Mr. Clean

Posted on September 21, 2007
by ihatehardware

When I met Karen 5 years ago, she told me that she would sometimes go to the Stop & Shop parking lot to drink coffee. Since I only had one kid at the time I thought that was a little odd, but I loved her despite her weird habits. A few days ago I ended up in my car with Adlani sleeping in his car seat and 20 extra minutes before Aliya’s bus arrived. I joyfully drove at a high rate of speed to the Dairy Queen drive-thru, sped on to the bus stop, and sat there for 15 blissful minutes – just me and my strawberry Blizzard. At some point I realized that I have become the strange lady who sits in the parking lot just to be alone.

A few days later I was headed to the mall for Norah’s 1-year photo shoot. Norah fell asleep while I was doing an errand, so it was just me and the wild man, Adlani. It was too early to go to Portrait Simple so I drove home, ran inside while the kids were strapped into their seats with the doors locked (bad Mommy), and grabbed my cereal so I could sit in the car in the driveway and eat breakfast. A few minutes later Norah started to wake up so I quickly threw the car in gear and drove to the mall. Once there, I realized that there were at least 50 construction workers to entertain Adlani, so I pulled into an empty spot and continued with my breakfast.

As I sat there scraping the last of my cereal from the 2-cup measuring cup I had chosen for my cereal bowl (it’s actually very handy – a handle, a place for your spoon to rest, and it’s big enough to avoid spills), I realized that a security guard who looked quite a bit like Mr. Clean was standing outside my window (apparently my good fortune at finding an empty space had to do with the construction-vehicle-only parking signs). As the window slid down he said, “Hi…What can I do for you?” Me: “Well, my floors just don’t have the same shine and fresh scent since you’ve stopped coming around.”

OK…I didn’t really say that but as I sat there in my junk-filled car, wearing yesterday’s clothes and hair, no makeup, eating cereal out of a measuring cup, and facing Mr. Clean, it was either say something funny or just throw my pitiful self on his mercy. Since my brain is shot and I’m not as quick as I once was, I chose the latter. Me: “I’m letting my kid watch the construction guys while I eat my cereal. Can I have 5 minutes?” Mr. Clean: “No problem (you poor pathetic loser).”

Portrait Simple

Posted on September 21, 2007
by ihatehardware

These are some of Norah’s 1-year pictures.

She really needs to cheer up a little, huh?

Ferberizing (Again!)

Posted on September 18, 2007
by ihatehardware

Poor Norah never saw it coming. Last week we decided that it’s time to dust off Dr. Ferber’s book for the third time and get her to go to sleep in her crib. To date, we have been rocking her to sleep with a bottle and then trying to sneak her into her crib without waking her up. Some nights we just go straight to Plan B which is for Ben to take her to bed with him while I work my second shift of the day. She always ends up sleeping with me eventually.

We have a long history with Dr. Ferber. With Aliya, I tried to go by “the book” (any and all books), and I was dead-set against the Moroccan tradition of having her sleep in our bed (because some of the

books said that was a bad idea). Tonight I found my notes in the Ferber book from when I Ferberized her at the tender age of 3 months. It took less than a week and I had her sleeping in her crib. It wasn’t easy since I had to physically restrain Ben to prevent him from “rescuing” her. I eventually lost the battle against the Moroccan contingent (the in-laws thought it was crazy that Aliya would be sleeping in a separate room) and ended up with her in my bed. She started climbing out of the crib at 18 months and flopping onto the floor, so we put her in a toddler bed. She STILL sleepwalks to my bed almost every night.

When we moved Adlani’s crib into Norah’s room before she was born, I realized that he had

never spent one night in it. He hardly ever napped in it either. At about 18 months we bought him a really cool bunk bed unit and used tough love and Ferberizing to keep him in bed. We still have some rough nights with him, especially since he cries and wakes up Norah, but we’re committed. He usually migrates to my bed every night too.

Norah wasn’t impressed with the new bedtime ritual but I think it went really well. She cried for about a half hour – not screaming, just fussing, and then fell asleep. Unfortunately, when I went in to check on her she had pooped, so I had to change her and she woke up. I snuggled her a little and put her back in the crib not fully asleep. She cried for about 10 minutes and fell asleep. Adlani woke her up twice more and both times she cried for about 5 minutes and fell back to sleep. Tomorrow WILL be better and then we’ll start working on cutting out the 4 a.m. bottle. I’m REALLY looking forward to getting a full 5 hours of sleep a night.

Update: On Norah’s second night of falling asleep in her crib, she cried for 12 minutes before zonking out and she didn’t wake up again. Yay!

Update #2: On Night 4, Norah slept from 8 p.m. until 4 a.m. in her crib! Yippee!

Update #3: Night 6, less than 2 minutes of crying!!

Grandma Ginny and Grampa B

Posted on September 17, 2007
by ihatehardware

We had a great weekend with Grandma Ginny and Grampa B…well at least WE had fun. We started their visit by witholding food until sundown, accompanied by the constant noise and chaos that we don’t even notice any more, but which can really freak out people not currently living with children. We continued the hospitality on Saturday morning by taking them out into the rain, wind, and cold, to watch Aliya’s soccer game. Due to the weather, the afternoon activities consisted of naps and picking up Norah and Grampa B’s birthday cake while Grampa B worked on our household projects. We had a big couscous feast in preparation for watching the Wizard of Oz…except when we started the movie it was the CARTOON version! I couldn’t bear to watch it. Today after G.B. finished up his forced labor, we had breakfast and sent Aliya and Adlani out with G.G. and G.B. for a few relaxing hours at the mall. Hopefully they’ve made it home safely by now…thanks guys!!