Parenting the second time around

So with the arrival of the Baby Man, I've discovered the secret to parenting.  And if I'm being honest, I have to actually credit my oldest (not because she's old - because technically I'm older - but rather because I've known her the longest) friend, Jill, with this discovery.

Jill, who writes eloquently over at More Than, is a Mom to one four year old and most recently a set of fraternal twins.  We were chatting about the those lovely twins a few months ago, even before the Baby Man's arrival when I asked her how things were going.

"Much better", was her quick reply, "especially now that they're sleeping through the night."

Had I not been trapped in the corner of the family room sectional I would have fallen off the couch.  Sleeping through the night?!  I did some quick calculations and blurted out, "but they've just turned four months old!  How can they be sleeping through the night?"

"Two words", she told me, "Benign neglect."

Thus far my only frame of parenting reference had come in the form of an amazing little boy with a whack of allergies and health issues that made for a painful infancy with little or no sleep on anyone's part.  For months I had been gearing myself up for more of the same.  I figured the chances of the next little guy having similar concerns were pretty good.

So coupled with the knowledge I gained through Jake's experiences and Jill's wisdom, I have to say that parenting this time around has been, well, a pleasure.

Don't get me wrong.  I love the Little Man and am so grateful for his presence in our lives, and both the things I learned from him and the ways I grew personally throughout his health challenges.  Yet, it's amazing how a severe lack of sleep can seriously impact every aspect of your life, and parenting Jake was not often a pleasure - at least not in the moment.

This time around, instead of stressing about doing what "they" say is right, I'm doing what is right for Noah, for me, for our family.  It's refreshingly freeing, being a Mom this time around.  I find myself able to really trust my instincts, to relax and enjoy the ride.  Of course life isn't perfect or even easy every moment of the day, but deep down . . . deep, deep, deep down, it's peaceful.

Benign neglect.

It doesn't mean I leave him to "cry it out".  It doesn't mean I don't promptly change his wet or dirty diapers.  It doesn't mean he eats on my schedule rather than his.  It doesn't mean he lays in his crib all day with nothing more to look at than a homemade mobile.  It doesn't mean we don't rock him to sleep, sing to him, talk to him, hold him, "wear" him or cuddle him.

It simply means, for me, that's it's okay for him to lay on the floor talking to his toys for awhile.  It means, for me, that he doesn't always get picked up immediately at the first sound of complaint.  It means, for me, that sometimes the Little Man does come before the Baby Man.

Benign neglect.  Experience.  Common sense.  Instinct.  Parenting the second time around.

The universe is out to get us

So this evening, while Mr. Tree was letting his car warm up (it hadn't been driven in over a week), he started gently scraping the ice off the windshield after about a half hour of letting it run.  Not long into the scraping the windshield broke into a spiderweb of cracks.  Ironically, he hadn't made a dent in the ice.

The "we can fix your windshield in about an hour and we make 24 hour house calls" company can't fix it until Friday.  Which means I'm without a car until then because after being home sick for over a week (hence the reason the car hadn't been driven lately), Mr. Tree really needs to be in the office tomorrow.  

Surprisingly, I took it all in stride.  I don't really have anywhere I want to go, my Mom and stepfather are nearby if we really needed something and between the two boys I'm finding the days pretty busy without trying to run errands before Jake leaves for school at noon.

Then, a few hours later, while trying to navigate my way between Noah's play mat and his bouncy chair, I got my foot caught in the bottom of my yoga pants and fell headfirst into the fireplace mantle.  I mean who does that?  And how klutzy do you have to be to get  your foot caught in the bottom of your yoga pants?  Sadly this actually happens to me embarrassingly often.  Though usually with less traumatic results.

Ummm, yeah.

Creeping me out

Clearly Gabby is feeling woefully neglected since Noah's arrival.  Typically both cats sleep most of the night, somewhere in our room or just outside the door.

Since the Baby Man's birth, Gabby has taken to sleeping between Mr. Tree and I on the bed, up by our heads.  Something she's never done in all her twelve-ish years.

Over the past week though, she's not actually sleeping between us anymore.  She just sits there.  All night.

Awake.  Sitting.  And staring.  At me.

Edited to add:  Today she puked up a hair ball, on my side of the bed, up near my pillows.  Definitely not a happy camper.

Bits of Random

Today I'm happy to bring you a whole bunch of random bits.

Random Bit #1

Based on how quickly my socks are wearing out these days, I'm guessing that I'm on my feet too much.  If only my waistline agreed.

Random Bit #2

Watching DC Cupcakes makes me crave cake.  I love watching cake shows but this is the only one that makes me want to eat it in abundance.  Then again, I'm out of my thyroid medication and I've noticed that when that happens, I want sugar.  Cake, in particular.  With icing from a can.  Because I'm classy that way.

Random Bit #3

Sunday was a huge fail in the whole "have more patience" resolution thing.  Coming on the heels of a couple of nights of almost no sleep, the day was doomed from the start.  What frustrated me most, was that every time I was about to lose it, I was very conscious that I was making a choice to lose my temper.  I felt like I could have walked away, figuratively speaking, but I didn't.  I just let it fly.  Epic, epic, epic fail.

Random Bit #4

I love great customer service - in fact, as many of you know, poor customer service is my biggest pet peeve.  And I'm great at holding a grudge when it comes to poor service - six years ago Bell Canada really messed up big (for the third time) and I'm still sore about it.  I've yet to give them a penny of my money since them, directly or indirectly.  But I digress . . . 

