I came across this OLD post that I wrote in 2013. I emphasize that it’s from 2013 because I do not want any of you to get all excited and start thinking I’m expecting a baby.

There’s no baby. I’m so sorry to disappoint you. Ha!

I’m sharing this because I want every pre-school mom I know to read it. 

Some of you are like me, and you are busy, busy, busy with those little ones, and you are disappointed that you are not out there saving the world. Or you know, at least serving on the PTA. Ha! Because that’s the same right?

But why run yourself ragged? Yes, be involved in the community. You need that to stay sane, but once it gets to the point that you feel worn and empty, start cutting things. You can pick them back up later.

This is what I wrote when my first three children were ages 2-7, and I felt like I wasn’t keeping up as well as other elementary school moms:

It seems I will really never catch up on my housework. I booked myself too full of appointments and such last week to get much done. Alan is fantastic about helping, only Alan is too busy now to do much either. He had work, cub scouts, and baseball coaching this week.

We both did our best, but the fact is that we currently have more work than capable working hours.

You know what I think? I think God is preparing us for having four children. Four children, and not one over the age of seven. We need to learn our lesson now to stop signing up for activities, especially leadership roles (that’s Alan more so than me). Most all of my activities are physical maintenance and child rearing (like constant doctor visits). I did sign up to help my friend Margret with Staff Appreciation Week, and I haven’t even been able to be an effective helper! I do feel quite badly about that.

One thing that has been great this year is that I’ve met several more moms in the my neighborhood that also have preschoolers at home.

Here I am beating myself up because I cannot do all the things that Joshua’s friends’ moms do with the PTA and volunteering at school, when that is simply not the phase of life I’m in yet! These moms are a few years older than me, with no preschoolers left at home. The fact is we have different roles right now. Daniel and the baby that is soon to arrive (we do seriously plan to name him eventually) are a full-time job.

I had the privilege of walking to my Yoga class (oh, yes, I did sign up for 1 yoga class/week) with my friend Monica yesterday. Monica has a daughter in Caleb’s class. Monica also has a three-year-old, and she said some things that really made sense to me. She said something like,

“I just figure for now, while I’m taking care of a little one, I’m just not much use to anyone for much else. Even when it’s not nap time, there’s only so much I can do. You never know what her needs are going to be, or what mood she’s going to be in.” ~ Monica B.
Oh, yes, never were truer words spoken!

I’m going to finish out the things I am currently committed to (well, as best as I can), and then I’m done.

Of course, the Yoga class and the Fitness in the Park class I actually consider to be for my health. There are lots of negative health effects to gaining 50 pounds with each pregnancy, believe me! I’m still not convinced I can change that either though, but ugh I’m so tired of even thinking about pregnancy weight!

I even turned in my resignation for my Sunday school class a few weeks ago. I’m going to do it until the baby comes, and then I’ll just be home for a long time. When I finally go back, I will be attending Alan’s class, since he’s actually going to be teaching an adult class, starting in June.

Gradually, I’ll add back in nursery duty. When you’re breastfeeding you spend a ridiculous amount of time back in the church nursery feeding your baby anyway!

I’m not cutting everything, but it’s time to give my family a little extra grace and time and space to grow in. Reasonable expectations are a rewarding thing to have.

Praise the Lord for our sweet little boys. Can’t wait to meet the new one!

Have you ever gone through a phase where you simplified? Did you see a huge difference? I  certainly did, and I’d love to hear about your experience too.

The post Navigating Preschool Life: A Mom’s Expectation Makeover appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Oh, yes! Please welcome little Matthias!! (But no, he’s not mine. I just got to hold him for a while. I’m done, people. Remember?)

No…I didn’t have another baby. I did better than that. We brought this baby home with us, but we haven’t taken leave of our senses. We brought his mama home with us too.

Emma and Matthias

hehehe Aren’t they precious?

We even took Emma to my favorite place in the world, Point Lobos, a couple of days before she had the baby.

