After Bath Body Oil

1 part vitamin E oil
1 part jojoba oil
a few drops of tea tree oil

combine and apply after showering.

Can't sleep, Shouldn't get up

So it seems as though I can't get out of bed in the morning if I wake up too early and can't go back to sleep. Why? Because I will wake the baby and annoy my husband. Life is grand.

I'm going to try this email blogging thing...

Evidentally, I can post pictures this way. I'll have to try it out. I wonder if I can post video too???

bloging doesn't work for logging

So my brilliant idea of blogging to keep track of eating, sleeping and pooping was actually a terrible idea. I tried to transfer everything to a log spreadsheet and it just doesn't track. there are way too many holes. I'm going to need to work out a better system. Bummer. blogging is so much more fun. Spreadsheets are very limited. I guess the good thing is that anyone can fill in the spreadsheet log. Maybe I need to make a form. Thats it! A form. So I'll kill a few trees. I guess that's the price you pay for good logging.

on a side note, mariah woke up at 9 and went back to sleep after like 15 minutes (I think she was just scared) and then kate woke up at 6 - again, i think she was scared. i have two frady cat daughters. Im sure it's my fault.

Picky Eater???

All of the sudden Mariah is becoming a picky eater. Could it possibly have something to do with this four day rotation diet? All she really wants to do is eat what we're eating. She's turning her nose up at the babyfood - all except the fruit of course...

Can't keep up!

Ok, so where did we leave off.

Monday

Woke up after a full night of sleep for Mariah - unfortunately, now Kate is starting to have issues with going to sleep again. Back to the grindstone with sleep training on her end.

Food for the day:
Barley
Sweet Potatoes
Corn
Apples

Tuesday
Another full night of sleep for Mariah! New disturbing trend Kate woke up once and didn't want to go back to sleep by herself.

Food for the day:
Quinoa
Peaches
Green Beans and Butternut squash

Mariah took two really short naps during the day and I think this is a trend. If she doesn't sleep too long (less than an hour and a half) in the afternoon, she sleeps through the night. We're going to keep working on that.

Wednesday
Another full night of sleep for Mariah. Kate had a hard time going to sleep. It took her about an hour. Again, Kate woke up to go to the bathroom and then wanted me to sing to her. I didn't do it right so she screamed I left. Ken went in and told her to stop screaming and then sang to her. I explained why I thought that was a bad precedent to set. Hopefully we'll be able to stop this in the next few days.

Food for the day:
Oatmeal
Apples and Cherries
Spinach and Potatoes

I have this feeling this morning that things are returning to normal though. I took Mariah with me to drop Kate off at school in our new Prius (yay!). Mariah fell asleep on the way home. I put her in bed. When I got back Jackie was organizing toys in Kate's room. More later

Oops - missed a few

Ok, so we had a few rough days and a few rough nights leading up to Kate's birthday party. Here's the low down on Mariah's eating and sleeping:

Thursday
Up for one hour in the middle of the night Wednesday night
Woke up at 7ish

Had Barley, Pears and Sweet Potatoes for the day

Took a 45 minute nap in the stroller. Took a super long nap in the afternoon had a really hard time putting her down in the evening.

Friday
Woke up once at 4ish and went back to sleep at 6ish
Woke up around 8:30

Had Quinoa, Peaches, Green Beans and Butternut squash for the day

Didn't take a morning nap, had a bottle at 12:30 and then didn't eat lunch. Was fine at dinner at the grove (gave her little pieces of my french fries because she was really adamant about eating with us). Went to sleep easily, but kept waking up. I eventually took her back to bed with me because I needed sleep.

Saturday (Kate's birthday!)
Slept ok in bed with me.
Woke up at 7ish

Had oatmeal, apples and apricots and spinach and potatoes for the day. She also had gluten free arrowroot cookies=not sure how many because her grandmothers were feeding them to her.

Took a good morning nap, didn't go down for her afternoon nap until like 3:30 or so. Woke up after like half an hour and was a total disaster. Had a really really hard time going to sleep - but she slept until 7:45 which is when I opened her door to get her to wake up so that I could make sure that we all get naps today!

Another marginal night

TUESDAY NIGHT: I really don't remember much except that when Kate woke up calling out for Ken at 5am asking for help putting her cape on (yes she's totally obsessed with the new purple cape), I remember thinking "was Mariah up all night or was that just a dream... it must have been a dream because I don't feel that bad." After getting a recount of the events of the evening from Ken, I learned the truth. Mariah woke up at 12:30 and between then and 1:15 Ken went back and forth between our room and hers putting her back to sleep, sometimes not needing to pick her up and sometimes rocking her. She did cry out one more time at 1:17, but then she put herself back to sleep. Yay! (I guess).

Everyone was up around 7:30. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATE!

