Own Room

Nicoley finally has a room of her own. I finished cleaning out the office last week, but Dan was still sick, so I didn't want to move Nicole out of the room until Dan felt better because he is very attached to her.

So, as soon as Dan started feeling better, I just did it. I vacuumed out the office, and started moving furniture. Matt did most of the heavy lifting, but I supervised.

It is a small little room, but I think it works quite well for a little kids bedroom because they don't really need that much space.

The room from the door. Nicole is getting ready for bed here.

Nicoley in her bed. I am going to get new bedding for her probably for Christmas since her bedding is all mismatched.

View of the "closet" that is behind the door.

Cole's toy box and dresser. This was the day she moved in and she had already scattered toys. Sigh.

I really thought that it would be a difficult transition for Nicole to go to her own room. Every other sleeping transition that we have done up to this point has been really awful, so I assumed that this would be the same. But, it turns out that this was the best plan ever!

Nicoley wasn't scared of the downstairs like I thought she would be, she wasn't lonely without Dan like I thought she would be, and she didn't freak out like I thought she would.

The first night, she just went into her room like it was a new adventure and she did her usual thing where she comes out of her room a few times, but it was actually less than she usually does and it was actually easier than most nights.

Dan, actually freaked out more then Nicole did. When he went into his room and saw that Nicole's bed was gone, he panicked and started running over the place where the bed used to be and yelling and looking at me with frantic face. So, we put the love sac where the bed was and then he calmed down. I guess he didn't like the empty space.

Bed time has become so much easier since we moved Nicole downstairs. Nicole can be louder and sing to herself and cry and we don't have to worry about her waking up Dan. I think waking up Dan was stressing her out because she told me that she didn't have to worry about waking up Dan when she sang to herself in her bed.

Nicole is actually going to sleep earlier than she used to. She was staying up until 10:30 or 11pm every night (and keeping Dan up with her). But now, she is asleep most every night by 9:30pm. Which I realize is still late for a three year old, but it is better then it was.

Dan is sleeping SO much better. We put him down at 7pm, we shut the door and then he just sleeps through the night until 7am the next morning. It is amazing! Nicole isn't waking him up and he is actually sleeping so much better.

Making this move was an excellent decision. I didn't think that we would ever use the downstairs room as a bedroom because it was far away from us and it was so small, but it is just right for her. She likes having her own space and she especially likes that she can go in her room, shut the door, and keep Dan out. I think that this will also make it a lot easier when we finally move Dan to a big boy bed (not for another 6 months though).

Not all of our bedtime problems are solved. She still cries, and comes out of her room, and uses a pacifier. But, because she is downstairs, it doesn't seem to bother me as much because it is so far from my room that I don't have to hear it as much. We will have to baby steps to the perfect bed time. If such a thing exists.

Happy Boy

I love this boy. And he is growing up too fast! Be a baby longer!

He Just Can't Leave It Alone

Every time the bathroom door is open, Dan does not miss the chance to go into the bathroom and get into the toilet. I don't know why he loves playing with the toilet so much, but he sure does, and it is gross.

He sure is happy about what he did though.

Apparently, the toilet needed to be moisturized. Please ignore my toes in this pic.

Company Party!

These are hurdles, but they were too big for Cole to go over, so she went under.

 A couple of weeks ago, my company had its summer party. I helped to plan this party and it was a LOT of work to set up, but in the end it turned out really well. The theme for the party was Olympics and we planned and set up a lot of games for kids and adults to play that were Olympic-esque.

We had Hurdles, and a Javelin throw that were made from pool noodles. We had an equestrian course for kids to do with stick ponies. You can see the course in the left side of the picture above. There was limbo, water gun marksmanship, nerf gun archery, bicycle and tricycle courses, soccer, croquet, bacci ball, ring toss, bowling, volleyball, rock band, just dance, bounce houses, basketball, duck wading pools, and dodgeball. Like I said, it was a LOT of work to put together and set up. I obviously didn't do it alone, I was just one of the people planning and setting up.

 The kids loved it! They loved playing on the bounce houses and getting prizes for the courses. But, in true fashion, the things my kids loved the most was not all the fun things that were planned, it was the playground. They just wanted to play at the playground at the park.

 Dan did love the tricycle course even though he didn't actually know how to use the pedals.

My favorite part of the party was the food. Some guys at work smoked pork, turkey, and sausage for the food and it was awesome. I wish I could have enjoyed the food more, but because I'm a parent, dinner was spent trying to control the kids and eat as fast as I could.

The company party was a lot of fun. I love free parties, free food, and free stuff. Unfortunately, we missed Adobe's company party this year because Matt works the graveyard shift only on the weekends and by the time Matt read his email at work, the party had already occurred. Curses!

