Christmas in a flash

My Christmas vacation has gone by too fast. I had a long list of things to do and finish, and very little has gotten checked off the list. Vacation started with Carson getting a nasty cold. Then Christmas Eve I got it and Cooper showed the feverish symptoms when we were in Oregon. After being short of sleep and a slow recovery, I've found some time to post our holiday pictures.

We celebrated Chrismas Eve at my parents and we opened gifts from my parents that night. Mom had made all the boys (even Tony) matching pajamas to wear that night. My dad made us ladies all hand-turned bowls with lids, and chocolate to fill them of course.

The boys all had a great time opening their gifts. Even Cooper got into his new toy book.

The boys all had matching shirts to wear for Christmas day. Cooper's blends in with my dad pretty well.

My dad made all the boys matching wooden bulldozers. Even Cooper got one! The boys used them to push around all the wrapping paper.

Such cuties!

The day after Christmas we headed to Oregon to celebrate with family in Corvallis. My grandma got the boys pillowpets, which they had been wanting!

My aunt got baby time and Cooper got into his new toys.

My tired boys.

Four generations of family.

Cooper got some really cute clothes from family.

First day of vacation, first day of sleep training

Yesterday was my first day of Christmas vacation, and also my first night of trying sleep training with Cooper. I never had to do much actual "sleep training" with my other boys. It was mostly wait until they slept through the night, which they did well on their own. Cooper is still up 2-3 times a night and Friday night was up 5-6 times. I've been so tired I've been falling asleep nursing in my chair the last few nights. He's been sleeping in the antique cradle in our room, but only has about 2 inches of room at the end when he's lying down and really has outgrown it. I feel bad that Tony hears every time Coop fusses and I get up, the squeaky chair I nurse in, the burps, belches, and squawks.
Sleep training? you ask! Right now I'm trying to get Cooper to sleep regularly in his crib. I'm hoping that the distance from me will give him more time to wake up and me more time to think about if he is really awake. Part of the waking up problem is that Cooper won't wake up completely to nurse and will just nurse a little bit. He doesn't want to burp after eating at night either. This makes him wake up an hour after eating to burp or spit up, which wakes me up. I've been really bad too about bringing Cooper to bed with me to snuggle and nurse. He LOVES snuggles and eats well snuggled up, but doesn't nurse so he is fussing just a little bit later.
Cooper slept both naps yesterday and most of last night in his crib. He slept a good two hour nap today and he's asleep in the crib now. I'm hoping if he can get used to sleeping upstairs then I can put the cradle away and move my nursing chair into Coop's room. It is a pain to go up stairs to get Cooper back to sleep, but I'm hoping we can slowly work from 3 times a night to one time a night by January 3rd when I go back to school. I would dearly love to be getting more sleep and longer stretches of it.
I'm not a fan of the "Cry It Out" method, though I did get to a point when I did it with my other boys. Maybe it's because Cooper's my third baby, but I've had more patience with him than ever with the other two. I haven't had to have Coop cry for an extended amount of time. I have been becoming more and more frustrated with the late sleepless nights recently though. Hopefully having two weeks off work and some time to sleep in and get naps will be a good time to get Cooper scheduled and get me some more sleep.

Four months (and one week) big!

Baby Cooper,

You are now a big four months old! Your personality is starting to show. You are still an easy going baby, but without a schedule. You love to sleep and snuggle with Mommy, so much you still don't sleep through the night! She is still up with you two or three times a night. I don't know if this is because you are just growing so fast you need the food, or you just miss me so much now that I'm back at work you need your Mommy time at night. Whatever the reason, please start sleeping longer than 2 hours (or less) at night! Mommy is back at work and is TIRED. You love our sitter though and seem to be doing well with me back at work. You have grown so much! At your dr's appointment this week you were 26 inches long (95%) and almost 15 pounds (50%). Daddy said the doctor was amazed at how strong you are.

You are no longer content to be set down somewhere and look around though, you want to be exercising those arms and legs! The exersaucer is your new favorite toy. You can jump and bounce as much as you want, and you've learned how to turn yourself around to reach all the neat things within reach. Your big brothers enjoy finding new toys to give you. They don't like that you show your appreciation for their toys by slobbering them up though. You haven't started teething yet (thank goodness) but the drool is flowing fast. Bibs have become part of your daily fashion now and you soak through them regularly.

You've gotten some new skills now that you are older too. You can roll over from your tummy to your back. You don't do this very often, but have done it enough we know it can be done. You have yet to roll from your back to your front, but you've come so close to doing it, I'm assuming you can and just haven't discovered it as a means of moving. You can also reach for things in front of you and of course put them to your mouth to taste them. That means you can find and insert your binky regularly!

Probably your favorite time of day, other than snuggling with me, is bath time. Cooper, you LOVE baths! Not only do you get to be naked, but you can kick and wiggle to your heart's content in the water. You don't even mind me washing your hair or splashing you! It is so fun to watch you enjoy bath time.
I am still amazed to watch how fast you are growing each day and know that soon you'll be moving fast to keep up with your big brothers.

Sledding Fun (Need I say more?)

Rainy Day Ramblings

I've been home from work for nearly five months now, and even though I told myself I would put more of myself into my posts, looking back, most of them have been quick updates with pictures. So I am taking a few minutes (complete with kid interruptions) on this rainy day to ignore the dishes, laundry, and toys, to reflect on thoughts that have been on my mind and I always thought I'd have time to write them all down. With only two weeks of my maternity leave, I'd better write them down quick.