It was just a few weeks, a few of the fastest weeks ever. See, Emma’s husband is a friend of ours, from church, and he is in the military. Church family is real family because many of us don’t have the luxury of having family anywhere nearby.

When you’re in the military, you aren’t the only one making sacrifices for your country. Even your spouse makes sacrifices, yes, most of us realize that. But people often forget who else makes sacrifices…

living the patriotic life already

Our babies. Our children. Our teenagers. They sacrifice having their military parent there for birthdays, for Christmas–ouch! Christmas, and God forbid, even sometimes for births. Not to mention the service members who never return at all, leaving whole families motherless or fatherless, not just for months or years but forever.

But don’t worry. Emma’s husband, Richard, did actually manage to fly in for 3 days. He was there just long enough to be there for labor, delivery, and a little of the hospital stay before he flew back out again. Babies come no matter what orders dictate. And you can’t plan a family around the military. We decided that long ago. It’s too uncertain. You just pray for the best.

Richard enjoyed his cereal that Saturday morning, as Emma braced herself through the contractions of labor.

God greatly provided for this sweet, new family. I can’t imagine giving birth without your husband there, but it does happen to military families all the time. So glad that wasn’t the case here.

Well, Emma’s labor and deliver went beautifully. But once the baby is born, the work doesn’t end there. And to compound the situation, this young family was also in the midst of moving. We were so happy to get to be a part of it. We simply moved JD in with Dan, and believe me, they loved that, and we made the nursery back into a nursery again.

When I moved into this house, I thought, “Wow! 5 bedrooms! Wow!” It’s a gift to have so many rooms, and gifts are meant to be shared.

“Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.”  Proverbs 3:27

me and Emma at her baby shower

And of course, Emma and little Matthias blessed us more than we blessed them. It was such a pleasure to hold a newborn again. Did you know that rocking a sweet newborn baby is good for your heart? Oh, it is. They kept giving us thank you gifts, but we didn’t need gifts. This was a wonderful thing to be a part of. I am so thankful. Y’all know I love to be the hostess.

But yesterday morning I drove these two to the airport because they are flying overseas to be with Emma’s parents for a couple of weeks, and then Emma and Matthias will reunite with her husband and move to their next duty station. Matthias is literally gong on tour first to meet all of his people.

Emma said, “Let’s wake him up so he will sleep on the airplane.” Smart momma.

sort of awake

totally unaware that he’s about to fly across the Pacific Ocean

There are no lengths that a military family won’t go to to see the grandparents. It’s such a unique lifestyle. Matthias is 3 weeks old, and he has more stamps on his passport than most of us! Yes, he even has a passport!

Y’all this girl is so brave. She has taken all of this in stride: first baby, husband being away, flying overseas, and moving…Shew! That’s a lot! Her positive attitude was such a blessing.

“Wake up, Matthias.” “Ehhhh…”

Matthias has gotten a quick introduction into the strange lifestyle that we lead, as military families.

And in only 4 more weeks our not-so-young-and-little family will also be reminded, as we up-root yet again for our 9th move. Yep. 9th. 

But it’s a great adventure. And I say bring it on. God bless, Emma! Thank you for sharing some time with us! We will miss you all!

Bye-bye, sweet baby!!!

The post When We Met Matthias: Story of a Military Family appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan, Caleb, and JD were in the kitchen eating cookies. I don’t know what JD said, but Caleb looked up at Alan and said, “Doesn’t JD make your heart smile?”

We all definitely smiled.

Caleb has also recently taken up saying, “ain’t.” He uses it correctly (if there is such a thing), but it took me by surprise. We don’t say ‘ain’t,’ nor does anyone that he knows in California.

My suspicions lie with Granddaddy, but that’s okay. Caleb has that whole classic-8-year-old-boy act down pat, so it kind of fits.

Joshua and JD are both sick right now, but JD is especially so. I have a little bit of it myself, so the three of us sat in the living room together tonight, eating cough drops, watching Cars, and constantly wiping JD’s little nose.

All day, that poor baby came to me saying, “Nose running,” in the most pitiful voice I have ever heard, asking me to wipe it for him.

