It snowed 8 inches here in mid-SC on Friday!  It was the deepest snow we have had here in 10 years and the 5th deepest day on record!  Those of you who live up north may not understand the excitement  but us southerners look at snowfall as a gift.

Perhaps though that’s only because it lasts a day or so then everything is right back to normal.  We may not feel so happy about it if we had to put up with snow for 4-5 months at a time!

Regardless, we were all dancing in the streets and building snowmen galore.

On an even happier note, Jack-Evan (who will be two in May!  can you believe it? ) has his very first Valentine’s social tomorrow morning with a group of kids from our local Mommy’s Play Group.  I have some very yummy sugar cookies ready to go (the kids are decorating cookies with icing & sprinkles) and a package of valentines with suckers.  I felt a little bad at first that they’re not homemade cutesy wootsy kind (I’m really NOT into paper crafts), but I got over that feeling really fast.  The ones we did get are adorable little boy sport ones with removable Tatoos.  Quite good enough in my books.  :)   My husband got quite a kick outta watching me boohoo over the baking pan whiles I was spatula’ing out the sugar cookies.  I’m such a sentimental old sap…. my baby is growing up far too fast.  Did I not just give birth to him?

Happy (late) Valentine’s Day!

P.S.  I still haven’t figured out how to get my comment approval working again….haven’t had much time to dig into Wordpress’ backend.  I’m still getting your comments though and they’re all sitting there waiting on me to figure it out.  So please don’t feel bad if you submit a kind word and don’t see it appear for a while!  I’m still reading them and smiling when I do!

I’m getting all the comments in my admin dashboard BUT for some reason wordpress is not allowing me to approve them.  I approve them, click off the comment page, and POOF they get “un-approved” for some reason.  I’m hoping to have this figured out by next week!

So for those of you who have commented on my recent posts like the montessori one and Jack’s playroom (thank you!!), I read them and they’re still here….I just can’t get them posted yet.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar, Maria Montessori was a doctor in Italy who studied hundreds of children a little over 100 years ago.  Today, there are many associations and schools around the world dedicated to her model of educating children - a model which looks completely different than today’s educational system structure.  In the montessori structure of education, the goal is for children to learn to reason things out, build steady foundations for how the world works, and to go about their education independently.  The teacher’s primary goal is not to pour in knowledge, but to structure the child’s environment in a prepared way so that the child will gravitate towards the knowledge he/she needs to learn at that particular time.  Minimalistic, child-sized, clean, high quality all seem to describe the rich environment in which children under this educational model will do best.

I have begun implementing a few of her ideas with Jack-Evan over the past week and have already noticed a difference in his attitude, concentration, and enjoyment of daily activities.  The very first thing I started with was condensing his toys down tremendously.   We have a play room in the works for him, but it’ll be a couple months before he can really enjoy himself in there, so for now I have his bedroom to work with.   The toys you see him in front of in this photo are the only ones available in his room.  I condensed his leggos, stored other toys out of sight, and gave away a huge bag full of ones he never truly cared about.  Contrary to the pull of modern day “More is Better!” school of thought, I’ve noticed that he absolutely loves spending time in his bedroom now and playing with the selection available.  He has also discovered a love of miniture animals and building blocks for the first time.  This is quite a change considering he has never, ever, ever been a “toy” kid.  Perhaps what he really was trying to tell me all these months is simply he wasn’t interested in “clutter”.

Another Montessori activity I implemented is in an area they call “Practical Life Skills” (something I knew he needed but never thought to take it to the level they do).  A few days ago I found a really nice wooden child sized table at a local children’s thrift store, painted it, and introduced it to Jack-Evan.  He adores it!  The next day I introduced him to the  motessori method of setting the table by himself as well as pouring his own milk (provided to him in a child-size measuring cup).  He loves the little miniature coca cola glass I found at the dollar store!  We’ve never given him an open glass to use on his own because I guess we never thought he could and that one day he would just grow into it.   A photo of a 9 month old baby using an open glass properly, without spilling it, convinced me that Jack-Evan has the ability to do this - I just have to find it within myself to take the time with him so he can learn!  I’ve just always found it easy to hold open containers for him, to only allow him to hold them for a few seconds, or to just give him a lidded container.

It was a huge eye opener for me to realize this.  My little man has so much inside him that he can do, yet here I am not showing enough confidence in him….and subconsciously holding him back by not allowing him to develop those simple needed skills.   He’s had 3 meals so far in which he was allowed to use his little glass and pour his own milk - and while we did have spills each time, I could tell he was extremely proud of himself for being allowed that measure of independence!

I’ve also introduced him to the potty, begun letting him dress himself as much as he is able and lowered his closet rod to a level he can reach easily (no higher than his chin).  I’ve also forced myself to be consciously aware of how I treat him.  Am I treating him as a real human who needs time to learn? Am I treating him with the respect deserved of another living, breathing human being?  Or am I treating him like my tiny helpless baby, with baby talk, simple sentences, and a “don’t touch that!” approach?  Am I focusing on hurrying towards the end result (to be dressed) or am I focusing on teaching Jack-Evan the skills  needed in life (dressing oneself), regardless of how long it takes?

When I think in those terms, I find my behavior and attitudes towards him change immensely.  When I remind myself of how much knowledge  about life I take for granted, versus his small, 20 month experience on this earth, I find it easier to back up, take a breath, and focus on teaching him the skills he needs without feeling annoying and wanting to just get it all “done”.

