To sleep or not to sleep............

Dear Rohan,

I have decided to start my blogging journal to you on this of cold and stormy days. I have just put you down for a nap after spending 2 hours debating the necessity of sleep with you. You firmly believed that now is the perfect time to play and talk and read unlimited amounts of stories. I however, as mama's often do, disagreed. I believed now was the perfect time for you to nap! Although it was a tight argument, mama won you over, again, about nap time.

This brings me to our frowned upon method of getting you down to sleep, may it be nap time or night time. The beginning process is a common one practiced by many families in the western world, dinner (lunch), bath (or not), stories..............and this is where it gets tricky. I have started making the habit of discussing our adventures and accomplishments of the day. I think that you actually really enjoy this, and I do as well. You then say your good nights to daddy (at night), he leaves, good night to mama and I stay. It has come to the point where you refuse to go to sleep with out mama's shadow on your wall.

Initially I felt a bit resentful that I had to spend so much time laying around in your bed waiting for you to fall asleep. It could, at times, take over an hour (or on this fateful day, two). That is a lot of time. But now that I have come to master the art of laying with you until you fall asleep, I have also come to cherish this time we have together. I love reading stories with you may it be night time or day time. It is amazing to watch your comprehension of the stories become more and more clear. It has also become a pleasure to run through our day together, even if it is a day you spent with your daddy and I had to make up what you did!

My favourite, which is pretty unconventional as far as appreciation goes, is the laying with you until you fall asleep, though I appreciate it more at night than in the day time. This time is spent laying side by side, you with your hands lovingly wedged into my ever expanding mane, and me watching as your eyes get heavier and heavier with the weight of sleepiness. There is something magical about watching as your child drifts off to dreamland. This also gives me time to relax and wind down at the end of the day, to review and contemplate what needs to be reviewed and contemplated, or not. A time to just lay there and be in the moment.

So no matter how many occasions this sleep thing becomes a battle, I will always hold this time we share close to my heart, and drifting through my dreams.

Sweet dreams beautiful boy, Mama loves you, I will see you when you wake up from your nap!

Love Mama

A change of scenary

I have decided that I am going to change the theme of my blog and make it into a journal form, for Rohan, and start up another for the new baby bird. My intention was to offer my children a little insight into their infancy, toddlerhood and beyond (depending on how long I can keep it up). This may make it a little less interesting for the readers (my whole four followers........I love you guys) but it will serve a more meaningful purpose for myself the the wee ones. If I am going to waste time gossiping on the computer and ignoring my children, I might as well make if for them right??!!

So my next entry will be officially the start of a new beginning!

My brother saves the day this time................stupid van

Update? On the way home from my actual appointment in Hull, the tire shredded, on the highway. I kind of felt like this might happen. Crossed fingers to make it home. Nope. Paul (brother of mine) picked us up, we went to the junk yard, bought a new (to me) tire. Paul put it back on. Living life on the edge everytime I hop into that vehicle!

My neighbour Colin saved the day

So, our van has been causing us troubles................nothing new really when you own a vehicle, trouble is their middles names, those vehicles. It started off as a new discovery. Our back passenger tire started to have a small leek, it went from filling up the tire every other day or so, to barely making it to the gas station every day to get some air in. On further examination of said tire, I found a previously owned patch job. We didn't do it. So this patch job lasted quite the amount of Kms before it reared its ugly head. Good for us.

To resolve this issue, I purchased a brand new digital compressor to use for our daily filling of tire needs. Nope did not get the tire repatched........why would I do that? So life was dandy, living some happy times with our new sparkly compressor, when one day, early in the morn, I noticed the front drivers side tire was flat. crap. On further inspection, Colin found the evil nail sticking out. We filled er up with air (thank you compressor, you were purchased in the nick of time) and I drove very slowly, very carefully while slightly crapping my pants, to the mechanics.

So I says to the guy. While you is fixin' this one, might as well fix the other. Nice, no more filling up the tire (no offense compressor my friend, you are just not needed anymore!). So I merrily drive to Hull today for an appointment at the SAAQ to get a vehicle registered, health card renewed and to change my license over.........................wrong day smarty pants, come back tomorrow. Bah. Oh well, I take my little man out for a tall glass of OJ at Molo's, our fav cafe in town, then head back home. The RoDog was looking mighty sleepy, so I decided to drive up and down the road a couple of times to knock him out (this is what I call the cop out method of putting your 2 year old down for a nap, it is easier this way) just as I was making my second round, psssssssssssttttttttt, effin' patch job melts off the tire.

So there I am, on the side of our dusty road in scorching heat tying to press the patch back into the tire as it rapidly sizzles down. FFFFFFFFF. I curse in front of Rohan, on (more than I would like to admit) occasion, and this was one of these times. I get Rohan out, collect our diaper bag, and with a bit of wishful thinking, encourage Rohan to walk up the hill with me. Nope. He has to be carried. EFF. Oh god, I am so pregnant/tired/out of shape. Tears are streaming down my face as I start trudging up our bloody hill. Everyday I love this road of ours a little bit less.

