Change of heart

I was going to make this post about my slack ass attempts at 'sleep training' and perhaps it will come in time. However, I read this article and it felt like a slightly shallow discussion.

I guess, with this motherhood thing, I have lessened and deepened my .......depth. I rarely find the time or energy to analyze, to dig deeper, to find understanding. And yet, I spend minutes, hours, days contemplating my children. What are they going to be like when they get older, what kind of tragedies or victories will hey have to face or overcome.

I want them to have a regular nuclear family so bad, so intensely, that I know I am exchanging my ideal or expectation or intent in order for them to have what I so desperate needed in my childood, teenagehood, adulthood, motherhood.

This article reminded me that there was a time that there was a father in my life that I needed, and that need was met. Once. When I was so very young that I didn't recognize that need as a need so much as a definite, as an inevitability, a constant, as something or someone that will always be there for me. That young. That innocent. The naive.

It also reminded me to remind myself on a more regular basis to keep my drama to myself. Well not specifically to myself, but away from the kids. Not that I am basking in a huge sense of drama..............ever really, life is pretty mundane, but in my head it reigns. And sometimes, it is so demanding that you can feel it out there in the open air, or you can hear it in my tone of voice or in my snide remarks. Not cool. They are so young and so beautiful and so not in need of me as me so much as me as mama.

That is not to say that I won't cry in front of them, or get angry or any other emotion that may pass me, but that I feel that I should put halt to my 'bitching and complaining' about .........whatever. Smarten up, flip that frown upside down, and for god sake, get some more positive spin to your life. Life is amazing. Life is short. Life passes you by so quickly. Love it and show them how to do the same.

Yeah, that article brought out a lot more than I expected to see. Read it. You may mist up too.

Momnesia

Where does your brain go when you first get pregnant? There you are holding your own in adult conversations, thoughts and memories flying out of your mouth like a beautiful mist of smartness and then KAPLOW gone. Never to be seen or found again.

My adult conversations consist of a partial sentence filled with banging your head off the table inability to find the words I am looking for, broken up by one child or another, followed by several minutes of staring off into space. After a slight head shake I will look toward the adult I was attempting to make conversation with and say something along the lines of, 'what was I saying?' and if I am lucky and conversing with a fellow mom of young child(ren) the response will be 'i totally forget, but I am sure it was very important and interesting' (that is, if they are nice mama's!).

There is also the super smart move of walking with purpose and determination into a room only to stand there digging deeper and deeper into your muddled and, on most occasions, totally blank mind trying to remember why you are there in the first place.

They don't call this mama brain for nothing.

It has reached a point, at times, when I have actually been seriously concerned for my mind and where it may have gone, a very uncommon case of early onset Alzheimers ? It has crossed my mind. Seriously.

Is it true that it lasts for four years per child? Is it a myth? They once said that PMS was a myth....... SCREW THEM. Oh hormone imbalance, please even yourself out so I can have my measely little brain back!! A bit more emotional stability would also come in handy...........................okay okay hormones, we will start with brain function first!

A fine line between compromise and bribery

Colin and have a difficult time agreeing on music. He likes the heavy music that reminds me of what I used to enjoy in my teenage years. It isn't that I don't like NIN or STP or Pearl Jam anymore, I do, but not for dinner music..........or on anything resembling a regular basis.

I am at a stage where I like to have my ears peeled for something new. Not new new, but new to me new. Because I find this hard to discover on the radio, I generally listen to CBC in the car. Colin listens to............whatever stations play the above bands. We battle. So to keep the peace at home, we just listen to the TV music stations, me on alternative, folk, blues, jazz , remembering the '70's, '80's and sometimes '90's and the Jukebox oldies. Colin on Rock and when he is feeling super generous, the Jukebox oldies.