Hand Foot and Mouth Baby

Dano at the doctor on day 2

 Dano and Coley had Hand Foot and Mouth this weekend. While most kids get sores on their hands and feet, but my kids just had sores in their mouth and had outrageously high fevers.

 My poor Dano had a hard time of it. His mouth hurt so bad that he was refusing food and drink. I kept forcing small amounts of water into his mouth to keep him hydrated, he screamed and cried like I had injured him. My poor little baby.

I took him to the doctor on Monday because he hadn't needed a diaper change in 20 hours (that is bad). He was so lethargic and whiny and wouldn't leave my lap. I felt so bad for my little man.

It is really hard being a Mommy with a sick little kid. It breaks my heart every time they are sick and I feel helpless to make them feel better.

Today, Dano started feeling a little better. He finally began drinking and eating. I know his mouth still hurts because he still cries when he puts things in his mouth, but he is on the upside of things, thankfully.

Ignore the fact that I look awful in this picture. I was going off of only two hours of sleep and I hadn't yet showered.

Nicole's Drawings

Nicole has been really into drawing lately and she is getting better and better. Her drawings used to just be scribbles on the page with the occasional circle here and there. But then she surprised us the other day and started drawing objects and people.

Self portrait

 Family Portrait: Mommy, Dan, Daddy, and Nicole. Notice that Matt is bald but the rest of us have hair?

Flower (I didn't flip the picture)

Bottle

Dan

I showed her an example yesterday of how to draw a body and she got it right away and drew a picture of Dan with a body. She is doing awesome.

It may not look impressive to the untrained eye, but it is amazing to see your child who barely knew how to hold a writing utensil into making pictures with shapes and people. I didn't even teach her how to draw hair, she just figured it out.

Hand Foot and Mouth

Last night, Nicole and Dan both fell asleep before 8pm. I thought it was a miracle! I thought that I was the luckiest mom in the world to get kids who were asleep so early. No such thing as a luckiest mom.

Nicole got out of bed at 9:30pm and came into our room. I was going to send her back to bed, but Matt wanted hugs and snuggles, so Nicole hopped into bed with Matt for snuggles and Matt said, "She feels like lava."

I pulled out the thermometer and took her temp... 103.9!

Thank goodness Matt wanted a hug before bed otherwise I would have sent my fever girl back to bed to boil there.

I knew that Nicole's cousin, Lindy, had Hand Foot and Mouth last week so we knew that the kids had been exposed, but I was really hoping that the kids would avoid getting it. Alas that I am not the luckiest mommy in the world.

Nicoley had said that her throat hurt while she was eating dinner, but I thought that it was another one of her tactics that she uses to get out of eating dinner. But, her throat really did hurt. I shined a flashlight in her mouth and she has little sores on her throat. Poor girl!

We immediately got fever reducer into Nicole and then put her into a cool bath. She did not like the cool bath, but she was so brave! She sat shivering in the cool water, letting us pour more water down her head to cool her off and she didn't cry.

I told Nicole while she was sitting in the bath, "Nicoley, I'm so sorry that you are sick."

Nicole said back to me, "It is okay Mommy, I forgive you."

She is so cute! It just breaks my heart when my little one is sick. The bath and meds got her fever down to 101, which was acceptable enough to get her out of the cold bath.

Nicoley stayed in our room until 11pm when she declared that she wanted to go back to bed. She went and was quiet and fell asleep.

I checked her this morning and she was fevering at 103 again this morning. Ugh! I hate Hand Foot and Mouth!

Unfortunately, Hand Foot and Mouth is a virus, so there is nothing we can do but wait it out. No reason to go to the doctor unless the fevers get unmanageable. So, Matt will keep her hydrated and let her eat a lot of popsicles, and hopefully, this thing will pass quickly.

Night Time Awfulness

So, remember when I had to retrain Nicole to sleep a few months ago? Remember how we reintroduced naps to stop the night time tantrums? Some how, all the work and weeks that went in to training her has regressed. Bedtime is once again, really difficult.

I don't know if I've changed or she has, but I once again dread bedtime. Here is what is going on.