And that is when Colin drives by. I manage to make it only a few feet before the silver air-conditioned lifesaver of a car stops beside me. Colin is our neighbour. strange? yup, a bit! So he flops open the passenger door and offers me a lift. Busted being a girl. Crying. Damn. I blame the pregnancy as I hop in. So he takes me home and promises to come back and help with the van. I then try in vain to get Rohan down for a nap. Nope. He just keeps on peeing in refusal. Through his diaper. I take it off and put shorts on. Through his shorts onto our bed. I put underpants on. Out the fancy front hole of his underpants and onto his bed. Wow, welcome to frustration central, I will be your host.................No nap, I get it.

Colin comes back. We go to the van. There is no temporary fix on the patch, it pretty much melted off and left a gaping hole. Colin lifts up the van with his bare hands (or jack, however you want to imagine it) removes the tire and tosses it into the back of his truck for a joy ride to the mechanics. Thanks for the patch job mister, could I please have another? He did a much much better job this time (having a fellow guy there sure can make a difference) and did this one free of charge (you better believe it!). We drove back to the van. Colin tossed the tire back on like a hero, and voila, fixed (for now).

Colin basically saved me from spending the rest of my day crying inside the house while cleaning up Rohan's 'I refuse to nap' accidents. It is great to have great neighbours. A really crappy day turned out to be pretty good. I even managed to get Rohan down for a nap. Hmmm. Happy Tuesday!

Dog..............Ball

Rohan doesn't watch TV. For many reasons this is the case. I don't think it is healthy for very young (or old for that matter) children to use their spare time watching mindless/numbing TV. There is very little benefit to it other than using it as a means to entertain your child while you do other things, or nothing. Also, it is expensive, which has been enough of a case for me to keep convincing Colin of the perils of TV (the price, not the mindlessness of course). So, for now, we don't have cable.

We have, however, let Rohan watch a Disney movie or two on a rainy boring day. He has a pretty low tolerance for them, usually only lasting a maximum of 1 hour (which is much more than I expected, him being two with boundless energy) until he gets impatient and starts doing something else. It is a nice rest for us (admittedly) and I can definitely put my hypocrisy's aside long enough to understand the reasoning behind parents using the TV as a temporary babysitter. It is pretty easy to turn on the tube, plop them in front and go about doing what it was you needed to do with out a child wrapped around your ankle. For Rohan, this is still a rare and special treat for him and I would like to keep it that way as long as possible.

There is one thing, though, that I have started to sneak in whenever I decide to hop on the computer for whatever reason, email, weather, check to see if anyone has made a comment on blog...(hint hint). To allow this to happen while Rohan is awake and in need of entertainment, I have started letting him watch funny dog and cat videos on Youtube. He loves them like crazy! Anytime he even looks at the computer he starts asking for cats or dogs or babies (whatever stage he happens to be at a the time). It has now progressed to watching this one (well three actually, it is part of a trilogy) video over and over again. He looks at me with longing in his eyes and repeats over and over again(they have a way of doing this) until I consider hearing him repeat it one more time to be a worse punishment than having to watch the video for the millionth time. This is the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoiFGva_JoY&feature=related It is pretty funny, but substantially less after the fifth time in a row. So this is now how I spend my mornings, watching dog................ball.

Yesterday, however, was the biggest movie day Rohan has ever experienced, and it was for the sole purpose to entertain him while I had my friend Henna my belly. This took an astonishing 4 hours to get done (with breaks in between of course). Four hours is a long time to keep your two year old entertained while you sit motionless and boring. So he watched The little mermaid. Not too bad, the scary parts are pretty easy to handle. And when that was done and we weren't, he watched The Chipmunks movie. I think he was getting just sleepy enough by this point that he actually didn't have energy to chase after Amanda's dog, or go searching for adventure. He was truly amazing, and I feel pretty guilty. I feel okay about movies when it is cold and rainy and miserable out, but when it is sunny and moderately temperatured, I feel pretty bad for keeping him indoors. But in the end, he doesn't hate me and now I have supremely rad Henna on my belly. A sacrifice I am sure!

Very Hairy Security

When I was but a wee toddler (and I mean wee in the true sense of the word, I was pretty tiny) what brought me security was my piddow. This piddow was a pillow case, the vessel was all I was interested in, the pillow itself be damned. As far as I have been told, where ever I went my piddow went with me. When I reached moments of great toddler stress/fear/sleepiness I would jam my thumb into my mouth, and while sucking contentfully until my thumb started to wrinkle, I would very gently massage the inside of my nose with a corner of piddow. Needless to say, this poor security piddow of mine had to eventually go to piddow heaven, it had probably pretty much rotted into a mere scrap of material, certainly not enough to stick into my nose comfortably.

