Santa, Sickies, Sleep

Here's Jake at the real Santa's Merrifield headquarters, showing that he knows that Christmas isn't all about getting presents. It's also about cheesy poses. We we waited patiently for almost an hour for Santa to arrive, which is actually not a bad wait in this Christmas fun-house that they've built at Merrifield Gardens. This is the same Santa that I went to as a kid. Yes, the same guy. He's 87. After he addresses everyone and leads some sing-a-longs and takes questions from the skeptical older kids, the real waiting starts. We were about 15th in line, and we waited in the same spot without moving for almost another 30 minutes. It was past naptime. And we were out of snacks. We told Jake we'd just write him a letter, and we snuck out and hopped in the car. Jake didn't seem to mind - besides, he already told Santa he wanted a racecar when he arrived by boat down at the lake.

I just realized the last post was about me staying home with a sick Sadie. Well, since then, she's recovered and had a good week, and now she's sick again, along with me and Jake. Jake's such a trooper and refuses to admit that he's sick. He can barely choke out "I feel good" in between coughs. Hopefully these bugs will all pass by the time we hit the road for Sea Isle City NJ this weekend!

Oh, and by the way, I think it's been a little over a month since Jake gave up his pacifiers and we're finally back on track with the bedtime ritual. There are hiccups here and there, but he's pretty much back to stories and songs and then staying in for the night. We haven't had a tantrum in weeks. Way to go Jake!

Paci Wars II

We first tried to retire Jake's pacifiers on his 3rd birthday, and it was a disaster. This past weekend, I casually mentioned to Jake that when he was ready, we could give his pacifiers to the Paci Fairy and she would leave him a treat. The next night, he said he was ready. He went to bed just like a normal night, and we didn't hear from him again. Until 1:00 am. And then 4:00 am.

The next night, it was a repeat of five months ago: screaming, crying, and assorted drama. After a half hour, he finally passed out. And slept through the night. The past two nights have gone the same way. It's almost like he's in withdrawal from a drug. He's just hysterical and not himself at all. And he's not even asking for pacifiers, he just can't calm himself down. It's physically and psychologically draining for us. But I'm impressed that we haven't given in and brought the pacifiers back out, as much as we'd like to. Looking at toddler chat rooms, it sounds like most parents went through similar withdrawal battles, lasting a few nights or a few weeks. I'm afraid Jake will be in the 'weeks' category.

New Shoes

It's been kind of a tough week or two, at night anyway. The kids have been hitting us on both fronts, and slowly breaking us down. Sadie goes down without a complaint, but then we hear her off and on all night crying. Jake sleeps through the night, but has been putting up a big fight about bedtime every night. Sadie slept through the night last night, so that's encouraging. It looks like her canine teeth are popping through, so maybe that's part of it.

But last night Jake and I went on a long walk before bedtime and he was in a great mood and I got to thinking about all the great little things that have happened the past two weeks, even though the nights have been rough. I ordered a few pairs of new shoes for the kids and when they came, Sadie was so excited. Ali got this great picture of her trying on the first pair. When I came home from work she was still so happy about them, wearing one pair and carrying the other pair around to show off. Jake liked his too, but he was more concerned about seeing how fast they were. He kept sprinting from one side of the house to the other to test them out.

Another fun development has been watching and listening to Sadie work on her words! All of a sudden she started practicing, and saying "Thank you", "Mama", "Dada", "Jakey" and "Ball". I don't know which was her first, but I like all of them. And she does the two cutest animal impressions. If you ask her what a tiger says, she opens her mouth and gives the quietest "roar" I've ever heard. You can barely hear it. It cracks us up. And if you ask her what an elephant says, she happily raises her arm up like an elephant trunk. No elephant noise, just the arm movement.