Mariah's Wednesday Diet:
Millet
Blueberries (and apples)
Peas
Carrots

Mariah fell asleep in the car on the way home from dropping Kate off at school with her fruit and yogurt parfait "cake" that she will share with her friends for her special birthday snack. There was a new girl in class today with her mom and she remembered Kate's name when she walked in and said "That's Kate!" This is encouraging. Hopefully, the kids in the class are getting to a level where they will be interacting with her more so that she'll start talking about how she plays with the other kids in the class and not just the teachers. Kate walked into class this morning and walked right up to Teacher Leora and said "I got a new bike!" She's riding it like a pro around the house. I can't wait to get her outside.

The rest of the morning was rather lack luster. I ended up doing pretty much nothing except making 4 signs for the party and wandering around wondering where to start. Ken took me out for Jamba Juice to cheer me up. Then he went out and picked Kate up. She was a little out of control so I helped her calm down for her nap with a book. Of course I ended up falling asleep with her. Jackie came home from the park with Mariah at around 1:30 I think. Mariah cried a little but not too much. She was able to put herself to sleep.

The afternoon was fun with presents, and bike rides and making cake. We concluded with a birthday dinner, presents and what ended up being a late bed time for everyone. I think Mariah had two POOPS today. She ate well at dinner, only had about 4 ounces of formula this evening and then about 2 of the 6 ounces of chamomile tea and formula before bed. The castor oil massage was short because she was so tired and grumpy. She had some trouble settling down because she was over tired and she did fuss a little at about 9:30 but she was able to go back to sleep. Kate was really wound up but eventually fell asleep at around 10:00.

All in all, I think Kate had a good birthday. I'm hopeful that Mariah will sleep through the night and that Ken will wake up feeling better in the morning (did I mention he thinks his hernia is back?? - how frustrating for him).

We thought the third night might be the charm...

Ken and I actually got decent nights sleeps for two nights in a row and thought for sure we had a third and wham! We didn't the funny thing is that I actually feel better this morning that I did yesterday or the day before. Go figure.

MONDAY night:
both kids down at their normal bed time (7:45 and 8:30)
Kate wakes up at 2:09 to pee - nothing out of the ordinary
Mariah wakes up at 3:30 and stands up in bed crying - I go in and pick her up she goes right back to sleep. I plop her back in the crib and cover her with her blankie and leave.
Mariah wakes up again at 5:30 and stands up in bed crying - Ken's dead asleep so I wake him up and ask him to take this one (I got both Kate and Mariah so far) He does with no complaint.

6:41 Mariah wakes up and is talking to herself in bed - POOP (but not huge) and the diaper is leaky. 6:50 Kate starts calling for me. "Moooooommmmyyy, Moooommmmmmyyyy." "What is it Kate." "My boo boo is all better!" GOOD MORNING TUESDAY! They're both happy - that makes everything much easier.

Today starts the first day of Mariah's new Naturopathic healthcare routine. We're going to limit her variety daily and rotate it for four days. Today is Oatmeal, Apples, Spinach and Potatoes.

Breakfast: Applesauce with cinnamon and oatmeal
Nap: 9:00-9:50
Lunch: Spinach and Potatoes with Oatmeal and Cinnamon Applesauce
Nap: 1:20-3:20
Bottle: 3:30 (took a long time to finish it)
Dinner: Spinach, Potatoes and Oatmeal and apple chuncks. Didn't eat well except the apple chuncks. I think she really just wants to feed herself.
8:15: Asleep (soundly) it was a late night with all of the excitement surrounding Kate's pre birthday dinner.

Jackie said she pooped for her twice so that would be a total of 3 poops today! I think she's been on a roll with that lately.

Kate had a great night. Grammie Lynnie got her a two wheel (with training wheels) bicycle and she mastered it in about 20 minutes and spent the next hour zipping around the house (on her bicycle!) cutting corners too close and running Rosie over. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries. She also got a purple leopard cape from Grammy T that she had to take with her to bed for her nap she was so excited about it. To even things out, we opened Mariah's TWO ride on toys from Hanukkah and Christmas. We were only going to keep one, then we were going to open one now and one later and then all of that was given up to try both out. So now, we have in our diningroom a ride on giraffe, a ride on elmo musical bus thingy (with a tight suspension), a radio flier walker, a bicycle and I think a doll stroller too. So much for keeping the toys in their rooms and out of the livingroom. I dont know how our neighbors do it. I guess they just dont over do it on the toys - or maybe they just do a better job at getting rid of stuff.

One Whole Month

Of not sleeping, being sick and the holidays. Oh Joy. I'm emerging on the other side, and now I've been charged with keeping a log. I've decided to do it here so that I can actually make time to keep track of the fun stuff and not just the eat, sleep, poop stuff.

Funny things that have happened lately:

Last night after pretending to be a train for a while I announced it was time for Mariah's bath. Kate was visibly disappointed. I asked her if she'd like to take the train to have a bath with Mariah. She was quite pleased. In the bath I convinced Kate to show Mariah how she can blow bubbles in the water. Mariah laughed so hard, I thought she was going to poop. Her whole face was red. She was as Kate would say "hysterical". Kate's new favorite word is scrumptious. She learned it on Sesame Street.

Kate loves to feed Mariah except that Mariah spits her food out to make Kate laugh. Its funny and irritating all at the same time...

I know there are more but my brain is non functional.