Evidently I Don't Speak 4 Year Old

From the bathroom: "Mommy, I'm hungry!"
Me: "Jose, did I not just give you an apple?"
"No! I mean, where's the toilet paper!"

Well Hello!

I've been seriously delinquent in my blogging lately, so much so that I've probably lost my readers, all 2 of you. To make up for it I've glued the older boys to the TV and left Tristan screaming on the floor in order to treat you to "Our Summer...In Photos!":

The summer started off with Roanen's eyes getting more and more wonky, to the point that a lot of the time he would close one eye when looking at something.


This always made me feel guilty. But not guilty enough that I couldn't take pictures.

While we waited for the surgery date, Josey started playing in the local soccer league. He started out very enthusiastic, but chasing after ball-hogging 6 year olds got old after the first few lessons. He finally ended up spending soccer nights picking grass and eating clover flowers when he wasn't rolling into the fetal position in the back of the net. The coach also found soccer a little tiring so he only showed up about 3 times. Way to teach dedication, Coach!


I'll stand here in front of the net, but only because you're giving me a freezie when this is all over.

Roanen got his first real haircut and went from baby to boy. Sob.


Big boys don't smile Mommy.

Fortunately Roanen's surgery was scheduled for early in the summer so we could (hopefully) get his eyes straightened out. He was happy playing with the toys at CHEO until he was made to put on some of the cutest pyjamas imaginable.


Or is it that he's the cutest pyjama-ed child imaginable?

Either way, he was unimpressed with the whole situation and proceeded to lie in the middle of the corridor and refuse to participate in any of the fun waiting room activities. That is, until he got some funky sedative that is evidently equivalent to a few beers.


Hey Mommy. This is waaaaay funny. If only I could sit up without falling over...

Despite being told that Roanen would be perfectly fine after the surgery he was pretty cranky. And also not very pretty to look at.


You'd be cranky too if you had stitches in your eyes.

A week later we had a real emergency.

And the next day we headed down to Niagara Falls. We had a great time on the Maid of the Mist boat.



Picked up some souvenirs...



And went to Marineland, which turned out to be a lot of fun for Josey:


For me too:


Look at the size of that caramel apple! Refrain from looking at my pasty pale legs, my hideous running shoes and the fact that my eyes always look messed up in pictures.

But evidently not so much for Roanen:


Daddy looks impressed too.

Note to people travelling to Niagara Falls with kids - the Imperial Hotel and Suites (I can't seem to find the link right now) is a super inexpensive, super nice place to stay. It's right near the main tourist street and within walking distance to the falls. The suites have separate bedroom and living areas, mini fridges and microwaves so you can bring a lot of your own food if you're like us and don't like torturing restaurants and their employees and customers with your children's presence. And did I mention cheap? Like 80 bucks per night cheap. It rocked. Don't pay any attention to the horrible reviews on the review websites (although do read them because they're hilarious).

Back to us.

Just a couple of weeks after we returned home Grammie and Grampa decided to take the boys on a little vacation. So I invited myself and Tristan along, because I'm like that. We drove down to Toronto to spend the day at Canada's Wonderland. At the hotel Roanen made friends with a very bold dove who invited himself to breakfast.


The bird ate mostly scrambled eggs. How very, very creepy.

Roanen loved Wonderland almost as much as Marineland.



A $5 bag of tiny donuts made it all better though.

Then the holiday fun was all over. But not for long! Russ found an ingenious way to get out of having to work that involved chicken poop, kerosene, and the old oil tank we use as a burn barrel. Sneaky, and oh so graphic.


That's only one leg. The other one, as well as both arms, his fingers, and a bit of his face got it too. He was dead sexy, I tell ya.

I got to take care of the chickens, the kids, and Russ for two weeks which was pretty stressful, but for the following two weeks Russ was up and able to do pretty much anything except go to work so it felt like holidays all over. Unpaid holidays, but holidays nonetheless.

Now that he's back at work, the boys and I are back in our (lack of) routine and trying to enjoy the rest of the summer before September hits and I have to send my baby to school, something that I'm alternately dreading and looking forward to. While I'm not as freaked out as I used to be, it's still going to be traumatic.

In other (pictureless) news, Tristan is crawling! Actually I meant to post that 4 months ago. Nowadays he's taking 6 steps at a time and coming very close to not needing to cling to my legs constantly.