7pm: I put Daniel down to sleep because he is super tired.
Then, I spend one-on-one time with Nicole so that she gets the attention that she needs before she goes off to bed.
7:30pm: Nicole goes potty, brushes teeth, says prayers and heads to bed where Dan is already asleep (he is my good little sleeper)
7:35pm: Nicole comes out and tells me she doesn't know how to sleep. I send her back to bed.
7:45pm: Nicole comes out and says that she needs something (literally, she says, "Mommy, I need something." She never specifies because she doesn't actually need anything)
7:50pm: Nicole starts crying for no reason and wakes up Dan.
8pm: Nicole is tugging Dan through the crib bars trying to keep him awake so that he will play with her and keep her awake too.
8:05pm: I take Dan into my room, put him in the playpen and leave my room so that poor baby boy can get some sleep.
8:10pm: Nicole comes out crying, asking when I am going to come and check on her. I send her back in bed and tell her it isn't time yet.
8:20pm: Nicole comes out again and asks for a drink.
8:30pm: Nicole comes out again and asks for two hugs and two kisses and then Matt comes home and Nicole comes out again to get kisses from Daddy.
Repeat with Nicole coming out every 5-20 minutes until 11pm at night!

She is driving me crazy! She won't sleep. She forces herself to stay up late until she crashes. This was happening back in March and April, which is why we cut out her nap in the first place. We hoped that being tired would make her go to bed earlier (logical right?) but is just caused the tantrums and the throwing up and the peeing her pants. And now, we are back where we started with her staying up WAY late and Dan getting woken up and my room turning in to Dan's room so I can't go to bed even though I'm tired and I have to get up at 6am. I'm going crazy. I can't take it anymore.

Bedtime should not be this hard!!! Bedtime should be a wonderful thing where my children sleep and I get at least 30 minutes alone with my Matt before I pass out from exhaustion because I never get to see him as it is with school and work. Bedtime should be a glorious time when I get to sleep because sleep is awesome. Why does she fight sleep? Doesn't she know how awesome it is? I'm constantly wanting more of it, why doesn't she want it too?

I was pushed beyond my point of tolerability the other day and I declared, "That's IT this has gone on long enough! You are getting your own room!" Now, lets do a quick recap of my house. We have two good size bedrooms upstairs. Mine, and the kids bedroom. Then, downstairs we have one small room that we have been using as an office because it is the width of a twin bed and the length of a long dining room table. It doesn't have a closet, but rather some little shelves and is in the basement. 

So, in order for Nicole to have her own room, I have to clean out my little office (which has become our dumping ground for all the things that we wanted to keep but don't have a place). So, I started that night, I had had enough of the bedtime nightmare that is putting Nicole to bed.

First order of business, where am I going to put all the crap that lives in the office? So, I started finding places for things (Matt helped because a lot of it is computer stuff and I am lost when it comes to that). And I started boxing up things, and I filled our trunk with things that we were holding onto, but we don't really need and probably will never use so that we could give it to DI. And I am happy to say that with the exception of the computer table (which Matt needs to disassemble and put in the garage) that room is cleared. It only took me three days to get it cleared. I'm proud of me.

Nicole WILL be moving in to her own room as soon as I can figure out how to disassemble her bed and move it downstairs.

I don't know if this will solve my problems with Nicole. But, I do know that Dan will sleep better and I won't have to hear her crying and her staying up until 11pm quite so much because she will be farther from me.

This may cause all sorts of other problems because Nicole is afraid of... everything, but I don't care! I have to do something or go crazy and this is the only thing I could think of.

I'll take pictures when I finally get her moved into the new room.

I Hate Word Verification

Has anyone else noticed that the word verifications on blogger have gotten more complicated and more difficult?

It used to be that they offered you letters in italics and you just had to retype them. Then, they started doing letters in italics and letters that kind of over lap each other. And now, they are doing a picture of numbers and then letters that overlap each other.

And I just have to say... I'm really bad at the word verifications. I can't read the stupid letters. I am really bad at it. When I make a comment on someone's blog, it usually takes me 4-7 times to get the stupid word verification right.

Here are some examples of ones that I got wrong...

I am really bad at these and I just wish that they would go away. Why must I verify that I'm not a robot? And why are they so stinking hard to read?

Another thing I am bad at... Indexing. Has anyone ever tried the indexing program that the LDS church has? Basically, you read lists of names of people from boat manifests, registered voters, or census documents and guess what you think the name is that is written. These are hard to read because they are old, hand written, in cursive, or in type that has smugged or faded.

I am really really bad at reading these. First of all, I don't read cursive very well. I can't write cursive and I can barely read it because I have been doing print for so  long and mostly I just type, so I haven't really used cursive since elementary school. Momma Kimball always writes in cursive and loves to give me notes and cards and I can't read them. Matt reads them for me. Yes, I know, there is something wrong with me.

So, when it comes to indexing, I am really bad because I can't read cursive. My mom is awesome at indexing and she has actually become the verifying person who sees what multiple people have guessed for a name and decides who is right. She is from the generation of cursive.

In conclusion, I don't want to verify words anymore! And, I don't want to read cursive anymore! Why can't everyone else conform to my needs?