3 months I started putting him down for some naps in his crib because he doesn't nap on me as well as he used to.  If he's sleeping on me and I have to talk, he wakes up.  However, he also only cat naps in his crib.  Or rather, he did only cat nap in his crib.  In the past few days I've gotten a couple of long naps out of him (over an hour).  The napping situation is very fluid.  Noah was a terrible napper and I vowed not to stress myself out over the napping thing.  I'm just happy that Isaiah finally nurses to sleep (he didn't do that until sometime in the past few weeks).

-Isaiah is still pretty decent at going to sleep on his own if I put him in his crib on his tummy.  Not every time, but I don't expect him to.

-He still does all his sleeping on his tummy.  I'm becoming slightly less nervous about this, but I do still carefully examine him over the video monitor to see him breathing several times a night (haha, no really).

-He is a super happy baby most of the time now.  He's very very smiley, starting to laugh, and is still very "talkative".  I just love when he talks, it's the cutest thing.

-He is quick to smile back at people when they're talking and smiling at him, but he definitely prefers him Mommy over everyone else.  Other people always want to hold him, but it never lasts long as he makes his preference for me very clear pretty quickly.

-He's not rolling yet, but he can push himself right up off his tummy when he's laying on his front.

-He likes to sit up and look around (propped up by us, although he has balanced in a sitting position for a good 5 seconds on several occasions).

-He loves to watch Noah, and that makes my heart melt.

-We still babywear a lot, which we both love.

-Evenings aren't nearly as fussy as they used to be, and I can eat dinner sitting down more often now, either with Isaiah in the bouncy chair or sitting on my lap (he prefers to be on my lap, obviously).

-He still has all his baths in the kitchen sink because it's easier for me, but he has totally outgrown it.  It's very squishy in there.

I'm trying to think of other things, but I'm feeling very rushed to get this posted before Isaiah wakes up.  So here are some cute pictures from the past few weeks!

He makes me so happy :)

Work to Rule

Since March I have posted several times about how the government is going all Hitler-ish and attempting to dictate teacher's contracts instead of allowing the lawful collective bargaining process to take place.  They even passed a bill (Bill 115) to make it legal for them to impose a contract on the teachers and for it to be illegal for the teachers to strike.  And the Minister of Education is denying all reasonable contracts that have been negotiated with individual boards unless it is EXACTLY WHAT SHE WANTS.  If it's keeping within the budget she really should just allow it, but she only wants contracts that are completely identical to what the government has created.  Yeah, things are pretty tense.

The bright side of this is that as of December 10, the high school teachers are on a work to rule, which means NO COACHING!!!!  Wahoo!!!  Justin started his basketball season, but it only lasted about a month and only four games were played.  Now that's all done.

You know what that means?  I am happy.  My marriage has no tension.  My husband is home every night after work.  I am sane.

This is supposed to last until teachers are again free to collectively bargain without the restrictions of Bill 115.  So I'm all "Keep Bill 115 alive so my husband never coaches again!"  That sounds bad, I know.  But that's really how I feel.

The Conservative party leader is saying he's going to legislate the teachers back to extra-curricular activities... yeah good luck with that, buddy.  A) The Liberals are in power right now, not the Conservatives, and B) how do you think you're going to force teachers to do extra curricular activities?    They're voluntary, and probably only half of a high school staff, or less, does them.  You can't force half of the staff to do them and not the other half.  But you can't make the other half volunteer to coach or do drama club or band if they have absolutely no experience in these areas.  Obviously this guy has no clue what he's talking about.


Anyway, the point is, my life rocks when Justin comes home after work everyday.  I'm a nicer mother and a nicer wife.  And he gets a homemade dinner everyday.  And the kids get to bed on time, which means I get to bed on time.


And last night Isaiah slept 8 hours straight, so he obviously approves.

Isaiah at 11 Weeks Old

Isaiah turned 11 weeks on Saturday, and I wanted to update what things are like in our house.

Life is good.  Isaiah is such a fun part of this family.  He is such a happy, smiley, talkative little guy now.  He is so much more smiley and talkative than Noah was when he was a baby.  And not just for 10 minutes after he wakes up, like it used to be.  He is so vocal.  He coos and gurgles and shrieks happily all the time... it is so fun.  Noah cooed a little bit, but nothing like Isaiah.  It is incredibly endearing.  And his smiles... he smiles so big.  He just seems to love life now.