Jake and Sadie have really started playing together more and more and it's so much fun to watch. They take turns pushing each other around in the little baby stroller, or climb all over the couches and each other, giggling. Sadie obviously idolizes Jake, and wants to do everything he does. He was jumping the other day, and she stood there watching him for a minute, and then tried her own little jump-step. Then she got her serious face on and practiced and practiced her jump while Jake moved on to something else. If Jake is walking around outside and steps on a leaf, Sadie will follow right behind and step on the same leaf with the same foot.

Ok, one more. Backpacks. I don't have a picture of this, but Ali got the kids new backpacks to get ready for their new school in a few weeks. The only thing Sadie loves more than her new backpack is her new shoes. She wears her backpack all over the house. And she's constantly bringing Jake's backpack over to him to wear. Whenever we get ready to go somewhere, she gets her backpack.

Homecoming

After spending the week working in Anaheim, California, it was great to get back home. I flew into Dulles on Friday afternoon and Ali was right there with the kids to pick me up. And by "right there" I mean National airport. A good marriage is all about communication. So, I took a taxi and we met up at the house: same end result.

Anyway, it sounds like everyone had a great time down at the lake with Gram and Poppy. Jake practiced his swimming, tricycle pedaling, golf cart driving, and apparently also decided he was too big for his converted crib/toddler bed. Gram and Poppy (and Mimi and Grandpa) have a twin bed for him when he stays over, and I think after a week of that he decided he was ready for the next step. Friday night he said he wanted to sleep on the floor next to his bed. After doing the same thing Saturday night, we headed out Sunday morning for Ikea, land of inexpensive furniture and cheap breakfasts. Here's a picture of the finished product, with Sadie modeling. Jake was definitely excited about his big boy bed, but Sadie is still going bonkers about it. She squeals and jumps up on it whenever she goes in his room.
On Sunday afternoon we went to go see the Nationals take on the Cubs at their new ballpark. The seats were great (thanks Mom and Dad) - down low and right along the third baseline. We were enjoying our hot dogs and chili from Ben's Chili Bowl and between the two kids, we weren't really paying too much attention to the game, to be honest. Here we are before the "incident":

Then, all of a sudden, I hear our section let out a collective "whoa!". In slow motion, I see a low ball coming our way. At that instant, it looked like it was several yards away. Before I could turn my head to see where it landed, I saw it bounce down below the seat in front of me. I reached down and picked it up, and let a confused Jake hold it. About two seconds later, an EMT was in our row attending to the guy sitting RIGHT NEXT to Ali and Sadie, who had "caught" the ball with his face. He was bleeding quite a bit, so as they took him off I gave him the ball, since he'd clearly earned it. Several innings later, he came back, and we got this picture:

Spring Forward

Daylight Savings Time is a cruel trick for parents with little kids. They're pretty set in their schedules - at least ours are - so trying to get Jake to go to bed at his normal time last night (which was actually an hour earlier than Saturday night) was, um, what's the word?...torture. "But I'm not tired" "But I need some apple juice" "But I'm just going to read some books" "But..."

By the time he fell asleep it was pretty much his pre-DST bedtime. So the score is: Jake 1, DST 0.

Newzzzzzzzzzzz

I know how it is. You're at work, you're a little bored, maybe you'll check to see if there's anything new on Tripdub. Nope, still NOTHING! Or maybe you're semi-retired on a lake somewhere and thinking, I wonder what my grandchildren are up to? But that no-good-son-in-law still hasn't posted ANYTHING in the last week or so!

Well, we're still here. We've been having a lot of fun during the days, but maybe not so much at night. Saturday we did our farmer's market run, picking up some sweet potatoes which Sadie happens to LOVE! We were so happy to find something besides bananas for her. She'll eat a whole banana while you're checking your email, but she turns her nose up at just about everything else.

Then we headed to IKEA for their lingonberry pancake breakfasts. I think we pay more for gas to get there than on the actual breakfast, but it's a fun place for everyone. They have little kid stations here and there and Ali and I can look at the furniture and think, "that looks great, but who's going to distract the kids for the 6 hours it takes to assemble it?"

