Really I could come up with several.
Time is a funny thing in this house. It seems to pass so slowly some days but before you know it, it's July 17 and my babies are almost two and a half. I am full time mommy now that it's summer and my days are filled with play dates, trips to the library, museums and any other child friendly place that will keep us busy!! In between these outings, I spend my time interpreting toddler words, setting limits for two head-strong children, listening to "Nico turn" and/ or "Blakey turn", generally in unison, cleaning up spilled goldfish/yogurt/ milk and keeping Blakey from feeding our week's worth of groceries to the dogs. Quite a "vacation", wouldn't you say? :)
Our big news is that the boys are now in toddler beds. Let me just start by saying that this has been a REALLY HARD transition and, at times, made me rethink my decision to become a parent. I say that half-jokingly, but in all honesty, there were some rough days.
It all started back in May when Blakey could very easily climb in and out of his crib. We thought we had outsmarted him when we turned his crib around so that the low side was up against the wall. Well, that trick only lasted so long with that climbing monkey. Before we knew it, nap times were filled with Blakey climbing out of his crib and into Nico's, creating lots of chaos. I guess it goes without saying that there was NO sleeping anymore. What did that create? Tired, cranky boys and tired, cranky mom and dad. NOT a good combination. After a week or so of this, we decided it was time to take the plunge and buy toddler beds. Seems like an easy thing to purchase, right? Well, after nearly 3 hours on the phone one night with Babies R Us, Sears, JC Penney, 4 Targets, and EVEN Walmart (Yes, I was that desperate!), I finally found 2 wooden toddler beds with no pointy corners. If only this had been the hardest part of this transition....
I brought the beds home and Jeff put them together. The boys "helped" and it created a nice opportunity for us to talk to them about their new sleeping arrangements. Day one, bed time went off without a hitch. Wow, that was easy........Uh, yeah right!
I won't get into every detail, well maybe just a few.......
The next 3 weeks were crazy. Nap time would come along and the boys decided it was party time in their bedroom. One of us would go in several times to direct them to get back into their beds but to no avail. We were so worried about their safety that we took EVERYTHING out of their room. I mean everything. The only things that were left were the beds, blankets, pillows and a few books. Turns out the boys don't need no stinkin' toys to have fun.....hence, the partying behavior continued. Many days I would sit at the kitchen table right underneath their bedroom and I swore that any minute one of them was going to come crashing through the ceiling they were jumping so hard. They would rip down their black-out blinds, wrestle each other on the floor, and play other various toddler type games.
This whole situation created such an unhappy environment in our household. On the days that I was home with them, I would turn into grumpy mom and by the time 7:00 hit and they were in bed, I was so tired, I was nearly asleep myself. I guess the only benefit on these days was that they were sooooooooo tired come bedtime, that they would usually go right to sleep. On the days that I worked, I would come home to a grumpy husband who has been battling two boys for the last 2 hours versus getting work done. The boys would be cranky and clingy. Jeff would try to catch up on work and I would try to get dinner ready for these "darling" children. See the problem? Oh, I should also mention that the little saying that I heard all the time when they were babies "sleep breeds more sleep" is still true when they are toddlers. On the days that they didn't nap (which was about 80% of the time), they also woke up 1-2 times a night each. If you didn't see the problem before, I'm sure you can see it now!!!!
What to do? Give up on naps? NO, not at two years old. Give the children away? Tempting on some days, but no, not an option. I quickly realized that there was no "rewind" button in life and I had to tackle the task at hand. So, I emailed the mothers of multiples group and asked for advice on transitioning to toddler beds. If I had been wiser, I would have done this from the get-go but I'll just blame that one on the sleep deprivation.
I was so reassured when many MOMs replied that they had dealt with similar issues upon moving into toddler beds. Of course, there were the few and far-between replies of "oh, my twins had no problems sleeping in their beds." Um, yeah, thanks for the advice.
Anyways, many suggested separating them for nap times. Hmmm...what a thought! I guess any time that idea had crossed my mind before, I always worried that they wouldn't be able, emotionally, to sleep separated from the other one. Well, since they weren't sleeping anyway, it was worth a shot. The only problem was that our bedroom was the only available space for one to sleep in and it was definitely NOT toddler proofed. We now had their dresser in the room in addition to ours and bins of clothes that needed reorganizing/ etc. After spending a FULL three days, Jeff had the room ready to go. The two dressers were bolted to the wall, the TV strapped to the wall, the dresser drawers strapped closed with rachet straps, night stand drawers cleaned out, gate in the entryway to our bathroom, and black out window treatments on our windows.
So which boy do we "let" sleep in our bedroom? I struggled with this. I finally decided that Nicolas USUALLY has an easier time falling asleep and isn't as affected as much by changes in his routine. So we set up a "cozy bed" on the floor with his old changing table pad with a sheet over it, an ELMO sleeping bag, my old pregnancy pillow, and his blankets.
Day one of our new experiment. I took Nicolas upstairs first. I told him that he had a new bed for nap time. He seemed excited. We sang a few songs, kiss kiss, and I closed the door. I'm not kidding, he was asleep in five minutes maximum. Then I took Blake up to his room and followed the same routine. Blake was asleep in five minutes maximum. Are you kidding? I think I was seriously the happiest mom in the world that first day that they both napped. I felt like I had just won the hardest parenting match of all. Victory, sweet victory! They both slept almost 3 hours that first day.
So here we are, several weeks later and nap time is still a success on most days. Blakey usually asks for "Tuco" (his version of "Nico") and I give him the same answer every day, that he is sleeping somewhere else for nap time.
I think I almost have most of my sanity back.
In between all of the that craziness, the boys are developing into their own little people personalites. Blake is still loving his legos, cars and puzzles. I had to buy him some more challenging ones. No more of the easy one spot for one piece kind; he's doing the REAL kind of puzzles. Nicolas is obsessed with music. He LOVES listening to music, especially on my phone. He loves playing musical instruments and he can hear the strum of a guitar a mile away. He loves his music loud (problematic) and he even has to put his hand on the speaker to feel the vibration of the sound.
They are both enjoying learning their colors and shapes. Nicolas is esepcially good at counting to 10 in both english and spanish and Blake can identify circles and triangles all around the house.
Blake seems to enjoy humor. He laughs with us with and can pick up on a good joke fairly easily. They love watching the show Caillou and we even went to our first movie today, Winnie the Pooh. Amazingly, we were the only ones in the movie theater, which was fortunate as Nicolas used his "loud" voice several times. Overall, though, they enjoyed it.
I guess I should wrap up this post.........
It's summer and along with the early sunrise comes an early wake up call. Generally around 6:00. I keep telling myself that my children will eventually learn to sleep in....some day!
Hope you are all enyoing your summer!
hugs and kisses from us,
Rebeca
Nicolas wearing my sweater at the park.
Blakey discovering headphones.
Nicolas "helping" build the beds.
First night in their new beds. Blakey on the right and Nicolas on the left.
First nap time in their new beds. If only it had been that cute every day.....
Mommy and Blakey
They had this awesome butterfly exhibit for kids this year. You could go into an aviary-like enclosure and dip Q-tips into sugar water and walk around waiting for butterflies to land on your stick. They were very strict about not touching the butterflies. Hmm...how is this going to work with curious 2 year olds? But after a few close calls, they got the picture and we had a fun time finding and "catching" butterflies. This picture was taken when a HUGE one landed on Blakey's shoulder. He giggled as the antennae tickled his cheek.
Both from Easter 2010. (the boys look so tiny, don't they?!)
