Sleeping's not getting better. Not that we've changed anything. I take that back...we've been experimenting with tummy sleeping (gasp!) and unswaddled sleeping. The tummy sleeping is actually working better for his naps (not always):

It doesn't make too much of a difference with his night sleeps. Like I mentioned I also have had him unswaddled a time or two. The other morning he was up real early and was in our bed. Because he was unswaddled he was able to grab at Jason's face to wake him up too. Good times. Actually, it was. Even though it was early. This morning I had him unswaddled in his own bed and at about 4:30 I heard him wide awake, talking to himself a bunch, when I went in he was playing with his toes. Very cute. But I swaddled him and nursed him. It was still dark out. That means time to sleep. To me, anyway.

Easton's still the same with the pottying although he did stay dry all night last night. We've put him in underwear at night now too thinking that the switching from "okay to pee in your pants in Pull Ups" to "keep these ones dry" might have been confusing. The first night he wet the bed around midnight and woke up crying and wet. But I had double made the bed so all we did was put him on the potty and change his underpants while the other one of us stripped the bed to the clean dry sheets underneath. And last night--nothing.

When I was showering this morning he walked into the bathroom with a small turd in his hand. A turd and Cuddles. He threw it in the toilet and told me, "I pooped in me pants". Great. "Where's your underwear?" and I saw it on the bed. My bed. No other poos in it, though. Whew. This is fun, right? At least he likes handwashing. We're not sure what to do about getting him on track again.

He's in a strange mood today. Very clingy. And he threw a long tantrum over yogurt vs. milk vs. nap. Luckily once he stopped he did all 3 in that order.

At Gym he kept crying, "Want Mommy!" and I would just say, "I'm right here, buddy. I'm not leaving. Mommy's watching". Bizarre. Miss Brittany (who knows him a little and knows he's not normally like that) said to me, "Maybe there's a full moon?" I dunno. But he's being a weirdo.

So, yeah, we did the gym make-up today from missing yesterday. Since we were stuck at home yesterday we took some pictures:










"Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!"




Easton gingerly removing Dalton's hand.






And then The Maws sent another package. It was this big:




Each boy got a sporty outfit:



Easton doesn't even realize the clothes are a gift. It doesn't register with him to look at them. He always just pulls clothes out of the package like it's packing material. He's on the lookout for something else...in this case...a stuffed Diego:


Dalton got a barnyard book which Easton read to him:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I like his version of what a pig says, "Haink haink" or something. Goober.

Okay, well E only took a short nap and is hiding behind the couch saying, "No! No!" I have a feeling an accident is near. Ugh. But I feel like I can't/shouldn't "force" him to go to the bathroom. Anyway...I should go.

Free Cat

Agressive punk cat, prone to attacking one's feet unprovoked and now using carseats as a litter box looking for a new home.

Okay not really.

But I'm mad at him. It's true that he p*ssed in Dalton's carseat. So today as we were leaving for Gym I discover a wet seat with a nasty tell-tale odor. Punk. I took Dalton out, cancelled Gym for today, and tried to take the cover and straps off to wash. Can't get the straps off myself. We're stuck at home today, dang it! We needed groceries. But Jason feels sorry for me and said he's bringing something home instead. My hero. Plus I bet he'll get the straps off for me. What would I do without him?

Blitz also loves to attack my feet when I'm nursing Dalton for no known reason. He breaks skin. He's driving me crazy. Whether reowing to wake us all up in the morning or scratching and biting my son he's not my favorite creature in this house right now.

More bad things...our outside freezer had "issues" recently and some of my stored milk had to go as well as some frozen meals. That's a bummer.

And Easton still isn't initiating any pottying unless he's supposed to be at the table eating or in bed sleeping. Then he wants to go potty plenty. Either I tell him to go (leaving the house, pre-sleeps, etc.) or he do the small dribble in his underpants before running to the potty to finish.

That's how things are here. Hope everyone else is better. I'm tired of being in a bad mood.