Jake's back at First Steps-- his old pre-school-- for three mornings a week. He was a little bit wary at first, but he seems to be having fun there now, and I think the interaction with the other kids is good. Last week his teacher told us he was doing well, but he often ignored group time and wanted to do his own thing. On the way home that day, Ali attempted to broach the subject:

"Jake, do you always listen to Ami (his teacher) and sit down with the other kids?"

"No"

"Well, it's important to listen to Ami. But.....it's also important to retain your individuality"

"ok"

I'm sure he got the message.

We also went swimming at the local rec center pool this weekend. Jake jumped right in with his water wings and swam up and down the lane like a pro. Sadie seemed to enjoy herself too, smiling and giggling.

The nights have been a struggle, though. On the up side, Sadie's been sleeping through the night for about a week. And that's no small feat. But, on the down side, Jake's new found freedom of his big boy bed has left us a bit sleep deprived.

Jake's always been a pretty good sleeper, so we're hoping it will just take an adjustment in our approach to get us back to restful nights. Our new strategy when he gets out of bed at night is to take him back to bed without any talking, except to say "You have to stay in bed." No more negotiations or pleading or promises or threats ("the sun won't come up in the morning unless you go to sleep") -- just brief, firm but gentle insistence that it's bedtime. This might seem obvious, but logic is pretty fuzzy at 3:30am.

More pictures soon!

Decibel Test

The past few nights have been a little rough. Sadie is nursing a cold, so she hasn't been sleeping very well, and she ends up crying for loooooooooooong stretches. And Sadie's cry is especially pathetic so it's hard to do what we think is the right thing and let her fall back asleep on her own. Jake is still sleeping well, but now it takes twice as long to put him to bed because he can get up on his own and comes up with all these excuses like "I have to go potty" or "I need my truck" or "I just need to check CNN to see the primary results in South Carolina".

But last night, Sadie seemed to be feeling a little better, and actually took quite a few steps on her own. She went right down after her little workout -- and Jake went down on the first try! So, we enjoyed our 45 minutes of quiet before going to bed ourselves, and crossed our fingers that we'd have an uneventful night.

It turns out, there is something louder and more ear-piercing than Sadie's wailing. Wait for it, wait for it................a JACKHAMMER! That's right, at exactly 3:00am, we were awoken to the rattling of a jackhammer on our quiet little hilltop in Falls Church. There was a whole crew out there: front end loader, dump truck, generator truck, etc. We were so tired that we probably could have slept through a constant jack-hammering, but we weren't that lucky. They apparently had to cut 5,000 little holes in the street that involved all kinds of stop-start jack-hammering. It lasted over an hour. Luckily, and ironically, the kids slept through.

I guess it was a water main break. In the morning all our pipes had some air in them, and we saw evidence of a small river that must have flowed down the street.

Decibel levels (for comparison)

softest audible sound	0 dB
normal breathing	10 dB
whispering	25 dB
normal conversation	60 dB
dishwasher	65 dB
busy traffic	75 dB
noisy restaurant	80 dB
average factory	85 dB
screaming baby	90 dB
subway train	100 dB
power mower	105 dB
shouting in ear	110 dB
live rock music	90-130 dB
football stadium	117 dB
car horn	120 dB
jackhammer	130 dB
air raid siren	130 dB

Update to Big Boy Bed Update

Last night went a little more smoothly with Jake and his new bed. It still took a few tries to get him to stay in bed after story time, but Ali finally hit the jackpot with: "If you don't go to sleep, the sun won't come up tomorrow". We didn't hear from him again until about 7am, when he came running into our room and said "The sun came up!" Then he ran back into his room, and back and forth a few times, and then to the potty. He's still a little delirious with this new freedom of movement.

Here's a fuzzy cell phone picture from Ali and the kids' trip to the DC car show yesterday. Jake's favorite part was the off-road Jeep track they had set up. Here it is going through the fake water hazard.

Happy Friday!