You’d think after an hour or two of this, I would have thrown in the towel on the home schooling and focused on that sweet baby. But no, no. I lack that amount of sense. I kept trying to force school. I am here to tell you that you cannot teach ANYTHING to anyone with a sick baby following you around and crying.

Caleb and Daniel are not sick, but they certainly felt entitled to their share of cough drops.

“If you want one, go ahead, but I’m warning you that they taste terrible.”

“I want some!”

“I want some!”

I washed my hands of the situation and moved onto the kitchen to finish cooking spaghetti.

Then I heard Caleb, “Hey, Mom! You were wrong! These cough drops are DELICIOUS!”

Wow.

But what quote post is complete without a little Daniel sass?

Alan was herding the cats upstairs for bedtime. He directed them all to clean up the living room, which only has to be done about 5 times per day. He gave them each a task, and he told Dan, “You’re in charge of cleaning up the floor.”

Daniel only focused on part of that sentence. “I’M in charge!!!???”

Alan hesitated, “Yes. Do a good job.”

“Oh boy! I’m in charge. All right, boys, clean up this floor! Get to work!”

A few minutes later, I heard Joshua say, “Daniel’s trying to act like he’s the president of us or something.”

Daniel was so happy, “Yes! I’m the President!”

Joshua said, “Well, that doesn’t mean you have to act so bossy.”

Alan gave them all a pep talk, especially Daniel. “Daniel, if you’re the leader, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work. You clean up too.”

“Okay! See! I’m cleaning up! Now come on, boys, clean up! Wait, Joshua! Right there! I’m the President!”

It’s still going on. Wait, no, it has now morphed into a game of tag, and they are arguing over who is ‘It.’

Don’t let this adorableness overload fool you. Parenting these angelic looking children will bring you to your KNEES, I’m telling you. I cry often.

But I love them. Plus, I’m out of here in just 5 minutes. Thursday night is ladies’ Bible study night at my friend Hillary’s house. Whoot! Good luck, Alan. If all else fails, just open the Bible and start reading it out loud and praying for help. That’s what I do.

The post “Doesn’t JD make your heart smile?” It’s a quote post! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Dan and his best friend Wade. Wade moved to Germany. These two were so tight. It may be a while before Dan finds another friend like this.

The Summer Moving Cycle

Dan keeps asking us when we are going to Germany. Oh….Ummmmm….  It’s so hard to see the boys deal with losing friends, but it’s a thing we all have to go through, over and over again.

We live in a neighborhood designated for graduate students. Every time a quarter ends, people move, but the biggest moving cycle of all is the summer cycle. When we came back from Alabama, we found that two new families had moved in right beside us.

The boys are so happy. To replace the family with no kids, a family with two elementary children moved in. They have spent the last three days playing with the 2nd grader ALL DAY  LONG. None of the new kids have experienced the pain of month-long poison oak or ticks from our friendly neighborhood woods, so temptations are being revisited.

I found Joshua in the woods, in flip-flops and shorts. I about died. Sometimes poison oak takes a week to show a reaction, so I’m sweating this out. It took that boy two rounds of Prednisone, a MONTH to recover from that stuff. How could he just forget???

How I usually look: one preschooler on each leg

Bugs and Boys

With school out, I am able to better enjoy my position as mother, rather than teacher. I can just sit outside in a chair and watch them play. I can follow JD around saying, “No, no. Don’t step on the flowers. Walk around the flowers.”

JD is feeling much happier. I think he’s left Angry Bird behind him. It took him a few days to recover from our vacation, but I felt like even while Sean and Amy were still here, he began to behave better.

Have you ever tried hiking with a two-year-old? It’s pretty funny, and it is s-l-o-w going. JD stops at every single bug that he spots and says, “Bug. Bug. Bug. Bug.”

If Daniel is around, Dan will say, “Bug?  Where!!???” Then he will rush over and squash the bug, no matter how special it is. Dan relishes squashing bugs. My boys have made a few girls cry over the years with their talent for this.