We were given a mamaRoo as a baby gift and I love it.  It's not something I likely would have purchased for myself, but the design and function are very cool and Noah is certainly sold on it.  Last week it started creaking a fair bit so I contacted the company that makes them - 4moms - and within hours their customer service department had replied and made arrangements to send us a replacement base at no cost to us.  It arrived today and works like a charm.

Random Bit #5

The Little Man is still not sleeping through the night more than once or twice a week.  He's five and a half and I don't know how much longer we can handle it.  Between Noah's night feedings and occasional bouts of sleep-preventing gas, we're already up way too often.  Though I feel like we've tried everything with Jake over the years, I'm open to suggestions!

We've slept in his room, slept outside his door, gone with the flow and allowed it to happen, prayed, threatened, removed privileges, co-slept, let him sleep on our floor, and so much more.

Most of the time when he gets up, it's really for not particular reason.  No nightmares, no tummy aches, he's not sick or just has to pee.  He's crying, but it's a fake cry, for the most part.  It's as though he wakes up to pee and then wake up just enough that he's got it in his head that he can't go back to sleep without intervention.  Cuddles, songs, back rubbing, etc.  Help!

Speaking of not sleeping, the Baby Man is starting to wake up for his next feeding so that's all the random you get for this evening.  Thanks, as always, for listening!

Oy vey

Hopefully it's not contagious. And there's a cure.

I've got a bad case of the "I have a new baby and I can sit still's".  Oh sure, hand me the sleeping baby in the wee hours of the morning (my sleepiest time of day) and I'll collapse on the couch with that sweet smelling head tucked under my chin for hours.  But at any other point of the day I find myself unable to sit still.

For example, normally on Thursday nights, you can find me curled up with a bowl of microwave popcorn and a Diet Crush (I know, I know . . . but at least it has Splenda instead of aspartame) to watch Grey's Anatomy.

Instead, as soon as I'm able to put Noah down, either awake and happily talking to his giraffe, or asleep for one of his many daily mini-naps, I'm up and off to do something.  Anything.

Check my email, put a load of clothes in the washer, do some dishes, vacuum, feed the cats, make the beds, pop onto Facebook to inquire about allowances for five-year olds, get the bottles ready for the next feed, fold laundry or re-arrange the pillows on the sofa.

Rarely do I find myself doing anything truly useful, like say, eating or bathing.

A few days ago I found myself in the Baby Man's room, rocking him and trying get him to sleep.  We're rarely in there for any length of time because he's still sleeping in our room.  But I love his room.  We spent some time fixing it up before he was born and I love the way it turned out.  It's peaceful.  And he happens to have the room with the huge window that comes nearly to the floor.  Because of that, you can see everything going on outside, even when you're sitting.

So there I was, rocking Noah while staring out the window.  And feeling anxious because all I was doing was sitting.  And I desperately wanted to be doing something, anything else.

Do you remember when your first little one was that small?  And the days seemed to crawl by with agonizing slowness?  And you just couldn't wait until the other grown-up walked through the door so you could. put. the. baby. down?

I do.  I remember those days well.  Especially because the Little Man had so many health issues that he really didn't sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time and even then not unless he was in someone's arms or in the car.  And then suddenly he was five and I finally understood what people meant when they said that the time goes by so quickly.

I also remembered thinking that because of the struggles we had throughout Jake's infancy, that I got jipped out of that period of time.

And in that moment, while I rocked this new Baby Man while watching the snow falling outside, I relaxed.  I felt the peace and rejoiced in the stillness.

Now I just need to remember that throughout the day to day.  Peace.  Be still.

Because it's hard to be thoughtful and funny with only one hand

Mr. Tree has a horrible chest-cold-infection-thing.  I'm living in fear because I'm long overdue for my semi-annual (if that means every other year then that's what I'm going for here) bronchitis/pneumonia thang.  I'm downing Cold FX, vitamin C and vitamin D like there's no tomorrow.

The Little Man is also getting sick, though your guess is as good as mine as to what he'll get this time.  He's really good at both ear and throat infections so my money's on one of those.

The Baby Man appears to be teething.  Yup, seven weeks old and he could fill our pool with his drool, his gums are white and hard as a rock, and he's desperate to chew on anything, all the time.  My boy, the overachiever.

Unfortunately for me (and for the tens of people in blogland who stop by from time to time hoping this will be the post that's actually witty and entertaining), Noah wants to be held.  No sling, carrier, bouncy chair, swing or mamaRoo will do.  It's real people arms or nothing.  Oh, and those arms?  Well they'd better be in motion, preferably while said person is standing, swaying and/or dancing AND jiggling him.

My back.  It's-a-killing me.

And now I must go because although I had the foresight to compose this post in my head prior to typing it out one-handed, Noah is protesting the fact that I've been motionless for 7 minutes and I must start dancing again.

Stayin' alive, stayin' alive . . .

Disclosure:  Although Cold FX has become my best friend since the Little Man started bringing home Lord only knows what from school last year, the endorsement above is entirely my own and I'm in no way being compensated for this post.  Same goes for the mamaRoo, and their stupendous customer service (ours was creaking a bit and when I emailed to ask about a fix, 4moms responded within hours, indicating they'd be shipping me a replacement part right away).  Though I wouldn't object to some sort of compensation . . . because, have you seen this new stroller?!?