Big Boy Bed Update

Wow, Jake is SO excited about his "new" bed. He can climb right in and out all by himself! The only problem is: he can climb right in and out himself. OK, it didn't go too badly, I guess. It took about four tries to get him to stay in bed after we finished reading stories last night, but he eventually fell asleep and we didn't hear from him again...........until 5:00am. He was wide awake and more excited than he was on Christmas morning. "I got out of my big boy bed!" After a couple of tries, he went back to sleep at around 6:00am. And then Sadie woke up 15 minutes later. Ah, sweet coffee....

Big Boy Bed

Ali just sent me this picture of Jake in his new "Big Boy Bed". His crib is somewhat convertible, in that the front side can be removed. It's a brave new world, Jake!

Haiku

Jake wants to stay up
Chinese visitors need sleep
Worst timing ever

Bath time

Ali and I have enjoyed almost two weeks of through-the-night sleeping. Ok, we both probably woke up once or twice expecting to hear a "wah" but were able to go back to sleep when we only heard crickets. It makes such a difference. I think the Army should develop Military Babies to keep enemy soldiers awake at night so they can't shoot straight the next morning. I'm sure it'd be much more effective that WMD. We've been enjoying our nights, but have almost been afraid to talk about them; afraid to jinx things. Well, I've been afraid to talk about it, anyway. I can't tell you how many times I've had a good nights' sleep and have said something about it to Ali the next morning only to hear that I slept through two separate 45 minute screaming fits from Sadie.

We've been working on making the bedtime routine consistent: bath, PJs, snack, TV, storytime, BED. Here's bathtime:

Here's Jake in his cowboy PJs. How can you resist his cuteness? You can't.

Nice day

It's a little bit cooler today, and I'm glad summer is finally starting to give way to fall. On top this beautiful weather, Ali brought the kids in to visit me at work today. It was story hour at the bookshop downstairs, but today they had little-kid yoga instead. It was just Jake and another little boy and when I walked in they were doing tree and lion poses.

Afterwards, we went out to Enjera for Eritrean food with Fred. If you like Ethiopian food, you'll love Eritrean food. Actually, it seemed to be identical to Ethiopian, but I didn't want to point this out since I think those two countries don't get along too well. They give you a giant piece of round, flat sourdough-y bread, with little piles of food on top. We had some lamb, chicken, beef, lentils, potatoes, etc. Then, they give you more of the bread that you use to scoop up the toppings. I think Jake was a little confused, although he did seem to like the spinach topping. But mainly he just went around to all the other tables and brought the salt and pepper shakers back to our table. Luckily we were the only ones in the dining room.

And the best news of all is that Sadie has been sleeping through the night for the past four nights!!! One night she woke up needing a diaper change and went right back to sleep, but other than that she's been going 11 or 12 hours!!! We're so excited we didn't want to even talk about it for fear of jinxing it.

Full Moon

We've been trying different things to help Sadie sleep longer at night, but tonight we have two secret weapons working for us. First, we ordered a Marpac Sleepmate 980A white noise generator, which just arrived this afternoon, and I'm really excited about. Marpac machines deliver electro-mechanically produced natural white noise as long as the switch is in the ON position. The Marpac 980A will replace our Chinese-made toys that repeat a short digital loop of white noise for about an hour and then shut off. We tried those, but Sadie obviously needs some American-made white noise. Yes, the Marpac 980A is made in America. I couldn't believe it either. When's the last time you bought something that plugged in, and was made in this country? I think the only other electronic device we have that was made in America is our 1977 Seeburg jukebox.

Anyway, the other secret weapon is tonight's full moon. I don't think anyone really understands all the different effects the moon and its gravity have on this planet, but I'm hoping that helping babies sleep is one of them. Maybe the gravity will help disrupt Sadie's rolling-over abilities and keep her from tumbling over and over into a corner of the crib and bonking her head and waking up.

Update: Here's a great shot of last night's full moon, from someone with a tripod and a lot more knowledge of photography than me.

Another update (8/1): Apparently the full moon counteracts the sleeping effects of the sound machine. Sadie is sleeping about 6 or 6 1/2 hours, but we're going to shoot for the magic number 8.