I go back and forth, with the bug thing. On one hand, it makes me gloriously happy to have three solid bug squashers in the house. I don’t want bugs in my house. On the other hand, I want them to have respect for life and not just kill tiny living organisms they find outside for the sheer joy of it.

JD and Dan, walking through the airport, holding hands. This was a heart melting moment.

I enjoy the hugs and cuddles from my children so much. This morning, Dan crawled into our bed around 2am. He brought his pillow and his blanket with him. That blanket barely even covers him at this point. I don’t know what we will do when he outgrows it!

It was such a great feeling to roll over at 6:30 this morning, and there was Daniel’s angelic little face sleeping beside me. I just laid there and thought and prayed and enjoyed it. I will miss things like this when he’s older.  When I was a kid, I always went to my parents’ bed if I had a bad dream. We have that same policy. Most nights, no one migrates to our bed, but when they do, I don’t mind it.

Daniel’s really into posing for photos with food in his mouth.

John David is finally talking now, so it’s really nice that he can tell me what he wants or needs. Just as I suspected, when he calls me into his room because he’s having trouble sleeping or going to sleep, he wants one or two things. He either wants a drink, or he wants me to rock him in my lap. Usually, he just wants me to rock him.

“Rock? Rock? Rock? Rock?”

It melts my heart every time, and I rock him. He doesn’t fall asleep, but we enjoy our time to cuddle. Sometimes he asks me to sing. They all like the “Go to sleep” song. You know how he used to wake up every single night, in the middle of the night, until he was 20 months old? I’m convinced he just wanted the cuddling, and babies don’t keep, so we cuddle.

I think I’m feeling extra nostalgic about it this time since JD is my last baby.

Right now JD just went to sleep,Daniel is playing trains, and the big boys are playing Skylanders with our new neighbor. I have been tripping over Skylanders all summer, and I am here to tell you that we refuse to buy another game that requires you to buy little men to go with them, at $13/pop. Let’s stand strong and tell those Skylanders people that enough is enough already! Make a new game that goes with the men that we already have and does not come with new and different ones!!!

One last thing. Let’s pray for rain for the West! California is all brown again, and it bothers me. Plus, the prices on your produce are about to go up, y’all. This is where we grow that stuff!

Every time I pray for rain, I see that prayer answered. Imagine how much more rain we’d get if we all prayed!!

Whose with me?

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater works than these he will do because I go to My Father.

And whatsoever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.”     John 14:12-14

The post The Summer Moving Cycle, Happy Boys, and Praying for Rain appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

JD’s new room setup

It all started with Caleb’s scooter accident on Sunday…apparently that was an omen of sorts. The next big challenge was that we promoted J.D. to a toddler bed. This has never been a big deal for us. I remember Joshua was so good at sleeping on a toddler mat, that at 14 months I could put Joshua on his mat in the hallway of a friend’s house, and he would go right to sleep.

Joshua and Caleb were both crib jumpers that had to be promoted at 15 months, to keep them from injuring themselves!

I remember Aunt Fran telling us, “You know they aren’t ALL going to be this good, right?”

hehehe  I’m sure we just thought we were the bomb, and of course they’d all be compliant nappers.

Caleb took us down a peg.  He liked to wait for me to leave the room and then pass out in his floor, playing with toys, but he was quiet, and he left us alone, so we were satisfied.

Daniel, around 18 months, sleeping soundly in his crib

Then came Daniel. By the time you have your 3rd kid, you are too busy to recall such details. Three is a stressful number because you’re still trying to live like the average American family, despite the fact that you have three children, six and under. I don’t recall Daniel’s transition at all.

But we have this one kid who has been sure to keep us humble in all of our endeavors: enter John David: both mover and shaker, a spunky man indeed! The boy has pluck.

This is John David helping me unload the dishwasher. One year olds make wonderful dishwasher unloaders!! He takes his job seriously.

A few months ago, Alan made his weekly run to the dump. Yes, we recycle, but our local California town gives us a trashcan that is barely bigger than the trash can in your kitchen to put each week’s garbage in. There are SIX of us. Seriously, you should see our teeny tiny garbage can.

