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sharing

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I’m not sure illness is what I have in mind when I teach my girls about sharing.

Munchkin has been sick off and on since Halloween but it was just a runny nose with the occational cough;  Peanut had a runny nose.  Nothing alarming.

Sunday night, Munchkin was up most of the night coughing.  This translates to Mommy and Daddy being up most of the night.  I woke up (if you can call it that) Monday morning with a cough and a sore throat; took some lozenges and headed out to work.

Last night, Munchkin, Peanut and I headed out to the walk-in clinic associated with our doctors office.  Surpisingly there was’t any line up! Oh, and there was a chalk board to keep the kiddies entertained while I flled in the forms since this was our first visit there.

Got in to the room, waited a few minutes and the doc arrived.  Munchkin went first.  I explained the history while the doc checked her ears, throat and chest.  Ears and throat were all clear.  Doc guessed that the length of sickness may have been due to back to back viral colds.   For her lingering cough she prescribed 2 inhalers to help her lungs finish healing.  Easy enough.

Peanut was up next.  Same routine.  Exept Peanut has an ear infection so she gets 10 days of antibotics.

As for me, normally I would just have taken some OTC meds and dealt with it, but since we were there, I had the doc check me too.  She didn’t like the look of my throat and swabed for strep.  Great.

Here’s where the fun begins.  The “quick” strep test that they do at the office takes 5 mintues.  At 6:40pm at night, 20 mintues to bedtime, 5 mintues is not quick.  To keep Peanut from playing with the phone and Munchikin from exploring every drawer in the office, we sang songs. 

We did The Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider and the dinosaur song from Munchkins school (remind me to blog about that another day).  Thankfully after those songs the doctor came back.

My throat is fine but they’re sending it to the lab to see if strep grows in the next 2 days.  How gross does that sound?  Eeeew.  So no meds for me. 

*Knock on wood* the girls health is generally great so the fact that we have one trip to the doc where everyone is sick…I can’t complain.

I’m just really glad that the meds started working already and Munchkin slept through the night.  In our bed (ugh)

one dry night

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Over the last few days, I’ve been gathering advice about helping Munchkin stay dry through the night.

One person told me about taking her to the bathroom just before I go to bed. This way she’s going to have the satisfaction of waking up dry in the morning.

Munchkin deicded that she was wearning underwear to bed last night. So at 11pm before I went to sleep, I took her to the bathroom. She went with a minimal struggle and then I got her back in bed. This morning when we woke her (in her bed!!*) she was dry!!!

I’m hoping it’s just not beginners luck…but it’s a step in the right direction!

*Yes, she slept in her bed! For the last little while, we’ve been struggling to keep her in her bed.

the [nap] times they are a changin’

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(blog365: 5/365)

I’m sure this isn’t what Bob Dylan had in mind when he wrote that song! LOL!

Peanut’s switching to one nap a day…i think.

Thursday she didn’t sleep when I put her in her crib for her morning nap.  You could hear her, through the monitor, playing and wiggling around in her crib.  So yesterday I didn’t even attempt to get her to sleep in the morning and then at 12:45pm she’s upstairs fighting sleep.

Hoping for a nice long nap, it only ended up being an hour long.  I tried to put her back down with no success. Munchkin and I entertained her to keep her semi-happy and me semi-sane.   I  She gets really fidgety and shrieky when I’m she’s tired.

So now I have two sick (still), tired girls and all I can do is watch the clock and countdown until bedtime.   It always seems like a million hours away.

4:00 – rolled around and I tired again for another nap.  No luck.  So we had dinner at 5:30 and then at 6:00 we headed up stairs and killed some time by organizing Munchkin’s room then playing for a bit.
7:00 was time to brush teeth and get ready for bed.  I read a couple stories to the girls.  Said “goodnight” to Munchkin..

7:15 – I tried to nurse Peanut but she was fussy.

7:25 – Put Peanut in her crib and she put her head down and snuggled into her blankie.  I checked on Munchkin and she was asleep.