Gramoo's Pool

We finally found a day that was hot enough with no cloud cover and such so that we could take Easton to my mom's neighborhood pool without him freezing and it all being a waste.

So yesterday it was...here we are waiting for Dalton to wake up so we can go:

We ended up waking D anyway but he didn't mind:


Little D relaxed pool side in the shade and even sipped some milk under a beach towel. My mom, Lauren, and I took turns with the boys which was nice.




My little fishy (wearing plenty of sunscreen this time, thank you very much) had fun in the kiddie pool for quite some time:












Gramoo bought him a Cars kickboard and she's so funny--because I'm known to be a little crazy about certain "used" items and such--she left the plastic wrap on till I saw that she'd bought it new. Hee hee! Thanks, Moo!

Before I sound too snobby, most of Easton's wardrobe is hand-me-downs. I have zero problems with that. The highchair we have once belonged to an old co-worker of J's, same with the carseat E uses (but it's from someone we know and isn't too old...hasn't been in an accident...that kind of thing). But, where germs and things are hard to wash then I might have an issue. But really, who wouldn't? Oh...it's just me? Hmmm.

Poor D had to stay on the side lines and spent some time with all our pool gear in the stroller:

I'm excited for the day we can take him swimming too...as much as he loves his baths and all.

Once I figure out why the recommendation is to wait till they're 6 months for sunscreen--chemicals? 6 actual months of earth exposure first? 6 month sized?--then maybe we'll reconsider keeping him out of the pool fun. Anyone know the real reason? I know some doctors have already given the okay for babies even younger than D (hi Katie and Lila!) but I also know that Baby John's doctor wouldn't allow sunscreen till 1 year. I'm not necessarily going to listen to just my doctor on this one. As long as I knew what the reasoning is and can make an informed decision on my own. On our own, I should say. But J often defers to crazy ol' me on such matters.

Well, after the kiddie pool fun I decided to venture into the regular pool with Easton and his water wings. They're cheap-o Wal-Mart variety so I didn't love how they worked, but it was fun all the same. Easton got a real kick out of being able to be in the water without touching the ground (or side) and without me holding onto him:


The closer up version:


Swimming instructors tend to frown on the water wings but I've seen a couple of vidoes of Kyla's and Amy's daughters doing really well with their water wings so I figured "Why the heck not?" And I'm glad. He had fun for a bit. Wanna see? Please excuse the "Wonder Years" effect the sun did with the camera:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Later we took them off and he asked me to dunk him again and again. He's a nut. We also practiced some of our old swimming lesson skills like blowing bubbles, back floats, and kicking and paddling. But then D got too cranky because he was overdue for a nap so we went home, dropping my mom off on the way. I'm looking forward to going again. Maybe with Daddy (and Dalton?) next time?!?!

Poor Me--A Rant, Plus Bonus Pictures

Sorry to just go missing like that. Yeah, Friday (the 13th!!!) wasn't the best day for me. Things were just really starting to get to me. Nothing that wasn't already going on (and still is) like being sleep deprived and such. But the straw (more like log) that broke the camel's back was Easton having a huge regression in his new pottying skills. For as well as he had done it was extremely frustrating and unexpected to have to deal with. And again, as I was already having a bad day I probably didn't handle things the way I should have and therefore probably screwed him up forever...

Anyway...Easton had an accident while he was watching TV early on in the day. I'm fine with "accidents". But later he started to do what I felt was on-purpose and then he'd refuse to sit on the potty only to go in his pants again and again. That's the part that was so hard and that I didn't handle well. Not one of my best moments in parenting, that's for sure. I shouldn't have let on that he was getting to me. But I did. So the dude was just looking for some attention and went for some of the negative variety. Ugh. No fun.

The he wouldn't nap that day either. Boo.

That afternoon we went to Ellis's house to play and I just stayed on top of him to go in the potty and he didn't have an accident or an on-purpose while we were there. Whew. He did get to jump on Ellis's giant trampoline and fell in between the springs as he got distracted. Ouch. One of the times you wish he'd had a diaper on for some protection. Poor kid.