Last week Cooper came with me to attend school conferences. Many of my former students and parents have been wanting to see Cooper, and it was a way to spend time with him and also get paid for attending conferences. My wonderful substitute held him the entire time and put him to sleep each time she held him. Even the crankiest parents couldn't keep their mad going with a cute, cuddly baby in sight. Most of the parents know that Cooper isn't my oldest child, but I was always asked if he was my oldest, how old my others were, etc... I'm always asked if I'm going to have more children or "try for a girl". Complete strangers have no problems admiring my adorable children and asking these personal questions. After battling with my mysterious infertility last year, I hated being asked these questions, and have tried not to ask other people these same irritating questions. Last week when I was out with just Cooper and was asked the usual series of questions and was told that I was too young to have a seven year-old! A stranger thought I was only 20 years old! I was wearing a hoodie sweatshirt and had my hair up in a ponytail.

Taking all three boys out to church, shopping, etc.. is so often overwhelming. It's not just keeping track of all three or keeping Cooper content, but the effort involved in keeping the peace and settling arguments in a reasonable manner in public. Having all three boys with me does get me lots of help from strangers though. I'm always asked if I need help carrying things out to the car or an extra set of hands. Some people even are extra nice and let me go ahead of them in line. The boys earned lots of compliments about how polite and well behaved they were this last week grocery shopping.

This fall I have learned about the flip-side of homework. As a teacher I have always assigned homework and have rationalized that all students can do the work I assign, it just might take some a little more time or focus than others. Colten has regular homework this year as a first grader. I always figured that I would be able to help my own kids enjoy school and see the importance of doing homework. I was determined that all my boys would be good students and homework just takes some practice to memorize and study. Colten loves school: recess, PE, music, math, and science; but he really struggles with reading and writing. I requested Colten's teacher this year not because she was the cool teacher to have, but because she was supposed to be a really strong reading teacher and I wanted all the help Colten could get. Little did I know how much help Colten would be needing at home! It is incredibly tough to motivate him to be interested in practicing his vocabulary words and I've had to get creative in how to help him remember words and spelling. Even with all my extra help and motivation (m&ms) Colten still continues to struggle with his reading and writing.

School was always easy for me and I was motivated by the need to learn new things. Carson is the same way I am, see, memorize, and love every minute of it. Colten is good at sounding out short words, but the English language has more exceptions than rule followers with words. This means that Colten is guessing most of the words he should know by sight and leads to lots of frustration. He can read a word correctly on one page, but not remember it again on a different page. He is good at using context clues (pictures) and inserting words he knows to make the sentence make sense. Good for pleasure reading but bad for timed homework reading. Being the homework "doer" at home makes me look at the work I assign students and wonder at the frustrations expressed by their parents. I've had to re-think my philosophy that all homework is possible, sometimes it just takes practice. Sometimes it takes more than just practice. With Colten and I, it takes knowing we've done the best we can with our antsy, anti-homework child and no amount of extra time or practice will make that 80% and 100%. Frustrating, but certainly eases the battles at the dining table. Now I need to find a way to get Colten to enjoy doing his homework and stop being so antsy.

three months old!

Dear Cooper,
You are three months old today! This last month has gone by especially fast. You have grown even more and are now wearing size 6-9 months clothes, and some of those are getting small fast. You haven't got a predictable schedule yet, but you are sleeping at least two naps a day and most of the night and for longer times. Getting all that sleep makes you very alert when you are awake. You really like to sit up and watch what everyone around you is doing. Watching us eat and your brothers playing is the most entertaining for you. Your bouncy seat (that you're too big for) and the swing no longer work to keep you happy. You are most interested in your play mat and changing table mobile. You like to kick your legs and you've gotten hand control so now you can reach out, grab, and then pull your hands to your mouth. This makes nursing interesting as you love to reach out and grab my shirt and pull on it. You will do this with just about everything.
Cooper, darling, I know you still hate the car seat, but at least the toys and big brothers keep your screaming to a minimum. You still love being held in loving arms and snuggled most of all. The K'Tan is still your favorite method of being carried, but my favorite time together is the snuggles I get each morning when I let you sleep cuddled up with me. I'm fine with less sleep and I'm savoring each minute of cuddles I get.

Halloween

This year I was in charge of pumpkin carving so we managed to get them cleaned and carved quick when Cooper was asleep.

Carson wanted a scary face and Colten wanted a happy face for their pumpkins. Their choices so suit their individual personalities it is very tell of who is the happy-go-lucky child and who is the manipulative one!

My boys have always been older (and much bigger) for Halloween so I was trying to come up with a costume for Cooper to wear. I wasn't about to buy one that would only be worn for a few hours, so my aunt gave me this. It was a little big (6-9 mos size), but it was a cute cowboy outfit. It even had little boots but they kept falling off.

All of us went to a Halloween party. Tony used the chef costume he's had for years and has yet to return to his friend. I was myself, a busy mom, in my pj's, hair in curlers, shower cap, and slippers. It went well with the baby, burp rag, and spit up.

We did buy Colten's costume this year. The first one we bought was a Darth Vader costume, but that was returned after reviewing his school's costume rules and we got spidy instead. (more positive character). It looks good in the pictures, but I am not likely to buy costumes again. It was very thin material and sized totally wrong, not to mention so poorly sewn it was falling apart after being worn to school. Next year I (or most likely my mom) will have to pull out the sewing machine.

My mom did make Carson's costume. He wanted to be a bat. It was really simple, really cute, and he now has the sweats to wear after Halloween. He had to be a farmer for his preschool party, but had a great time being a bat for the parties.