Babysitting Blues

One of the many perks of having my parents and sisters live so close is that we always have a trusted babysitter a phone call away. Since Ezra was just two months old my mom has watched him twice a week for a couple hours while I tutored. She later would occasionally watch him for full days while I substituted. My sisters have all babysat while T and I go out on dates. And Ezra is over at Kelly's quite frequently with out me. He has never cried when I leave, and if anything he gets peeved when it is time to go home. 
............
One day in April Tieba and I were invited to go out to dinner for my friend Karen's birthday.  We agreed to go with out thinking twice. Unfortunately when I looked at my calendar, I realized that Kel was working, my parents were babysitting, and Abby had plans.  All our babysitters were booked! Considering that Ezra was nearly a year and half and we were going to dinner 5 minutes away, we decided it was time to finally hire a non family member babysitter for the evening. We asked a girl from church that had high recommendations, prepared an extensive note for her, talked to Ezra all day about what we would be doing, and had his favorite- pizza- for dinner. 
I asked Autumn to come over 30 minutes before we had to leave. Unfortunately, she was running late and got here right when we needed to leave. So, the trade off wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but when T and I left the condo, Ezra was miraculously in good spirits. We couldn't believe it- and shouldn't have! When we were half way to the Mill Creek Town Center we texted to see how he was doing and she said he had started to cry, but was "okay". 
We ate dinner, enjoyed our time with friends, tried not to think about Ezra, and were probably gone for an hour and a half...  When we walked up the stairs to our condo and approached the landing, we could hear Ez hollering. We were greeted with Ez in the hallway outside the bathroom, wailing. His eyes were poofy. His voice was hoarse. And the babysitter was ready to run. He cried the entire time we were gone.
Needless to say, we paid her a ridiculous amount and have never had a non family member babysitter since. 

M

Nappers

So, apparently Ez and I spent the majority of April napping. With out exaggeration, 70% of the photos on my photo stream were of Ezra and I napping in my bed. 

 We let T in on a few of these napping sessions.

 

The first trimester knocked me out and Ez took full advantage of the opportunity to sneak into bed with me. 

M 

Photo Dump // March

Arlo is the cutest snuggle bunny alive!

Most mornings start with enthusiastic reading at the rocking chair and then coloring and shapes at Ezra's table.

 Another fun trip to the zoo! Levi seems to love the fake animals as much as the real deal. Ez was so zonked afterwords that he slept on me through lunch at a strange gluten free cafe. So glad that the g-free days are behind us!

 While most kids go to the park to play... Ezra likes to sit back in a swing and stare at all the other kids. 

Watching Ez lie in his crib- happily, awake makes me so happy.

I love watching Ezra from a distance while he plays independently. The little conversations he has with himself are absolutely priceless.   

 Watching Ezra be in his crib awake and happy brings an odd joy to my heart. One that needs to be documented. 
We always have fun when we go to Target, and we never skip walking through the dollar section.
Some kids have a teddy bear, Ezra has his "eggy".

 Smore season is in full session!

M

SLC 2014

In March we headed out for our 2nd annual trip to Salt Lake City to visit Emily.  Ez was in heaven roaming through the airport. The timing of our flight was perfect, in that Ezra would be due for a nap at take off. *The timing also coincided with his last ever nursing session.  This was a difficult decision for me to make, but my pregnancy helped pushed me along. At this point I was only nursing in the morning, right when Ezra woke up. I figured that since the morning routine would be so different, this would be a perfect time to wean him. And it was. He didn't even seem phased by it. Not until we got home of course. He had two days of udder (haha) utter sadness, and then he got over it. If anything, I probably missed it more than he did. I cherished those quiet minutes together, just staring at him and treasuring his snuggles.
Ez literally fell asleep as we were taking off and then woke back up just in time to enjoy the sights and the bumpy landing. It was a dream. Em picked us up from the airport and we headed straight to Cafe Rio for a yummy lunch.

After lunch we headed to Liberty Park. Ez loved people watching and testing out all of the swing options. We were all happy to be in the fresh air with our sweet Emmy. 

 After the park, we paroozed around the mall and checked into our hotel.

We went to In N Out Burgers for dinner. It was the first time T and I had been there. We both agreed that the burgers were pretty good, but not worth all of the hype. Em got sick afterwords- sealing the deal that we won't be going there again. On the way home Ez zonked out. We thought he was down for the night... Unfortunately, the cat nap in the car was all the energy he needed to put on a show for the next hour.

 Saturday was spent eating yummy food, park hopping, and meeting Em's boyfriend, Drew. Emily and I escaped while Ez and T napped to get milkshakes and our nails done. The day couldn't have been better.

On Sunday we went to church in the morning and then had a picnic in a park down the street from Em's house. Ez fell in love with Cheetos on this excursion and now randomly chants "Cheeto! cheeto!" when he is excited about something. 