(This smile was completely spontaneous.  I didn't have to pry it out of him for the camera or anything.)

He is still worn for all of his naps and while I'm doing anything around the house, which we both enjoy.  For some weird reason on the weekends when Justin is home he doesn't nap as well as he does during the week.  This weekend he only slept 8-10 minutes at a time for the majority of his naps.  It doesn't really bother me, though, because it's not like I'm trying really hard to get him to go down in his crib and then he's waking up the second I put him down.  I'm just going about my daily life with him wrapped to my body.  When he sleeps, he sleeps.

(This is a Girasol woven wrap. I've been expanding my babywearing options.  I now have a stash of 12 baby carriers/wraps/slings... 13 if you count the Snugli, which I don't because I've only ever worn it once when Noah was 3 months old and I knew nothing about proper babywearing, and I would rather burn it than have anybody wear it ever again.)

(Waking up from a long nap, during which the rest of us decorated the Christmas tree)

About a week ago he gave me his first 6 hour stretch of sleep, and then this weekend he did his first 7 hour stretch!  7 hours and 20 minutes, actually.  The next night it was 6 hours 45 minutes, and the night after that it was 7 hours 10 minutes.  Those 3 nights I only had to get up with him once, which was awesome.  Night times are very good for him.  After a bath and nursing, he usually goes into his crib awake and falls asleep on his own.  He is starting to fall asleep a little easier while nursing, though, which is fine with me, too.  Just in the last week we've had a couple of mild "struggles" while he's going to sleep where I've had to go back in his room and cuddle and nurse him again.  Again, I don't mind that.  I am trying to keep him used to falling asleep on his own, though, because of the sleep issues we had with Noah.  However, I will not let him cry, so I do go back in there if that's where things start heading.

(This is what Isaiah was doing when I went in to get him one morning last week.  He looks pretty proud of himself, doesn't he?)

He still grunts in his sleep at night (I know this when I'm awake in the mornings before he is), but it doesn't affect my sleep.  I've stopped giving him any reflux meds ever since I started wearing him all day, since he is now upright all the time.

He is very strong with great head control.  At about 10 weeks he started pushing himself up on his elbows with his chest all the way up off the ground.  He loves to hang out like that.  He actually prefers it to being on his back.

I'm back to making our normal dinners every night (while babywearing) instead of living on chicken fingers and fries or frozen meals.  I do still eat a lot of our dinners standing up and bouncing around the kitchen while Justin and Noah sit at the table, but it's become my new normal so it doesn't bug me anymore.  If our timing is really good then I can actually sit down, but it's hard to predict so I usually eat standing.

In short, life is good.  I don't have any standing complaints anymore.  He's sleeping and eating well, he's happy most of the time now, and really seems to be adjusting to life outside the womb.

We really like him. :)

(I didn't pose them for this picture, by the way.)

Edited to add: Oh crap.  I forgot about this complaint - Isaiah still DESPISES the car.  Like, he gets hysterical on just a 2 minute trip.  So I am housebound.  I don't mind being at home all the time, but I really really wish Isaiah was okay with the car, considering we live 25 minutes from our parents, most stores, and church.  

Things Noah Says

(A little under 2 3/4 years old)


Me: Noah, what do you want for Christmas??
Noah: Maybe a tree and some decorations! And I want a candy J!

(I love that he called a candy cane a candy J when we have never called it that... I don't even think we've ever had one in our house before!)

Mommy: Guess who's coming over, Noah!
Noah: I don't know!
Mommy: Guess.
Noah: Guess?
Mommy: Yes, guess!
Noah: Who's 'Guess', Mommy?


Mommy: I love you to pieces!
Noah: I love you ONE piece!


I looked at Noah and discovered that he had bitten off pieces of grapes and shoved them in his ears. I asked why and he said, "I didn't want to hear the TV."


"Hang on, I'm gonna blow you up just a little bit more. It will just take a second." - Noah blows on Isaiah's foot like he is a balloon.