Milestones

SLEEPING THROUGHT THE NIGHT

Last night was the first time that Noah really and truly slept all the way through the night. I mean, he's slept for good 4-5 hr. chunks before but I'm not sure if I consider it to be "sleeping through the night" when I have to get up while it's still dark, dragging my feet through the thick fog of sleep and blinking my red-streaked eyes at a screaming baby. But last night Noah slept from 10 pm to 5:30 am. Wow! That's so great for a baby of his age and kind of unusual as well. I'm pretty sure it was a fluke so I really don't expect that to be the norm from now on. And unfortunately for me, I didn't really get to enjoy last night's fluke record sleep streak for a variety of reasons. (But I can just picture it if I did...I would have woken up with a glowing complexion, a sparkle in my eye, and soft and shiny hair that looked like I just came from the salon...) First off I didn't go to bed until around 12:30 am (no good reason, just up) then, Bree was up and crying somewhere in there. I didn't have to get up and comfort her, she just cried for a minute and then was back asleep but it was enough, with my "Mommy radar" to wake me and keep me wondering and awake for about a half hour. Then Noah was up so I had to go grab him out of his crib, nurse him, and tuck him into bed with me in hopes of getting more sleep. Just when I was nodding off...Trav's alarm went off. And, here's the thing about Trav's alarm, he sets it for an hour before he actually needs to get up since it practically takes an act of God to pry him out of the bedsheets and into the shower. So, he has to have several loud alarms going off about every 15 minutes (which he sleeps through) and me repeatedly kicking him (but only because I'm such a caring concerned wife that I want him to be on time for work) before he's officially "awake." (And for those of you who are in a position to know about Trav's sleep patterns, I'm really not being cruel or exaggerating - he sleeps like the dead.) It's usually about this time every morning that I give up on any hope of 10 more minutes of sleep and chug 2 cups of coffee as a consolation. To top this all off I also have a fairly vicious cold right now so in between all that I was trying to roll over so that I could keep alternating nostrils open for breathing. Yep, just your typical night at our house. But, the point is that Noah slept throught the night! Hooray!


PRINCESS OF PANTIES

Brianna has now successfully been wearing underwear for almost an entire week now! (Although I almost hesitate to say it for fear of jinxing our success.) But, after a week I think I can say that we are, at long, long last, "potty trained." The whole issue has been a sore spot for us over the past year. We'd make some progress and then she'd backslide. Over and over again. In fact, she was virtually trained just before our big move 6 months ago and then it was just gone *poof* after the move. No surprise really since that kind of thing is to be expected when kids have such a major change in their lives. Of course, then after that I knew we'd be getting Noah soon so I put off really pushing the training until after he'd come and Bree was reasonably adjusted to him. This all kind of came to a head about 2 weeks ago when Brianna figured out how to changer her own diaper. Yes, you read that right. She decided she had a soggy diaper and so she just pulled the straps, left the sopping diaper where it lay on the floor and strapped on a new one. It was at this point I decided we were going to give up diapers. After all, if you can change your own you are ready to move on! And now we seem to be doing great. I almost can't believe it since over the past year I've tried everything, incentives from candy to toys, parental praise, potty instructional movies (THAT was a great one. She wouldn't USE the potty but could sing a number of catchy songs about it) and even trying to convince her she was ready to be a big girl, etc. So I'm not sure what finally clicked but as I said, panties for a week now. And the great part is that since she's getting at this whole using the potty thing at the later end of the spectrum she's also been wearing her underwear to bed and waking up dry as well. In fact, I've been kind of amused since now the first thing I hear in the morning from her is the sound of her little feet running into the bathroom and the door closing. I suppose the only small down side is the amount of embarassing potty talk in public, you know, like when she suddenly announced which kinds of potty she intends to make and in what quantities. :)

Milestones for both kids this week then.