And finally, the reason I haven't been blogging lately is because I felt like my plate just wasn't full enough and signed up for a 2 year distance education program in natural nutrition. So my "not studying" guilt has been stronger than my "not blogging" guilt and I've been hitting the books instead of regaling you with tales of my existence. And right now my "Tristan is yawning and exhausted and the boys are trying to murder each other" guilt is taking over so I'll sign off for the next 2 years or so. But not really so keep checking :P

Emergency

Last night as I'm sitting at the table waiting for Roanen to finish his supper Josey runs up to me with his lips pressed tightly together, stares pointedly at me for a second, then walks to the other side of the kitchen. He pulls down his craft box and begins his usual routine of cutting and taping paper. 10 minutes later he walks up to me, lips still pressed together, and begins a game of charades, pointing at his mouth then at the paper, which looks like this:



I start guessing - "Your mouth is taped shut. You're hungry. You want to eat the paper. You want to eat what's ON the paper..." He shakes his head at every guess, then points to his mouth again and opens it just enough that I can see what's in it: a mouthful of murky, chunky puke.
W....T....F....
I tell him to go spit it out in the toilet. He comes back and tells me that he puked in his mouth 10 MINUTES AGO and, not knowing what to do (as if it's never happened before), he decided to make a sign to let me know about it.
He then proceeds to make a sign post for it, then tapes it to the wall. In case of a puke emergency he can point to it and I won't be confused...

Why I (Sometimes) Buy Canadian.

Apples'n'Oranges is having a Canada Day contest with some awesome prizes. I personally want to win all the little girl stuff so I can further curse my chances at having a girl next (last) time around.
All you have to do is write a post (or email them at info@apples-n-oranges.com if you don't have a blog) explaining why you buy Canadian.
Here's my reason:

The shipping's usually cheaper.

I KNOW! Awesome reason. I'm so patriotic and supportive of our local economy, etc, etc. But seriously, I know there are good reasons to buy Canadian, I just don't exactly have the time to go online to research them. They are there though, so you should all buy Canadian, particularly from Apples'n'Oranges because Lara just quit her job to run the company full time and she won't be able to feed my nephew if you don't. Do it. And enter the contest while you're at it.

No, I'm Still Not Sleeping.

So much has happened in the saga of sleep since the last time I blogged about Tristan, yet I'm pretty much at the same place I was then, and possibly even more sleep deprived. That being said, it's 10:37 PM and I'm choosing to blog rather than go to bed so YOU HAVEN'T BROKEN ME YET, SLEEPLESS CHILD. Ahem.
I decided to go with the Baby Whisperer once again, but instead of doing the "pick-up/put-down" technique, it was more of a "put-down" because he was at the age where picking him up constantly would distract more than comfort. He got his bedtime feed, then he was cut off from feeding for at least 8 hours. This is where I deviated from the Baby Whisperer because, according to her, at his age he should be able to go 12 hours without a feed. On the first night his growling stomach after 8 hours told me otherwise. Although it was necessary to feed him in the middle of the nights, usually at about 3 AM, I think this is what ended up keeping the plan from being totally effective. He would settle with just being put down when he stood up in anywhere from 8 minutes to two hours, and was sleeping longer stretches overall. He even managed a couple of 7 hour stretches, although they were at the beginning of the night so I didn't get the same 7 hours of sleep unfortunately. The problem ended up being that after I gave him his feed in the middle of the night he would start getting up every hour to eat and/or be very wakeful. A couple of weeks ago a combination of things began to throw us off track even more. First of all, my exhausted body began tricking my mind in the middle of the night into believing that he should most definitely be coming into our bed to be fed at midnight. I distinctly remember feeling that this was a rational act, despite Russ asking me what the hell I thought I was doing. Then teething hit. His four upper front teeth have been sloooooowly and evidently very painfully making their way down for a couple of weeks and he's totally miserable about it. This combined with the crazy heat wave of last week (and therefore his increased thirst and my decreased desire to have a sweaty screaming child hanging off me) had me feeding him every time he woke up crying. And that brings us to now. His teeth still aren't totally out and he's cranky about it off and on. He's gotten used to being fed every time he wakes up, so now he's sleeping about a 3 hour stretch at the beginning of the night, then waking about every hour and a half or two hours thereafter. I usually bring him into our bed after the fourth or so waking. My overall attitude has been ok about it, but I've definitely been super grouchy during the day when I got woken up a lot the previous night or when the boys all decided that 5 AM is a good time to wake up (oh my children, you just wait until you're sleepy teenagers and I decide that 5 AM is a good time for you to wake up).
And now the new plan! (Because I'm so good at being consistent with this sleep training thing) Next week we're going down to Niagara Falls and Marineland for 3 days, so there's no point in starting anything before then. I'll just have to suffer through the next 7 days and make Russ get up with them in the morning so I can sleep in. Right. Once we're settled back at home I'm going to do the regular bedtime routine, then before I go to bed I'll give him a dream feed at 10 or 11. This will top him up so I won't have to feed him in the middle of the night (when he wakes up himself) or feel guilty about starving him. When he's sleeping right through (note my naive optimism) I'll boost his daytime food a little more and start giving him the dream feed earlier each night until it's cut right out.
And this will definitely definitely definitely work and we'll all live happily (not sleepily) ever after.
The End.