And while at Ellis's it became clear that Easton was getting sick...

Well shoot...no wonder he was looking for extra attention all morning. And parents are fully advised to expect regression in the pottying department when kids are ill. What an ill-timed illness, eh? Big bummer. He's just got a minor cold (and now Dalton's got it too).

This is especially for Molly but I'm sure others are very curious too: my deleted comment was from Jason who said something witty and amusing about Easton's regression in potty skills and such being the reason for my bad day, mostly for the benefit of my "fans" who were left in the dark. However, I deleted it for a couple of reasons. First, I was trying to be mysterious with that blog post. I wasn't ready for a bunch of "Oh, this is normal...he'll come back around" or "He's still doing so well..." I was just wanting to pout about it for a bit. And then, I deleted it because while a huge part of things, the pee in the pants sooooo wasn't the only thing that made it a bad day without anything nice to say. There is more...which I'll get to... I just didn't want all I was feeling to be so trivialized into just the one potty reason which Jason made sound so funny. But, I somewhat regret deleting it because now J will probably never leave me a comment again.

The big picture is that I'm so unhappy with the way Dalton's sleep is going. I'm exhausted. He sleeps worse than he ever did as a newborn. What the heck? We took away the paci and he's as bad as ever. Now, you might say...well, 4 times a night is much better than 15. But, really, it's the same amount of waking...just less trips to his room. So, where before he might've woken and I'd pop in the paci, get back in bed, replace the paci 3 minutes later, and so on for, like, 4 times... Now I just go in there, get him back to sleep by my pat/shush combo or nursing. For at least the last 4 nights he is on an every 2 hour wake schedule and EVERY night it has been at 12:30, 2:30, 4:30 and 6:30. Then he woke for the day around 7:30. This is not cool. He's had his better nights in there but they're just to tease me with. His norm is still plenty of night-waking which I have absolutely no clue how to deal with or fix. Other than be frustrated. His naps still aren't better either. Even when given the opportunity to nap each nap swaddled in his darkened bedroom with white noise going he still can't go past 45 minutes without waking up. But it's not like his body is satisfied with 45 minutes. If it was I'd be fine with 45 minute naps. But nooooo he is cranky and moody and ready to sleep again very soon.

Which means it's hard to feed him on any regular kind of "schedule". It's already kinda hard to feed him if Easton is around because Easton is so interesting for D to watch. So he'd rather do that than eat. So...I try to leave E watching a DVD in my room or something while I nurse. But he kept messing his pants. So he needed attention. And, Easton is great at entertaining himself any other time. But he's understandably getting sick of me trying to get him to leave me and D alone when I nurse, when I put D down, and when I try to get D back to sleep after 45 minutes. Hell, I'm totally sick of it too. I feel bad for both kids when this is all going on.

Plus, Dalton has started "biting" during feedings. Okay, so he still has no teeth but dudes, I've never been a fan of nipple clamps. Teeth or no teeth it hurts. Yes it would be worse with teeth but still... So one option "they" give you is to stop the feeding if he's not interested (um, duh!). So I do. So I wonder if that's why he's waking so much at night because that's the only time he can fit in some actual eating? Arrrrgh!

And my knee is still hurting. Whether this is a co-sleeping injury or something else is yet to be determined. All I know is I've got some knee pain. How ridiculous. I don't even do anything and I have a knee injury. Pretty pathetic.

So sleeping hurts anyway. The little bit I get to sleep, anyway. It takes me forever to fall asleep at night. Partly from my long-winded prayers about it all. And in part because my knee friggin' hurts. And also because I know I'm going to be getting up in, like, 20 minutes with one of my kids--guess which one (usually). When I am actually asleep I can tell that I'm super-stressed (how is a stay-at-home mom so stressed? it's just sad! anyway...) because my dreams are all anxiety filled. Often they're about Easton having accidents.

My waking hours have my knickers in a twist too as evidenced by the fact that I couldn't pump any milk the other night. I gave it 3 separate tries and just could not relax enough for my milk to let down with the artificial suction. My sweet husband even gave me a quick back rub to help but nope!