The Late Night Sadie Show

Sadie is fighting sleep tonight. She's sitting in front of me, in her little baby lounger, looking at me with wide-open eyes. I took her for a walk after Jake went to sleep, to give Ali a break. She was quiet in her stroller, but wide awake. We'd go for long dark stretches between street lights, where I could barely see her face and kept hoping she'd nod off. But every time the street light shone on her face again, there were those big open eyes staring back at me. For a while she even had her neck craned up as if she were trying to get a better look at her surroundings. Don't worry little Sadie, you won't miss anything if you go to sleep.....

Two of us want to sleep; two of us do not

We had a fun time playing outside after work tonight. The neighborhood kids were out and we threw footballs and basketballs and rode bicycles and played with sidewalk chalk and bubbles. Jake helped me grill some chili lime chicken burgers from Trader Joes (not bad) and then we relaxed on the couch to check up on our good friends Woody and Buzz. Jake leaned over and put his head on my shoulder and said "I love you daddy." Sadie was snuggled up on Ali's lap. We should have known things were too good to last.

I put Jake down to bed a few minutes after his 8pm bedtime. We read stories, and he seemed fine. But 10 minutes after I turned out the light we heard him calling for us. Ali went up to check on him and I took over walking Sadie around to get her to fall asleep. Upstairs, I heard a wide-awake Jake talking up a storm while Ali explained to him that it was bedtime. Downstairs, Sadie wasn't the least bit interested in sleep either.

Ali tried to put him down again, but he started screaming as soon as she left the room. We traded places and I went up to try again with him. Normally, Jake goes right down to bed after 10 minutes of stories, and we don't hear from him until morning. So, I thought maybe if I just ran through the process again, it would work this time. Nope. We even talked about all the other kids in the neighborhood:

"Where's Danny, Jake?"
"Night-nights."
"And where's "Liney?"
"Night-nights."
"So don't you think it's time for Jake to go night-nights?"
"No! Downstairs!"

I decided to turn out the lights and put him to bed again, knowing he'd let us know what he thought about that. And he did. Twenty-five minutes of blood-curdling screaming later, he finally passed out. Of course, when your kid is screaming (especially when it doesn't happen very often), every minute feels more like an hour. Meanwhile, Sadie was still refusing sleep, which leads me to believe that they must have planned this night together when we weren't paying attention.

I think everyone besides me is finally asleep now. And that's probably where I should be too.

Goodnight.

Sleep

It's not that I'd forgotten how a newborn can disrupt the sleep pattern-- I guess I just thought I'd be better able to handle it this time. But sleep is tough to do without, even if you're prepared for the lack of it. I read on a website that the average newborn results in the loss of 450-700 hours of sleep for the parents in the first year. That works out to about an hour and a half a night on average. That might not sound like much for those of you who don't have kids, but when that 1.5 hours is split up into, say, six 15 minute segments a night, the normal sleep cycle is disrupted in a way that quickly begins to affect the waking hours.

According to another website, the only organ that really needs sleep, as opposed to "relaxed wakefulness," is the brain. All other organs can rest and repair while you are awake and relaxing.

Sadie is sleeping pretty well for a newborn (and better than Jake did at her age), but she still wakes up to feed usually three times a night. A few nights we've been rewarded with just one feeding, but on other nights, an upset tummy has kept us up more than we've slept.

What I'm getting at, is that lack of sleep is really starting to give Jake the upper hand here, and I think he's starting to realize it.

He's got a little laugh that's somewhere right between the "Ah-Ha!" of Bob Wills and the sarcastic "Ha Ha" of Nelson from the Simpsons. He seems to use it to add punctuation to any little act to reminds us that in our current state of grogginess we are no match for his cunning.

If this chart is correct, and it must be since I found it on the internet, we should see some relief over the next month or two. Until then, if you haven't heard from for a few days, please contact Jake and ask him to untie us.