So there we are enjoying (ish) our selected TV radio tunes, dancing around the room singing at the top of our lungs and having an absolute blast (yup, that would be just me, by myself, while Colin gives me the 'are you losing your mind' look). But Rohan dislikes the music being on the TV. Anytime he realizes it is on (on a good day we can distract him for a half hour or so before he catches on) he runs up to the TV and turns it off exclaiming 'No want MUSIC'. Can be frustrating when we just love the tunes that are rocking out!

Rohan has, however, recently made a discovery of the earphones. You stick one end in your ears and the other in the computer (preferably the correct way) and voila, you can listen to computer stuff. Rohan prefers what he calls 'his music'. I usually put some alphabet or number songs on, might as well make it educational while he is zoning out on the computer. He is so very careful of the way he sits with said earphones too, it's great, not moving a muscle, careful to not move his head and disturb the earphones in his ears!

Well yesterday, Rohan was pretty anxious to listen to 'his music' on the computer with earphones. I was humming and hawing (secretly all for the idea so I could get dinner made) and he made a musical compromise with me. 'Me listen me's music, then you listen youse music' he states with pure glee in his eyes. If I let him listen to his music then he will let us listen to our music without turning off the TV. Hilarious!

I did not realize that he was old enough to recognize the concept of compromise, though we do it to him all the time...............usually with the potty, 'you go pee pee on the potty and THEN you can do such and such'.

Now, is he learning the art of compromise, or is it bribery that he has now discovered? Oh lord it is a fine line between compromise and bribery, a fine line indeed!

craftolicious

Rohan and I had a mama and son day out to go to a pottery class. I think he had fun, though he was more interested in his little friend Emerald than the pottery itself. I may have had to do most of the pottery work, but it was nice for us to have a little time sans infant!

The top picture is the finished product, going backwards from then..............I cannot figure this whole posting pictures on blogs thing yet!!

Split Personalities

At least once a day I think about how amazing it would be to be able to split myself in two and parent each child with their accepted half.

When I have my focus of attention on one of the boys I always have this guilty tingling in the back of my mind that I am neglecting the other.

When I focus my attention on Avery, goo goo gaa gaaing it up, making him blow bubbles out of his mouth and smile and giggle (which he is doing now......so advanced my children are!) I feel super guilty. I look up from my blissful baby moment to see Rohan sitting in the opposite couch watching his toon's, or doing puzzles or playing with his diggers. By himself. So far away from me. He doesn't look sad or neglected, but I can see it. It is like a halo of light surrounding his being of depreciation. I may be the only one that sees it! But it was us for so long, just him and me 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and now I send Colin over to do all the things that I used to do. I miss us.

And as I make extra efforts to have some quality time with Rohan, I think about the exact thing as I do with Avery. I think of the fact that it was just Rohan and I and how Avery will never get that kind of attention from me.....EVER. All the things I used to do with Rohan, won't happen for Avery without the accompaniment of his big brother. We will only get a very small sacred amount of one on one time.

I now understand why people wait until one is in school before they have the second. You get relief, and you get to truly know your second in a way that just cannot happen when you have a toddler at home. In the same way, I can also see why people keep the first in daycare through the year of maternity leave. Not that I am not living the easy life with Colin around, it is amazing to have an extra pair of hands............but. You know. Not the same. Still no focus. It is a bit more scattered and a lot of you do this and I'll do this. Kind of confusing for the Ro-Dog. And for me really!

It is worth this in the end though. This still feels like the perfect age difference for siblings. They have a better chance of becoming friends ( I hope!) but at this stage in their (my) life, it is tough.........for all of us. Real tough.

The family bed

We have an unintentional 'family bed'. The night starts off innocently enough. We usually get Rohan down (in his bed, in his room) and sleeping by.......say 8ish pm. Avery comes next, or if he has had a very poor sleeping day (which seems to be the case more and more these days) he hits the hay (in his bassinet, in our room) before Rohan. Or some nights, the hubby and I, tag team and get them both down simultaneously, which is impressive work!