So I’m not sure Peanut’s completely ready for one nap.  Gonna have to refer to my Baby Whisperer book for some advice.

is 2007 over?

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When I was in University, I’d always say that it wasn’t the next day until I’d slept.  I haven’t really slept so I’m not sure 2007 is over yet.

Munchkin and Peanut were both asleep by 7:45pm last night.  Great!  The both needed the sleep since they are fighting the flu and Hubby and I could have used a nice long evening together.  Unfortunately, we got out of the hot tub around 9:00pm to find Munhkin awake. 

She couldn’t tell us what was wrong or why she was crying.

“What’s wrong sweetie”
“Nothing,” she sobbed.
“Why are you crying”
“I don’t know” with more sobs.

It ended up that her ear hurt.  Not surprising since she’s been so congested and the doctor thought Peanut might have an ear infection.  So I gave her some acetaminophen and got her settled back into bed.

The neighbours came over around 10pm to help ring in the new year.  10:30 and Munchkin’s awake again.  We decided that with everyone over, we might as well just let her stay up.

We had a fun night of talking and watching various New Years eve broadcasts.  The Niagara Falls party was fun to watch as the guy from Styx, Loverboy and Honeymoon Suite were all playing.

Popped the champagne at midnight and finally got to bed by 1:45am. 

When Munchkin wouldn’t settle in her own bed, we just let her sleep with us.  Not such a good idea after all.  She woke up crying several times during the night.  At that point, however, if we had moved her back to her room, her crying and screaming in protest would have woken her sister.  So she stayed and we got what ever sleep we could.

7:00am – Peanut wakes up after a very good nights sleep.  I guess someone deserved to sleep well.  Munchkin got up when I got up.  Not good since she hasn’t slept enough and the bags under her eyes have bags.  I’m sure mine do too.

Now it’s 10 and Peanut is down for her morning nap.  I tried getting Munchkin to have a nap too but no such luck.

So I’m awake for the day I guess.  Family’s coming for dinner tonight and we have tidying and preparation do to. 

Happy 2008!!  My first resolution is to sleep!

baby steps

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No Peanut is not walking. She’s sleeping…or is at least on her way to sleeping through the night.

I’m not sure why I didn’t reread the book earlier, but the Baby Whisperer knew exactly what to do. Like with Munchkin, the BW help get Peanut to sleep.

Peanut was getting up “like clockwork” throughout the night which is a sign of ‘accidental parenting’. She doesn’t nurse to sleep and we’re following the EASY routine. Those were working great! I’m not sure why I just assumed that the sleeping-through-the-night would just happen. Wrong.

So we’re doing Pick-Up/Put-Down (PU/PD) to get her back to sleep when she wakes up. Last night was the first night. She was very resistant at first and was really mad, but I only had to do it once at 2am.

Our night:

  • bath at 7:00
  • bed at 7:30
  • woke at 10:00 PU/PD until 11:00
  • nursed at 11:30
  • back to sleep awake at 11:50
  • woke up at 2:00am: PU/PD (5 minutes)
  • woke up at 7:30!!!

Now I know that I’m probably jinxing myself but that’s okay. I don’t expect it to work perfectly the first time or the for the next few night. Getting her to sleep with out feeding in the night isn’t going to happen easily.

Our other success is in the potty training department. Munchkin has gone one whole week in underwear and has only had 3 accidents!! Woohoo!!

Last Monday, I decided that enough was enough. She was going to learn. And I know that she was ready but I hadn’t been ready. I kept reverting back to the pull-ups.

This just in…as I was typing this, Munchkin came downstairs. I noticed she was in her pull-ups. She had woken up, gone to the bathroom, taken off her PJs and diaper (she’s still wearing them at night), went pee pee and got a pull-up because there wasn’t any underwear in her room (I hadn’t put the laundry away yet). What a major break through!!!

As I was saying, I should have figured that she would pick it up, if I could only be more diligent. I still have to remind her to go and that’s where the accidents came into play. But I now know that she’s getting it!

My girls are growing up! And I think I’m ready to let them.