I don't know what method my mother used to wean me off piddow, though I did receive a giant gorilla when I was a bit older. I named this gorilla four, though I am not sure whether that correlated with my actual age. I still have four, well actually Rohan now has four. He is pretty spooky looking actually, so my attachment to Four will most definitely not be passed down to Rohan anytime soon.

I myself firmly believe in the benefits of a child having something, may it be a blanket, or a stuffed animal, or even a thumb in which they are able to obtain a sense of comfort and security. I think It is important for them to have something with a strong sense of familiarity in which to hold onto when they need it, moments of hurt, fear, unfamiliarity, and something warm and fuzzy to curl up with in bed. It may mean that you have to purchase four of the exact same puppy (such was the case for Colin's brother) to make sure there is no moments of panic stricken searches just before bed.

Though We attempted to encourage Rohan to have what is sometimes referred to as a 'lovey' none of them really stuck. He prefers his mouse, but can easily go to bed without it and rarely uses his mouse as a sense of comfort. Rohan's prefered security blanket is my hair. In moments of distress, such as waking up in the morning, Rohan lodges both of his tiny little hands into my hair, kneading like a kitten. Once he has finished with his morning snuggle and we travel downstairs for breakfast (often he still has his hands in my mane at this time) I have the hairstyle of the coolest girl in school........... from the early '90's. A lions mane crossed my mind.

Most times he does just use my hair as his security blanket, kneading, teasing, gently tugging, curling it around his fingers or hands, often getting them stuck. Other times he uses this hair massage as a weapon when he is feeling extra menacing. He will get his little paws in there and pull without release. I have to jam his fingers open and pull my hair out of his hands, leaving him with a nice chunk of mama hair to play with on it's own.

This security measure is not one I am overly fond of. For obvious reasons, such as losing my hair to the cause, but for other reasons as well. For one, Rohan uses my hair to help guide him into dreamland. He may have his back to me and on the brink of drifting off, but there is always one hand slyly searching for a strand or two to twists around his fingers. Once that hair gets gently removed from his hand he jerks awake, searching, searching, until he finds a bit more hair, than he settles back down. How is that for a bad sleeping habit? For two, I don't actually like having all of this hair. I would like to cut it all off (though it is getting so nice and thick and shiny these days, one of the perks of pregnancy). I can't. It would be like throwing out piddow without warning. Cruel. Crap! I may need to search for gentle weaning methods!

Bubbles

I don't remember what paranoid, panick stricken images crossed my mind during my first pregnancy. Maybe I was too busy working to think about it too much. I think, for the most part, I felt superhuman, as if my unborn child and I were living in this bubble where nothing could touch us.

I vaguely remember the very real fear of SIDS when Rohan was born. In fact, a woman at my work, a new grandmother, lost her grandchild of two months from SIDS. That was too close to home. Also other things such as dropping him, forgetting him in car/house/store....mainly dropping Rohan or Rohan not surviving his infancy were the main concerns (see mama paranoia) of his early months......up to about nowish.

I have now morphed my random images of the negative sort into much more detailed visions. Of losing him in department stores, of turning away at the exact wrong moment and Rohan running into the road at the exact wrong moment (remember pet cemetery, don't watch it if you have a toddler, it will not leave your head). All sorts of massive injuries that I wont be able to handle, such as broken bones, split lips, puncture wounds, these pass through my mind everytime he runs really fast, falls, and I have to catch up to him with bated breath, worst case scenarios running through my head. One of the the worst ones that I have a daily dose of is the concept of a kidnapping. My stomach twists and turns, I can barely breath. I feel so much of what I imagine it would feel like to have a child taken. I feel a loss so great that I cannot imagine what it would feel like to go on. It makes me want to grab Rohan (and trust me, I do do this on occasion) and squeeze him and not let go. These are the times that I would like to construct a large bubble for him and I to live in forever, nobody from the outside able to penetrate its walls, penetrate our lives, hurt us.

Now, with this pregnancy, I have no bubble. I am as vulnerable as I ever was, if not more so, because now I worry about the one within and the one on the outside. The paranoia mama moments I have involve still birth. Random acts of, or the direct result of an injury. The injury? Falling. I cannot get the image of falling on top of my stomach to pass through quickly enough. Sometimes it is an action to save one that becomes the demise of the other, to save Rohan from something I had to let myself fall. Morbid right? I can't help it.

I have rule about all images and scenarios and daydreams (nightmares). I will not allow myself to linger on them, ever. I try my best not to linger on anything negative for too long for fear that the universe will catch it and consider it a wish and not a fear, as if thinking it will manifest it. Nothing lingers in my conscious mind but positive thought (well I try anyway, I have not yet totally perfected this). But even these passing moments feel as if they take a little bit out of me. It is exhausting work, being a mama!