However it happens, they both start off in their respective beds.

The next to go down (and admittedly, this is not that much later than the kiddies..........whatever, I am up at RIDICULOUS hours in the morning, I need to make up for it somehow!) is moi. Than, sometime in the late night or early morning Colin finally makes it into bed (one serious downfall to having TV, Colin's new found late night addiction to watching it, not that it really matters, I am ALWAYS sleeping by the time he comes up, and he pretty much ALWAYS sleeps in.............I digress).

At sometime during the night, anywhere between 11pm and 1am Avery wakes up for the first time. Now I could be the mom that is so efficient that she wakes up, feeds the little guy and places him back in his little bassinet as I proceed to stretch out comfortably in the bed and drift ever so gently back into to dream land. That is, however, not my style. Supermom I am not. I pick the little icicle hand man up and out of his sleeping vessel, lay him down beside me, and sleep feed him (me and him sleep while he suckles on the teat). And then wakes up and suckles again on the teat. And again.......etc. while grunting, tossing and turning, and taking up half the bed (how is it possible? his is TINY!)

If I don't give up the fight at some ungodly hour of the morning (such as this morning at 4am) after hour(s) of attempting to put said baby back to sleep, and head downstairs to waste my morning playing on the computer (see unhealthy addiction), we get another addition to our little nest egg.

Rohan usually climbs into bed sometime after 5am, unless he wakes himself up before that with a dream or wet pants. So now, at about 5 ish in the morning this is our sleeping arrangement. Avery is on the side facing the door that is not up against the wall, than me (that is over half the bed taken up there as I like to give the A-Rock extra space in case he decides to learn how to roll over in the middle of the night). Squished between myself and hubby is our little space hog toddler who spends quality time, ever so gently, rubbing on small spot on Colin's arm, over and over again, that same spot, all morning, till Colin freaks out! haha Funny! And then there is hubby, pushed up against the wall, ever so slowly slipping into the crack between the wall and the bed.

And this is our family bed. I actually love it (and not just because, if we are all in there, it means that I have managed to sleep past 4 in the morning). It feels so............family, so cozy and loving and warm. And Rohan is THE BEST when he first wakes up. He couldn't possibly be cuter!

I don't think this family bed would be as successful (in my eyes, Colin hates it) if we didn't have a gigantic (free) king sized mattress (on the floor, frames are for adults). I feel warm and fuzzy just thinking about it!

I want to go back to it, now, and sleep.................oh sleep, I miss you!

So Hand some!

Since The wee man finally snapped out of his daze of infancy and started to focus his attentions, they have always been on us. We, his loving family, have been the only steady available visuals for him for the last little while, everything else sort of blurs past his vision.

This has been great for all involved as you feel as if you have some connected time, and he focuses all his smiles and giggles toward you, his adoring mother (brother, father, etc). Than in came little toys to wiggle in front of his face, which he LOVES. Cackling like a little crazy person at the plastic (evil, evil plastic toys.....) keys jingling in front of his sparkling knowledgeable eyes. But now he has eyes for only one thing.....

His motor skills are in rapid incline, he is gaining more and more control of his arms and legs, but more importantly (for him anyway) his arms. He has become blind to toys and the admiring smiles of his loved ones, he is now one hundred percent focused on the magnificence of his hands. He will sit for minutes at a time (hours in big people time) just staring at them with awe as the fingers slowly tap the palm of his hand or he ever so gently gives the air a high five.

This is his amazement. His hand. His fingers moving, or not, but his hand is what keeps that spark of interest alight in his eyes. His hand. It takes a whole room filled with clowns and jugglers and tight rope walkers with a dose of crazy snowboarding/skateboarding/biking/skating tricks to even keep my attention for a while. And a short while at that. Something spectacular has to happen for me to get that look of amazement. Not the wee man, all he needs is his hand. I would like that back please. Innocence, it is beautiful!