After we all took a nap, we walked down to Temple Square. Each time we walked through Temple Square Ezra would say "Je, Je" (Je=Jesus) right when we stepped onto the grounds. He is a very spiritual guy.  We all had fun roaming around and just being together.

We treasure our trips to visit Emily and hope that some day she will simply be a car ride away. 

- M

Hello, Baby #2!

After a few weeks of being in denial... we said hello to Baby #2! I wasn't fully convinced until I saw the digital test. And within days there was no denying it with all of the nausea and fatigue I was feeling.  When I was pregnant with Ezra, my first trimester was a breeze (minus the time I threw up all over the street down town Seattle and had to toss a pair of brand new boots because of it...). This time around I felt nauseous pretty much all day and was tired beyond tired. I was snacking around the clock to fight the sick feeling, had no motivation to do any cleaning or upkeep (hence why I'm writing about this in August), and I napped every opportunity I got.  I was still nursing Ezra first thing in the morning the first month or so that I was pregnant. I eventually decided to stop with hopes that I would feel a little better and get a bit of a nursing break between babes. I cherished that morning nursing session because he was quiet and still, and I could have a minute to slowly wake up.  This is about the time that we started to watch Thomas in the morning after breakfast so that I could still have a little bit of quiet cuddle time and he loved seeing his "choo choos". 
Baby's due date is October 22nd, which will make Ezra almost 2.  Treasuring every minute with just Ez and super excited to be a family of four!

Photo Dump // February

Some parents take their kids to museums or amusement parks. We take Ezra to grocery stores. Central Market is his favorite because it has a grocery cart just his size. He loves filling the cart with chips, water, and everything else, and he doesn't want our hands anywhere near the cart!

The Seahawks (and Abby!!!) went to and won the Superbowl!

In an attempt to get Ezra to drink cow's milk I started giving him chocolate milk. It worked...

Ez now colors and checks books out at the library!

 Ezra is such a helper! He loves to bake and is very cautious about hot ovens. 

We bought a little table at Ikea and Ezra loves it! Oh... and he also loves the box it came in.

 T and I celebrated Valentines Day with burgers and ice cream. 

One day I set Ezra on the couch to watch "Thomas" so I could get ready (this rarely happens) and when I came out a couple minutes later, our little chef had turned the channel to a cooking show!

Happy 1st Birthday, Miss Piper!

Our little genius ran over to find his alphabet book while we were playing with our ABC magnets. I was so impressed.

M

Red Light, Green Light

At 15 months, my beautiful boy still wasn't sleeping through the night. A typical night would consist of me or Tieba lying on the ground next to his crib until he fell asleep (a mighty leap from needing to be nursed or rocked to sleep), sneaking out of the room around 8:45 pm, and then returning to his room between 3 or 4 am to help him fall back asleep after he woke up in complete hysterics.  It should be noted that it wasn't unusual for him to also wake up at 12 or 1 am and then again at his 3 or 4 time.  Needless to say, I was about to lose it! 

Every time I would hear about a newborn baby that had better sleep habits then Ezra, I did all I could to not cry. When I went to his 15 month well child visit, I was desperate. Our usual pediatrician was out on maternity leave, so instead we saw her husband (pretty fun). When I told him about our situation, he told me what I already knew- I just had to let him cry it out. Coupled with his extremely strong will and separation anxiety I dreaded doing that (again). In addition to crying it out, he suggested that we purchase a stop light alarm clock. At bed time it is a red light and when it is time to wake up it turns to a green light.

I had heard of this for older children, but couldn't fathom is working for a baby that wasn't even a year and a half yet. He reminded us that kids understand a lot more than we think they can and urged us to give it a try. Feeling desperate, I went home and immediately ordered the $40 clock. Once the clock arrived we spent time explaining the process to Ezra and would do little role plays with it. We set the alarm for 6:00 am. The first night he woke up promptly at 4:00 am and was standing up screaming until we went in the room at 6. It was the longest 2 hours of my life. As soon as the green light came on Tieba and I bursted in the room full of excitement and praise for staying in his crib all night long!  The second night he slept until 5 am and cried intermittently for an hour until we came in to do our green light dance. By the third night, our little champion happily stayed in bed until 6:00 am, at which point he stood up and started calling out for me. It was so insane to watch him on the monitor looking at the green light and waiting for his go ahead to wake up. We were beyond proud and in disbelief that it actually worked! We slowly crept the wake up time to 7:00 and began to feel more and more sane.  Unfortunately my sleeping habits were so disturbed by his crazy patterns that I was still waking up every morning around 3 or 4 and taking way too long to fall back asleep... 
The little dog still heavily relied on me for naps and wanted most of those naps to be in our bed...

....
6 months later.... He sleeps through the night 3 out of 7 days of the week.  The alarm clock works but I'm not always good about being the enforcer. He stays in his room until the green light goes on... but that means that T or I are lying on the ground next to him for more hours each night than I want to admit. I still go crazy about his sleep patterns and am constantly reminding myself that he won't be this way forever. Right?

M