"What are you talking about Mommy? I wouldn't keep you from sleeping!"

Because My Bathroom Doesn't Smell Pissy Enough.

On Saturday evening I went into the downstairs bathroom to get the boys' toothbrushes ready for them. I glanced around while doing so and noticed a puddle in front of the toilet and some droplets between it and the sink, most likely due to Roanen's earlier attempt at getting himself a drink of water with a floppy silicone muffin cup. Then I happened to look down into the garbage can. I wondered what had been put in there that made crumpled up paper towel turn yellow. Then I saw yellow droplets on the side of the bag and it hit me. I stomped into the kitchen where the boys were having their snack and asked Josey "Did you pee in the garbage?" He immediately got a wide-eyed deer in the headlights look on his face and asked innocently "How do you know I peed in the garbage?". Little bum. When he finally confessed (which he only did because I cracked a smile at the absurdity of the act), it came out that he wanted to "make a lake" in the can, evidently after he had already started in the toilet and couldn't stop the stream while he switched receptacles. Naturally I forgot all about it until we got home from Ottawa yesterday and now my bathroom reeks of old pee. I love having boys.

The End Of The Wonkiness...Maybe

On Monday Roanen got his eye surgery. Everyone at CHEO was really great, especially the male nurse who gave him his sedative along with some blowing bubbles, which greatly amused him until he got too buzzed to do anything but flop on Russ, giggle at his stuffed lamb and inform the nurse in a slurred voice that he got a sticker. Other than sleeping for an inordinate amount of time in recovery (we were told 15-20 minutes and he slept almost two hours) everything seems to have gone pretty well. The outside whites of his eyes are bloody red with a couple of stitches each (ew), and now instead of sliding outwards he's a little cross-eyed, which is temporary and apparently desirable according to the doctor. Now we just have to wait and see whether the strabismus was fully corrected. If it's still wonky the surgery will have to be repeated which would really suck because he's been miserable and freaking out, especialy when I have to put ointment on his eyelashes. Awesomely gross "after" pictures to come as soon as I can upload from my camera.

Some Antibiotics Might Clear That Up...

"Mommy, Daddy's penis looks like a turkey."




(No blue balls jokes, please)

Get You A Waxin', Woman

Lately Josey has been watching too much adult television. He especially likes the commercials, because THEY PROMISE that their product is the best and that you DESPERATELY NEED IT. It started off innocently enough with the Food Network airing a Nutri-Slim commercial at least once every ten minutes. Josey was fascinated by the pictures of the food, especially the desserts (whose filming, I might add, required a zoom lens because of the tiny portion sizes) and would ask "Do you want to get that, Mommy?" every time it aired. Next came the Proactive commercials. Despite the fact that I (thankGodthankGodthankGodknockonwood) have had pretty clear skin since I was pregnant with Roanen, Josey feels that I also need that. Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Love Hewitt say so too. Then came Garnier Nutrisse. Both Josey and Sarah Jessica Parker would like me to see a dermatologist AND a nutritionist every day.

