Instant Winner!

That's right!  You have won not one but TWO children who have night terrors!

Cousins

I have been babyless today.  Kate with Grandparents and Jacob with his cousin.  I had time to sit, breathe, and think.  It was overdue.  Thank you to our sponsers.

Survived

Two kids, two flights, one mama.  Done.

Greeeeat

Thinking getting outside and me burning off some stress would make the morning go better was waaay off point.

You can see that the bike ride culminated in screaming in the street.

Sigh ...

On a high note, my sister is saving me.  She is flying us to Salt Lake where Kate will stay with my parents and I will have plenty of help and time to get away.  A few tantrum-less days, and some sleep, will go a long way.

Two more weeks until daycare starts up!

In the meantime ... Our nanny saga continues.  In a terrible support of the label "narcisistic generation" our new nanny quit.  We hired her and her first day was Monday.  She showed up in tears.  She was a mess.  She said she was still disappointed to be nannying and not teaching (she just graduated).  Of course, she only applied to schools in Austin.  Why anyone would hire a new teacher with zippo experience to teach high school history is a mystery to me, but apparently she hasn't heard about the economy.

Anyway, she claimed she was overwhelmed to find out the kids had food allergies and didn't know if she could handle the worry about that.  Her other excuse was that we weren't paying her enough.  Well, she knew the pay for two freaking months.  Come on.  what parents raise someone with that work ethic? 

Quit that day.  Wouldn't come back in even to help for a day.  Paul had to cancel the first day of class so I could see my clients.

This trip to slc is partially because I won't be working anyway.   No nanny means no income in the world of the self-employed....

I said a lot of expletives that day.

Keep A'Movin'

How do I cope with sleep deprivation and my hubby being MIA because school is back?

I don't stop moving.

We hit the splash pad, the park, went on walks, went to the grocery store three times, target once, coffeeshop once, another splash pad, rode around the block on a bike ride, went to another park, a bouncehouse, a friends' house and played in the yard. 

Whew.

Tomorrow, Saturday, my grown up day of rest will be spent at a grown up therapy training.

More updates to come...

Rough Patch

This is one of those times that you have to try very very hard to remember that everything WILL change.... given enough time...

We are finishing week 4 of overwhelming awful nights.  Kate's sleep disruption started before we went on vacation.  But starting night #1 of vacation and continuing until this week, it has escalated to the point that she has been having nightly night terrors (which you cannot do anything about but wait through, and which always wake Jacob up because of the out of control yelling/crying).  In addition, for three weeks she has been waking up 3-5 additional times screaming.  At least one of these includes blood-curdling screaming along with throwing furniture, hitting, scratching, and running away (trying to leave the room, leave the house, crawl under the bed, hide behind furniture).  I am averaging about 4-6 hours of sleep a night with no longer of a segment than 2 hours at a stretch.  We have split up duties, so that Paul soothes Jacob during this and I take Kate.  But we are spent.  Tonight we are sleeping in different houses just to try to maximize sleep.  I cannot stress how overwhelmed and hopeless this feels.

This feels like a combination of a bunch of different things all combining into one vat of nasty.

Here is my pieced together explanation...

It all started with...

Mix in...

And you get...

Yo Gabba Gabba

It was a Yo Gabba Gabba day yesterday...

More math and counting!

Better than Caffeine?

Feeling exhausted from sleep deprivation? Can't think straight? Fall asleep while reading the kids stories?

Give them water, dirt, and then sit back and relax.

Block Play

Suddenly, everything talks.

"Can you make the car talk, Mommy?"

She usually then tells us exactly what they should say while refusing to do the talking herself.  It's fun though to hear her playing and having conversations.  Such a big change in her play.

Tonight I told her about how some places in the world don't have toilet paper (as we drive to the store to get just that) and she says, "you are kidding me!" I just love how she picks those little things up.  Practicing all that grown up talking.

Bagels and the Park

Woke to crankiness.  So we piled in the car -- a process that involved four tantrums, two pairs of socks to ensure comfort, lots of patience and horsey of course -- got bagels and coffee and went to the park.  Slowly, things looked up for all of us ...

Then we came home, Paul put Jacob down, and Kate and I invented this math game.  Each player gets two dice.  You roll, count the number of each and write the math sentence.  Then count them all together and see who has the bigger number.  She really enjoyed it and had to play with Paul after we finished.

Big Man

He used to run to the couch and pat it so we would sit and cuddle and he would have a bottle.  Today he ran to his chair, climbed up, and signed bottle.

They grow up so fast.