Saturday, October 18, 2008

The earth showeth forth His handiwork

Even as I type this, I'm serenaded by my son who is crying at 11:30pm... It's so much harder to figure out what to do with a crying baby in the middle of the night when both kids are sharing a room. Tonight, earlier, I was trying to put Rowan to bed (he goes to bed by 7:30 usually, but today we went to Brian's sister's house and neither of the kids slept until we were headed home...so Ingrid was just getting awake at 6:30 and Rowan was just going to bed...) and the screaming that he's started to do when I put him to bed woke Ingrid up. Ingrid sat up and yelled, "NO! Rowan! It's too loud! STOP IT!"

Oh, yeah. That made things so much better. :^?

Rowan still isn't sleeping through the night. Ingrid definitely was sleeping through the night by this time (13 months). I'm so tired. And I'm not sure what to do to remedy it... It's really hard to let him cry it out when the crying wakes up the other one--especially when she insists that if she's awake, everyone else may as well be too! And to put Rowan's bed in the office or something is just really inconvenient...and if he's in our room (if there was room for him in our room), I wouldn't sleep at ALL because I would wake up every time he rolled over.

I'm buckling up for the long haul. I hear stories about Andrew not sleeping in his own room till he was much older than Rowan. My Mom said that Rebecca didn't sleep through the night until she was 3. And I'm so tired.

On the other hand, I'm loving Rowan's age. He's starting to blow kisses and initiate playing peek-a-boo. He said "bah-boo" today for "bottle" and he's starting to say "mama" and "papa" to us. Tonight he said "tee-tee" (sissy) as he pointed to Ingrid's shoe, and when we said that it was sissy's "shoe," he tried to say shoe, but ended up with a funny sound because he couldn't quite figure out the "shhh" part... We laughed a lot tonight.

He's really funny about his eating right now, too. Frustrating for us, but really funny how dramatic he gets when he wants to feed himself. I mean, when you put the spoon or fork to his face to feed him, he screws his face all up like you've just fed him castor oil and shakes his head, sometimes accompanied by a "DOE!" which, of course, means "NO!" or "DOP!" again, of course, meaning "STOP!". Both of which he learned from his sister who constantly uses those words to him... And he will immediately spit the food out--if you're sneaky enough to get it into his mouth before he clamps his mouth shut. Then, you can give him the fork or spoon with the apparently disgusting food on it and he will readily eat whatever he's just spit out. Frustrating.

The only thing he will not object to being fed is YoBaby yogurt. He knows the little package and he will open his mouth like a little bird as long as that's what he is being fed. He's suspicious about ANYTHING else... Hmmm.... maybe I should wash those little YoBaby cups out and re-use them... Nah. He's no dummy. One bite and he'd probably never eat YoBaby the same again. Better not even take the chance. :)

Ingrid is really funny too. I was giving her a bath tonight and she was talking to her little Dora doll about how something was "heavy on her brain." :) She's so funny at night time. For some reason, she comes up with these clever quirky things right before we put her to bed. Nothing gets past her. Apparently, one of Andrew's favorite bluegrass groups has a song that she LOVES and that phrase is in it. :) She's so great.

Thursday, Andrew put some new jeans on her (her 2T size jeans are WAY too small for her, but the new 3T jeans are too big around the waist...) and they kept falling down. She kept having to pull them up and turned to Andrew (and then to me later) and said, "I've gotta pull my britches up!" What a turkey...

We also had a pretty cool discussion today about God. I told her the story about how I had been praying that God would help me figure out how I could get my car fixed because I didn't have the money and I knew it wasn't very safe. And then God told my Mom to tell me to take it to the High School where they have an excellent program in the vocational building where they fix cars under the close supervision of an experienced mechanic (a teacher, too) and they only charge for parts, not labor. So, I got my car fixed the other day--a job that would have cost $450-$500 elsewhere--for $105, including an oil change! And I was explaining to Ingrid that God was good and that we can talk to God anytime and God will listen to us.

She reiterated to me that God was good and then asked, "Where is God right now?" So we got to talk about what Heaven was like and how no one cries in Heaven and that sometimes people talk about Heaven being in the sky, but really, we couldn't understand until Jesus wants us to be with him and He comes to get us when we die and that we didn't have to be afraid to die because that just means that we get to see Heaven and see God and Jesus. She said that she wanted to go there someday. :) We talked about Jesus and that she could go to Heaven to see Him, but we'd have to wait until we were done with our work here.

Then, she wanted to know if we could get to heaven on an airplane. ;) I said no, that we had to wait until we died to see Jesus in Heaven, but that we could feel God and Jesus now anytime we felt love for someone else or when we looked at the beautiful trees or sunsets.

Then, she was quiet for a little while....and asked me to put in her Mickey Mouse CD. :) But nothing gets past her, and I pray our conversation stuck somewhere in her little mind... It will in mine, I know.

So, now I should sleep. But I will leave you with a few pictures of the kids and Becca and I at our Autumn Glory Festival this past week. It was a glorious autumn weekend.

"The Heavens declare the Glory of God, and the earth showeth forth His handiwork." Psalm 19:1


Mama and Rowan

Mama, Rowan, Ingrid, Isaac and Aunt B

Aunt B and Isaac

1 comment:

Gina said...

Lizzie! I'm so glad to read about what's going on with you guys. I miss you dearly. I know I suggested a book for behavior, but I have to suggest another for sleep (although I'm sure you've gotten suggestions before). "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problembs" by Richard Ferber, M.D. Ferber is the foremost sleep scientist in the country and this book saved us. I did a lot of research on sleep methods and this is the most recommended by Pediatritions. It's a thick book but that's because it describes the science of sleep and goes through all possible reasons why your child is not sleeping through the night. What they recommend is to read the first part on the science of sleep (it's so eye opening, not just for kids but adults too) and then skip to the section that most likely describes your child and how to fix it. I'm sure you've heard of the progressive waiting method: put them down awake, go in to reassure them your there (no picking up) after 3 mintues, then 5, then 10 until they fall asleep. The second night start at 5. We did this with Will at 5 months and after three nights he was sleeping 6 hours at a time (before that he was up every 2) and this gradually stretched out to 11 hours. There is a section on what to do if children are sharing a room, so you should really check it out (they may even have it at the library speaking of "checking it out"). Anyway, I'm passionate about this because I think that people make a lot of mistakes with sleeping children and end up with situations on their hands they feel they have no control over (that are not O.K. with them). I probably should have just emailed you, but what the heck! I love you girl and Will and I pray for you and your family every night.

Hugs and Kisses,
Gina