Thankfully I've managed to explain the concept of commericials to him so now he forms his own opinions. Opinions like, "You need to lose weight, Mommy" out of the blue. My personal favourite though is "It's just not right!" and "DO something about that hair - raze it or something!", spoken with utter disgust while gagging at the sight of my unmaintained nakedness. We've gotten him away from the tv, now if we could only pry Grampa's old Playboys out of his little hands. In the meantime I will have to aspire to be his ideal Mommy, a wrinkle-free anorexic with a brazilian.

Crying It Out

In the past couple of weeks I've started to compose a blog in my head about crying it out and each time I've gotten so angry and emotional that I had to stop before my head exploded. The catalyst was the visit from our therapist and home worker where we discussed the "treatment" for our "troubled" family.

My biggest worry was for Roanen. The impression I got from previous visits was that we were basically going to lock him in his room and let him cry until he passed out, so I was relieved to hear that we were just to bring him back to his bed as soon as he came into our room. Relieved, that is, and slightly annoyed that Russ eagerly accepted this idea when they presented it, after I had presented it many times as common sense.

The girls then proudly presented their solution for Tristan's sleep issues. They had done a TON of research and talked to many people in their field and found the best way to deal with it. The answers were all in this MAGICAL BOOK written by someone extremely knowledgeable on the subject. The book? A very famous book by a certain doctor with a whole METHOD named after him: Ferber (can you hear the hate and disgust with which I type the name?). Um, apparently someone missed the memo about how I had a little problem with the cry-it-out method? Or else they sat around bored one day and said "You know what would be funny? Let's tell Lindsay that she has to let her kids scream for hours without comforting them. Let's take bets on whether she'll cry!" And you know what? I did. Or at least I visibly teared up, then I composed myself because the last thing I needed was for them to see me fall apart when they already think I'm guilt-ridden and ruining my kids with coddling. I went temporarily insane and agreed that it had to be done. We made up a plan in which we were to go to him when he cried, comfort for less than a minute without touching (?!..?!!?), then leave. We could go back at 5 minute intervals and he would eventually cry himself to sleep. He would be sleeping through the night within a week and a half. Yes it would be hard, but worth it in the end.

Once they left, reality set in. I looked through the photocopied pages they gave me that coldly stated that I was doing him an injustice by letting him use me as a comfort tool, and that it made children feel anxious and worried, not comforted, to co-sleep. I looked through The No-Cry Sleep Solution and reread the part that describes in heart-wrenching detail how a baby must feel when it's left to cry Then I looked at him and realized that as tired as I constantly am, as frustrated as I get when I have to nurse him for the sixth time in one night, and as angry as he makes me when he screams for hours at a time while alternately reaching for me and pushing me away, I couldn't do it. I couldn't listen to him get as hysterical as I know he would get and not comfort him, not even touch him. And despite being assured that doing this wouldn't cause any permanent emotional damage, how exactly do they know? When a baby begins sleeping through the night after crying it out is it really because they've learned to self-soothe, or is it because they've resigned themself to the fact that they're not deserving of comfort at night by the people who are supposed to love them unconditionally? As far as I was concerned, the end just wouldn't justify the means. I called the home worker the next day and told her I wasn't going to go through with it.

Since then, Tristan's sleeping habits have once again deteriorated. His longest stretch at night is 2-1/2 hours, but it's not uncommon for him to wake up 40 minutes after I finish nursing him. The past few nights I've brought him into our bed the fifth or sixth time he's woken up and when that happens he pretty much wants to nurse constantly. That being said, I still don't regret my decision. One of the things that I've gained with having another baby with sleep issues is perspective. I know that while things suck pretty badly right now I won't be having to nurse him 8 times a night a year from now, let alone for the rest of my life. Both the home worker and Russ gave me the look that says "isn't that nice that you're fooling yourself" along with a mental pat on the head when I told them that, but I'm not going to do something I'm completely against to please them when I'm the one who has to deal with feeling bad about it afterwards.
For now I don't really have a plan. The boys and I have been really sick for the past week so I'm too desperate for any kind of sleep to even think of a plan, much less act on one. My one extreme is to just deal with it until he's old enough to be sleep-trained like his brothers were. My other extreme, and the closest to crying it out I would ever do, is to stand by his crib and lie him down every time he stands up, comforting him with touch and my voice. And even that scares me a little bit. We'll see how much more of this I can take.