There is more I'm sure but I have said more than enough. I do feel better. I'm in a better place. It was just Friday that was so hard. And it wasn't even all day. So, I'll stop with my venting and move on to happier things. Like some time when I was actually able to play with just my first-born (instead of begging him to be quiet while I was with Dalton). We enjoyed his new Play-doh accessory:








And E got a potty seat to go on the actual potty, which he promptly got stuck on his head:

Other moms to tots, you'll have to let me know if your potty seats fit snugly into the regular toilet or not. Ours has mega-wiggle room which we are not overly fond of.

Oh, and Easton now owns nurse shoes:

Wal-Mart had some fake Crocs in a camo print so I got him some. He likes them. And pronounces them without the "r" in the name. Lovely. He is also seen drinking his "Woody dooce" in that picture. He can't pronounce "juice" either.

Saturday was a very busy day. It was the day of the two birthday parties. First was Kaiden's. His party was at this really cool park with the standard playground stuff:








And the not-so-standard...


Plus they had those cool fountains:

Easton was a fan. Of course he'd freeze from time to time and need to "dry oss" but he'd get right back in. Even after some foolish party go-ers kicked a soccer ball in his path and tripped him where he fell and hurt himself. Big do do heads.

Some token shots of Dizzle:






This party even had a pinata. Check out E's swing:


Then watching Kaiden open his gifts. BOR-ING!

The Spiderman Tato Head appeared to be a hit. Well, he didn't seem to hate it. And then it ended up being a duplicate because his grandparents gave him one too. Oops!

And this kid is a Thomas fan, so they had super cool favors, this hat being one of them:


So, we finally left that shindig and Easton fell asleep in the car. We were headed home and were basically going to go straight to the next party. Wes's from My-Gym. J dropped me off at the garage so I could run in and wrap the gift so that the boys would stay asleep in the car while they drove laps around the block. Then I waited outside for them when I was done and I took over the driving and J grabbed Dalton and went in the house. This party was going to give us each some one-on-one time with a kid. Good stuff.

So E and I headed with our 2nd Tato Spidey of the day:


He had fun, it was just a longer, more fun, let's make the birthday kid(s) feel special version of his regular classes.




This cracked me up, he started couting down on his fingers (he doesn't know how to count on his fingers, by the way) but he was doing something like that:

Then when he'd get down to no fingers he'd jump in:


He had his second piece of cake for the day. I just loved how they were all lined up like this. E climbed in between these two strangers:

And, it's Easton, so of course he only had a few bites of cake. Mommy enjoyed the rest for him. At Kaiden's party too.

There were Dum-Dums in his party favor bag:

A little more sugar isn't gonna hurt anything.

Actually the healthy food we gave him for dinner: bread, O.J., yogurt, and cheese didn't agree with him because he yakked it all up. What a full day. Then he wouldn't go to sleep for an hour and a half after we put him to bed. And of course that means he wakes up early.

But Sunday was a fun day (for me). I got to have some "me time" and went to see the new Harry Potter with my mom and sister and then did a brief bit of shopping in the mall.

Jason had his hands full. Right after I left Jason put on Backyardigans for E and then went to put D down for a nap. But then he heard E start crying so he put D in bed (who thankfully fell asleep) and went to investigate. He found poor Easton hiding in the laundry room with some mega-poopy pants. Poor kid. He was hiding! In the laundry room! That's so sad! When they went upstairs to get him some new clothes he actually asked to take a nap. At, like, 9:00 a.m. Awwww.

On Sunday we met some friends for dinner. I've known Samantha since high school. Easton didn't bring his A-game so he was being a little whiney and strange. Oh well. He's sick, right? He did ask to go to the potty about 4 times during the meal which is quite encouraging as he's not been initiating much after Friday's fiascos.

Alrighty, well, that was so much more than you guys needed, I know. But it's about 3 days worth, right? Which is what I didn't post all the time I was M.I.A. So enjoy. And I'll try to be back to myself a little more tomorrow.