So Alan was at the dump, dropping off our extra trash, when lo and behold he spots a beautiful toddler bed sitting off to the side. People around here move a lot, and sometimes the easiest way to get rid of things is to just set it by the dumpsters and figure someone will pick it up…….someone like us.

Did we NEED a toddler bed? No. We have 2 extra twin beds that we aren’t even using, but I can’t explain it. We thought the free dumpster toddler bed was cute. We proudly added it to our garage collection of “stuff we never use but couldn’t possibly give away.”

Eventually, we got tired of it taking up space, so we decided to go ahead and promote our little fella. Ready or not, here we go!!

Some people just can’t handle freedom of any sort. That boy could no more control his little self to stay in that bed than I can turn down a Krispy Kreme chocolate covered donut!! It was ridiculous! Any time he would wake up, he’d roll, or sometimes fall, right out of bed and head straight for his door. He figured out how to work a doorknob, and he was on his way to adulthood, he really seemed to think!

I already mentioned the first night, when he headed down the stairs at 1am. We have remedied that situation.

It’s been a week now, and I’m happy to report that things are much better now. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better. J.D. is a gregarious little individual. He has very set ideas for how he likes things, and change takes him a while to adapt to.

We love this outspoken, opinionated, animal loving, raisin bran crunch eating, cuddly, cuddly, cuddly little rascal so much.

Let me tell ya what is new in John David’s world:

-He has earned the nickname Angry Bird, because he reminds me of a bird sometimes, and he can be quite grumpy.

-He is usually the first person awake every single morning. I took a page from Aunt Amy’s book and hung black-out curtains. We’ve never felt the need to do this until J.D. Yes, the others all woke up early. No little boy here ever slept past 7am, but 5am is a WHOLE other kettle of fish! That is unacceptable, for sure.

I’ve always encouraged their early to rise routine (between 6:30 and 7) because I think it is a WONDERFUL habit to form as a young person, and I hope they will be able to keep it for the rest of their lives. Waking up in the morning, to this day, is my greatest struggle. I seriously need to be up and running at 6am, and that is the hardest thing in the world for me to do! Even when I go to bed at 10pm, which is my new habit for 2015, I still can’t wake up early! If you are tempted to say, “Then go to bed at 9pm,” you obviously do not have four young children. That is not actually possible in my position, I can assure you.

-JD eats breakfast with his daddy every morning. They eat eggs and Raisin Bran Crunch together. I was awake at 6 this morning to witness it, and JD mixing his eggs and cereal and eating them with his spoon, his fork, and his hands was both messy and adorable.

-JD is mostly only allowed to drink water, except for his nightcap of milk. This is because we are trying to get him as full of nutritional food as possible, in hopes that he will sleep better. Vanity, really….it’s all in vain….

-JD is starting to show interest in going to the potty. I don’t potty train 18 month olds. It’s hard enough at age 2. He will wait, and he will be just fine.

-favorite expression: “Ruff ruff! Ruff ruff!” He barks all day long.

-Favorite activity: puzzles, trains, Batman, and following his mother around. He also likes to color.

-Things his brothers say about him:

Caleb, while taking a bath with JD, “Look, Mom, I taught him this game.”

They promptly began hurling foam alphabet letters at each other and laughing hysterically. Right, well, I guess those foam letters are good for something after all…

Daniel: “Mommy!!!!  Baby took my Batman!”

“Moooooooom!!  No baby play my Batcave!”

“No, JD!”  “No, Baby!”  “NO!”  “Can JD sleep in my bed?” (Answer is no.)

“Me wake up baby now?”  (Also no.)

We were in the car the other day, and I said that JD looks so much like Joshua did. Joshua chimed in, “Except he’s way fatter than me.”

“Um, actually, JD is the skinniest baby we’ve ever had.”
“What!! I was chubbier than JD!!” Yes, Joshua, yes you were.

