Sleep, Baby, Sleep

I'm trying to get Marcus sleeping through the night. I skimmed through The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley that I read when Ethan was this age, to get some ideas to help. I'm trying to get Marcus's nap schedule back on track to help him sleep through the night. It's really hard to drop what I'm doing to get him down for his naps, but sacrificing those ten to fifteen minutes is worth it, because having him taking naps again is great.

I've been concentrating less on dishes and cleaning the past few days, and I'm not doing any projects this week (even though the nursery is screaming Paint me!) so I can just focus on getting Marcus to sleep better.

If you'll allow me to stand on a soap box for a minute, I'll go ahead and tell you that I don't believe in crying-it-out. I don't believe that it's good for the baby, or for the parents. A lot of advocates of the cry-it-out method say that a baby needs to learn to go to sleep by themselves, so they'll go back to sleep when they wake up at night. But I believe that it is the parents' job to teach the baby to go to sleep by themselves, which is what I feel the book The No-Cry Sleep Solution helps you do. With all three kids sleeping in one room, Alyssa has watched me rock Marcus and lay him down, then rock him again and lay him down, over and over again while trying to get him to sleep, and one night she said that she was mad at Marcus because he wasn't letting me go to bed. I told her that I wasn't mad at Marcus, because babies need to be loved to sleep so they can know that they'll be taken care of and they can feel safe. I told her that we just needed to be patient with Marcus and teach him how to go to sleep. I admit, I haven't been patient all the time. There has been a few times when I've been tired while getting the kids to bed (Remember? I'm a morning person.) and I'll rock Marcus and say, "Just - please - go - to - SLEEP!" while gritting my teeth. (And there have been a few times when I've had to put him down to cry for a few minutes so I could regroup to try again.) It hasn't been easy all of the time, but he has definitely made progress. He's gone from sleeping most of the night in my bed, to actually preferring to sleep in his crib. He's still waking up as frequently as when we started, but he's going back to sleep easier and quicker, and he is sleeping better.

Stepping down from the soap box: Even though I don't like to let my babies cry, I realize that every baby and every parent is different, and if you agree with the cry-it-out approach, that is totally fine, and I'm not sitting here thinking that you're a bad parent for that. I've heard of babies that actually do sleep through the night after crying a few times, and I know that rocking your baby to sleep doesn't work for every parent, or even every baby. All I'm saying, is this is the way I've chosen to do it. That's all.

So here's to sleep, and how wonderful it feels when we get enough of it.

Alyssa's First Day of First Grade (August 27, 2008)

Marcus Whitman Elementary School
Mrs. Gintner / Mrs. Goforth

Jacks Family Reunion in (a lot of) Pictures

Emma's Baptism

My niece, Emma, was baptized on Saturday. Christina made her baptism dress in a Jane Austin type style, and I did her hair. She looked beautiful! She said she looked just like Emma (from the movie) then someone reminded her that she is Emma.
It was a great baptism. She was so cute, sitting beside her dad. The music was perfect. It was a wonderful day.

I Love Having a Husband Around!

It's so nice to be able to say, "Can you hold Marcus while I fill in the blank?" It's wonderful to have an extra set of hands to help get the boys dressed both in the morning and at bed time. But mostly it's just insanely wonderful to have Brian home at all! The past two times he's been home we've had two weeks in between his visits, so we were definitely missing him a ton before he came home on Friday. The weekends that he comes home just fly by, though. We basically get a day and a half before he has to go back to Tacoma.

On Friday, we cleaned the house and tried to start and finish laundry so we wouldn't have to do any chores while he's here. The kids helped clean, then when it got to be abut 7:30, we kept looking out the window for his car to pull up. I was actually vacuuming the stairs when Alyssa yelled, "Daddy's here! Daddy's here!" Then Alyssa and Ethan ran out to greet him, and I had to wait in line for my turn to hug him. As much as the kids love Brian, though, I think they're just as excited about the candy he has left over from his trip than they are to see him. I love that Marcus has been able to see Brian often enough that he doesn't forget him. He went right to Brian on Friday, and he loves to cuddle and play with him.

So today we're staying home from church, mostly because of the colds the kids and I have been fighting the past few days, but partly because it's nice to just slow down and enjoy the time we have with Brian here. I'm so excited, because he'll be able to come home for the next three weekends, and the third weekend he gets a 4-day holiday! Yea!

Edited to Add: He brought home peanut butter M&M's, and he played Wii with the kids so I could take a nap. Oh, how I love him!

We Have Internet!

Oh, I've missed the blogging world.

The kids and I moved into one side of a Hanford "A" house in Richland, and we've been busy painting and moving in. Brian moved in with a bishop in Tacoma, found out that he lives four miles from one of his roommates from college, and is having a great time at the Madigan VA hospital. He comes to visit us at least every other weekend. We're excited, though, because he'll be coming home for the next three weekends, and one of them is a four-day weekend!

Alyssa started first grade, and has a new best friend named Kaitlynn. They're in the same Primary class at church, and they're lucky enough to sit next to each other at school.

Ethan's talking more, although we don't understand a lot of what he's saying. He's discovered the power of the word "No," and he uses it all the time.

Marcus is walking, clapping, waving, saying "Mama," "Dadda," and I think "yeah" sometimes. Everyone falls in love with him whenever we leave the house. His hair is getting longer, and it should probably be cut soon, but I love the little curls at the bottom and I think they won't come back if I cut it. We'll wait a little longer.