Always with me...

Last night I was blessed. I fell asleep quite quickly considering my prior post. Then the blessing occurred. I dreamed about Sherman ALL NIGHT LONG. God is so good. He sent me the presence that I was longing for the most through the entire night. I slept well and awoke this morning feeling relaxed, refreshed and reconnected to my little man. Thank you for that blessing.

Alone

I sit here tonight in a completely empty house for the first time in almost 13 years of marriage. J and Ivan are at J's parent's house for the night. His parents live about 2 1/2 hours from us and I sent the boys there without me for once. It's been a wonderful, busy and somewhat stressful summer and I needed a little time to myself. Dad's surgery was tough and his hospital recovery was even tougher, but thank the good Lord he is home now and on the mend. He is getting stronger by the day. Ivan participated in swim team for the first time this summer, so many of my days were filled with swim practice and Tuesday evenings were full of the swim meets themselves. Not to mention two sessions of VBS (both execellant). Now the count-down to Kindergarten has begun. Just a little over two weeks until my little man is off to "big boy school". That, however, is for a different time.

Tonight I have enjoyed the silence, the selfish TV time and a good dinner from one of my favorite resturants (and my favorite pino griogio too!). Now, I am off to bed...alone. This is the part of the evening I have not been looking forward to. Not only is J not here to snuggle with but there will be no Sherman at the side of the bed to make me feel safe. When J used to travel for business and I spent many an evening alone, I always had Sherman with me. He would typically (in the old house) stay not under our bed as he usually did when J was home, but he would sleep in his chair that sat right by the front door. Therefore making me feel safe...since no one could get to me without encountering Sherman first. I know that God is in this house protecting me and in a way Sherman is too. However, it still feels a little weird as I am about to crawl into bed knowing that I am totally alone for the first time in my entire married life.

My favorite time of the day...

is 7 AM or thereabout. That is the time of day when Ivan comes and climbs in bed with me and we snuggle for a few minutes before we get up and get on with our day. J leaves for work at about 6:15 in the morning - way before I am ready to get up unless I have to. Ivan usually wakes up about 7 and runs into our room and climbs in bed with me. When it is cold he pretends to "steal" my heat by tickling me and I in-turn "steal" it back by tickling him. It's those precious fifteen minutes that make my day.

Why won't he sleep?

I have been through this several times now with Ivan, so why is it still so upsetting?

Ivan is still napping for an hour to an hour and half every day. I put him in his bed and tell him that he does not have to go to sleep, but that he needs to have some quiet time. He goes to sleep almost every day. At bedtime however, he stays awake until J and I go to bed and sometimes long after. Like last night for instance...he was wide awake at midnight. I finally went in there and yelled at him that he needed to be quiet and go to sleep. Not the way I really want to end our day. Then this morning he did not want to get up and it took me 10 minutes or more to get him out of bed. He had preschool this morning so it was imperative that he get up and get going in a timely manner.

He napped again this afternoon and I am planning on putting him to bed early because he is a basket-case from being so tired. I am at my wits end about this and I just don't know what to do to get him to sleep.

I will admit that there is a part of me that thinks getting rid of nap time is the answer but then there is a part of me that needs for him to nap, so that I get a midday break. Perhaps the answer is to give him a real quiet time and not do it in his bed. I'm just not quite sure how to make that happen. This parenting thing is tough and I just hope that I am on the right track.

Insomniac...

I don't know what is going on in my house, but no one is sleeping...including Sherman. The fact that Ivan goes in "sleep phases" is nothing new, but this total wacko sleep cycle (if you can even call it a cycle) is baffling me completely. Here is what's been going on here lately:


First we moved to a our new house about three weeks ago. Ivan hasn't seemed to skip a beat since the move...everything has been normal until very recently.


We have been semi-intensely working on Potty Training the last two weeks. By semi-intensely I mean we talk about using the potty ALL the time, Ivan sits on the potty several times throughout the day, he has pee peed in the potty on some occasions and he has worn his "big boy pants" a few times with only one accident (and it was a huge mess - thankfully on the kitchen floor and no where else).


To add to all that Ivan has finally bitten a hole into his final bah bah (pacifier). When we moved he had four bahs left and when he would hand me one that had been bitten through I would inform him that when he bit through the last one, there would be no more. The other night he handed me the final bah (with a tiny hole bitten through the tip) and said "No!". Ivan has only been using his bah bahs at nap and night night for about a year and half now, but they are somewhat of a security item for him so we will see how the "loss" of them affects him and his sleep.

Funny, when I write all of this out it seems somewhat obvious why he hasn't been sleeping too well. The little guy's world is changing so fast.

*****Edited to add*****
J put Ivan to bed last night at 7:15 and we never heard a peep. J put me to bed at 9:45 and never heard a peep. It is currently 7:50 AM Tuesday morning and Ivan is still asleep...hopefully this will put him back on track and the rest of us as well. We shall see!

He Even Says It In His Sleep...

A few months ago I wrote about Ivan's favorite new word. Last night I woke-up around midnight and heard Ivan mumbling through the monitor. Quickly his mumbling ceased and I heard a resolute "No, Mommy!" I laid there and chuckled to myself...he even tells me no in his dreams!

He's such a little character.

WOW! That was timely...

I am going to save myself some typing here and just say that Amy could have been me in this post.With a few minor exceptions, that describes my life for the past few weeks. Now that I read Moxie's answer it is all starting to make a little more sense. Ivan's spoken vocabulary has increased quite a bit lately. Ever since Christmas he has been more and more willing to use his words as opposed to his signs and gestures to communicate. Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about how huge this is for him. There have been a few times when I have heard him practicing a new word in his bed (uh-oh for instance). It’s not every time that he is awake, but it does happen from time to time.

Unfortunately, last night was a REALLY rough night in our house. J put Ivan to bed at his normal time and I thought that Ivan would conk out immediately. He was exhausted and even told Daddy that he didn’t want to read a book (one of his favorite activities). He was ready to go night night. Well, after about twenty to thirty minutes of being quiet, he started to jump around in his crib. J went in and addressed it. Then another twenty to thirty minutes passed and he was at it again. J addressed it again and all was quiet for awhile. Then we heard him cough a couple of times and it sounded odd, so I went in. He asked for a change and that was that…for a little while. He was up jumping until well after 1 AM. I finally went in there and told him to knock it off and then just turned the monitor off so that I could sleep.

He is napping now. A really hard nap too...going on 2.5 hours. I am about to go wake him up. This is not the first time that this has happened and I am starting to get a little bit concerned.