Caleb proudly proclaimed, “but I was the BIGGEST of all, but Daniel really was the fattest.”

Caleb, pictured here at 2 months, was off the growth charts from day 1. Extremely tall.

Daniel: His rolls had rolls.

All true, Caleb, all true. Come back tomorrow! Hopefully, I will find time to write about Caleb’s week of exciting new adventures: new sports, new friends, and one very happy Caleb.

The post You know they aren’t all going to be this good, right? appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I fed him pudding. I ran upstairs to get something. I got distracted by a book. When I came back, Daniel had finished eating and moved onto nap. Wow, Daniel.

Daniel, age 6 months, napping on my friend Sherry, during Alan’s promotion ceremony

There are many things my beautiful little boys do well. Yes, I am sorry. I said beautiful.  They are!! Handsome, if it makes you feel better, but my goodness, they look like sleeping angels to me.

This is one of the things we do with FLARE. That’s right. We NAP. We are seriously great nappers. I remember one time, in Sunday school, our class was debating rest on Sundays. Who would debate that? Seriously. Don’t just agree to rest, embrace it, love it, protect it. The people need their naps!!!

All children look even sweeter when they are asleep, don’t you think? My blogging pal Slyvia at Tales from the Mommy Trenches had this post of  her babies sleeping on their daddy, and I thought it was SO adorable. I knew I had to copy cat, but when I went through recent photos, I found most of our pictures are of our children sleeping in the floor, soooooo…

I put together this little napping slideshow for ya. I hope you all get at least one day off a week, to just do this!

 Not one sleeping babe, but two. It doesn’t get any sweeter than this.

 Gotta love the nursing induced coma–a powerful bedtime ritual!

 Caleb sleeping on his Mama 🙂

Caleb sleeping on his daddy…or wait, no, Daddy is doing the sleeping!

 We sleep in the car.

They even sleep in their beds, without us even asking them to. I used to find Caleb sleeping in Joshua’s bed.

Caleb, sleeping in his own bed, with his Daddy doll, when Alan was in Afghanistan.

 They even trust each other. That’s newborn Dan, sleeping on three-and a half year-old Caleb.

 serious rump-in-the-air-sleep
 Caleb, 6 months, passed out on the couch, on Christmas day

I used to have to wake Daniel up from his nap every day at 2:30, to go get the boys from school. I put his gloves and jacket on him, in his sleep, and carried him out to the stroller.

passed out in a room full of kids

I’m going to slide down and go play, wait noooo, nooo, I’m just gonna zzzzzz.

Daniel seemed to prefer dropping down and sleeping in the living room floor.

just plain exhausted

But if I said the words, “nap time,” he’d run and hide in Daddy’s closet.

. ….ah, the ever peaceful Ergo nap.

We wish you all a restful day and a wonderful week!

The post Will Nap Anywhere appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Dan was such a good baby. I did not have to ‘sleep train’ him. Yet, somehow he gradually developed a bad pattern, and we had to work on it.  What is it with our toddlers??

The funny thing is I TOTALLY forgot that I ever had to “sleep-train” Dan at the ripe old age of 20 months. If you would have asked me, before I found this old blog post from 2012, what kind of sleeper Dan was, I would’ve said, “wonderful.” HAAAA!  The Mom Brain is a funny thing, full of selective memories.

I totally blame the sleep deprivation.

Don’t despair when you tell your woes to moms who are out of this phase. They have selectively pruned most negative memories, and they may think that you just don’t know what you’re doing. Don’t worry. That’s not the case.

So what gives with these babies? Sometimes you just need to examine the circumstances surrounding your toddler.

We’ll get to what I did for Daniel in 2012 in a minute. First, let’s talk about my current toddler, J.D. This summer JD gave us FITS in the middle of the night. He still had to have a bottle. He still had to be rocked.  Some nights he would wake up every couple of hours. It was miserable.

Did I let JD cry it out? No. No. No.  This isn’t rocket science. In this case, I firmly believe the right thing to do was to suck it up and just be there for my baby. JD was in the middle of a domino-effect of life changes, and he was only a 12 month old. To ignore his cries actually would have been pretty mean because he needed some extra reassurance. We were out of our ordinary routine, moving from place to place, from the beginning of June through just a couple of weeks ago.

Guess what happened? Well, let’s NOT count our chickens before they hatched, but I THINK it worked itself out on its own.  We’ve had two glorious full nights of rest. Who knows–he may wake up once tonight, or he may sleep all night. Either way, this is not bad.

Honestly, I could never let a little baby just cry and cry without consoling them. I can’t do it for too long for a 20-month-old either, but apparently I did cave and let Daniel cry a while. I knew there was nothing wrong with him, and he was getting cuddled all day long, so it really did pay off.

For my first two munchkins: I re-sleep trained them any time it was necessary–pretty much just used the “Ferber” method. We would put them to bed, and then flee the room. We have always found that having an established bedtime routine makes a huge difference.  Once we left the room, if they cried without stopping, we’d go in there after 5 minutes, pick them up–yes—pick them up, console them for a bit, and lay them back down. I’d do this in increasing intervals. The truth is, I’m a softie, and usually by the third interval, my “consoling” would put them to sleep. This all worked just fine.

However, Dan gave me enough trouble that I had to get tough with him. In November 2012, I resorted to some longer intervals:

This is what I wrote in 2012 about sleep-training the Dan Man. He was 20 months old. Also, I should tell you, that Daniel was quite the mischief maker during the day. I described that too….

“-Daniel is still a sleep challenge. THANKFULLY, he DID finally sleep through the night last night. However, as we speak he is in the crying it out process in his crib….

 

 

 

-(About my missing wedding rings–sadness!) I still haven’t found my wedding rings. I am pretty sure they were flushed. I have good circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction.

–Daniel went to sleep!!!!! Hallelujah! Sleep training= letting them cry it out, but never more than an hour. After a couple days of that, they decide crying for an hour is just not worth it!

-His current goal is to put his shoes on by himself. I find him practicing all the time. OH! Also, he said “Joshua”, actually “Yoshwa”, and “Caleb”, “Cay-cay”, this week! We were so excited!

-Tonight I walked into the boys’ bathroom, yes at our house there is actually a boys’ bathroom, to find Caleb putting toothpaste on Daniel’s toothbrush for him. Dan was leaning on the sink, waiting patiently.

-About Daniel’s name: I like Daniel, Dan, and Dan-Dan, even the Dan Man, but I do not like Danny–I really don’t like Danny at all. Just wanted to make sure everyone knows.

-Yesterday I wanted to shower while all the boys were running loose in the house, so I paid Joshua and Caleb $1 a piece to keep Daniel out of trouble while I took my shower. Best idea I’ve had in a while, and money well spent!”

**************

And now look at us, 2014, and dealing with so many of the same issues all over again!

We’ve read Babywise and tried that. We’ve Ferber-ized. You name it; we’ve done it. I also read that if you want to keep your children from waking up in the middle of the night, you should be sure to spend time talking (NICELY) to your spouse each day. Make sure your kids are watching while you chat with your spouse to really build up security points!!  That gives them security, so they wake up crying–or walking to your bed–less at night. I will say, Alan and  I were in two different states for half the summer, so that also could have contributed to JD’s insecurity.

They call the parent-talk time “couch time,” and I do think that’s a great idea. Google it.

So, in summary:

1. Different times call for different measures. You choose what works for you and your baby.

2. These are not hard and fast rules. There are none. Even if the American Academy of Pediatrics put out guidelines about it, you’d still need to go with common sense.

3. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

4. Every kid is different.

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Quote of the week:

Alan: I’ll put the trampoline together right now if ya’ll can tell me all the states and capitals ya’ll have learned.

Boys:  Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Alan:  What’s the capital of Vermont?

one of the boys:  Massachusetts!!!!!!

Alan: This could take a while.

🙂 They’ve got it down now, and the trampoline was a life saver today. 🙂 Roll Tide. Yep. It’s that time of year again.

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