As one portion of the Montessori theory expressed, he’s not a ragdoll to be dressed, coddled and controlled.  He is another growing, living, breathing human being and has an inner drive to participate in our human world.  He wants desperately to learn about life and participate proudly in daily “adult” activities.  Of course I *knew* all of this in my head, but as a parent, it’s hard to cross that hump between doing FOR our tiny ones and allowing them to learn the skills they need to do it themselves.  I guess a huge part of it also has to do with our own human selfishness - it takes a lot of time and effort to train a child in various life skills….weeks…months…years…and we tend to put it off as long as possible thinking that it will be “easier when he’s older”.  That kind of thinking can eventually cripple a growing little person.

Anyway, I’ve subscribed to many blogs lately that revolve around parents who practice the montessori theories at home.  It’s quite refreshing from the busy’ness promoted in today’s commercially manufactured idea of childhood!  I doubt I ever get as deep into it as some of the families out there seem to be, but I do feel it is well worth delving into and implementing many  strategies into our own home life.

Just give your toddler an old electric curler set, ripped out of it’s casing and converted to a peg board!  He’ll be happy and satisfied for hours on end.

I promise.

Back in December, we finally got the “junk room” cleared out and prepared as a new playroom for Jack-Evan.  Using the paint I had on hand, I created a “Jack-Evan and the Beanstalk” theme on the walls.

This is where the Giant’s castle is going to go.  (I haven’t had the time to fill in the detail yet.)  We’re taking it sort of slow, but we plan to be finished with everything before baby #2 arrives in May.  I’ll try to remember to post photos when the entire playroom is completed!  I’m wanting to set up low shelves in here ala Montessori-style.  Jack-Evan’s large piano keyboard will also be in here.

So pardon the dust.  I’m not sure how many days it will be before everything is easy to navigate again….but I’m working on it!  Hopefully this will get me out of the blogging funk I’ve been in.  :)

We found out today that Little Jack is going to have his very own little sister.

“Maggie Jo”

We’ve felt since the beginning that this baby was a girl.  Glad to have my mommy instincts confirmed!

What a great day!

I’m still going to update about my prenatal visits once the new year rolls in… I just have not really been in a bloggy mood for the past few months.   Plus, since Jack-Evan is getting older (he’ll be 20 months old on Monday!) I’ve been trying to decide what course of action I want to be taking with this blog.

I do so very much love putting words in his mouth (as in the “Little Jack Speaks”) posts, but as he comes more and more into his own little personality, I feel more awkward doing that to him. My husband and I still do that to him at home but doing it on a public medium as he “comes into his own” (so to speak) seems….wrong…on some level. I don’t know. I guess I just haven’t decided what I want to do with the blog.

Right now I’m leaning towards revamping it to cover the educational activities we have begun to implement. I’m trained in early childhood education, previously worked in a daycare for 5 years, and have always held a huge passion for teaching and children - and consequently, that’s where most of my abilities lie. As Jack-Evan gets closer and closer to the preschool age (which was always my favorite age to teach) I become more and more excited.

Lately I’ve been enjoying a wide variety of “Tot School” type of blogs that provide enriching activity ideas for toddlers and young children. Jack-Evan has taken well to the beading activities and absolutely adores anything with pegs. He’s also begun to accurately point out various pictures in books when asked (where’s the ball, balloon, duck, etc.). So I’m extremely excited to be going forth on this educational journey with him.

Plus, it’s down right fun.

In other news…. the pregnancy has been going really well. Honestly, I tend to forget I’m pregnant for the most part. As bad as it sounds, I don’t even keep up with how many weeks I am. It’s hard enough keeping track of my always on the go toddler! I always feel ashamed when people ask me and I respond with a hesitant…”um.. 14 weeks? 18 weeks? 15 weeks? I dunno, but I’m due in May!!”

The first 3 months were horrendous. Nausea, tiredness, and overall BLAHBLAHBLAH plagued me like..well..the plague.. But sometime in early November, things drastically improved and my energy resurged. This past week though I’ve noticed that I’m moving on to a different phase. I’m feeling more “stuffed” (and it had nothing to do with all the Christmas turkey!), my belly has sprouted about 3 inches, and my pregnant wobble-walk is beginning. Rubberbanding my pants button has also appeared, as it’s getting all but impossible to button my pre-pregnancy pants anymore.

I also feel the baby kicking a lot, and have been doing so since November. Not just tiny flutters but real hard foot-in-the-belly jabs. One night the baby even kicked me, kept his/her foot there and then slid it slowly along from my belly button to my side! It always scares me when she/he does it too. So much so that I scream. It’s quite humorous actually. What’s odd is that even though the timing is only 2 weeks off from my 1st pregnancy (twas due May 6 with that one and am due May 17 with this one!), I didn’t feel Jack-Evan kick until late January.

A lot of people say “Oh, you just know what to expect with your 2nd”. But seriously, I think if Jack would have foot jabbed me back then I would NOT have mistaken it for gas. Truly.

But anywho.

So that’s where I am right now - in the midst of my 2nd pregnancy, chasing a happy go lucky developing toddler, deciding in which direction to take this little blog, and loving every single minute of my stay at home mommy life.

And with that, I leave you with a few recent photos of 2009 Christmas fun!

My husband and I were Joseph & Mary in our church’s Chrismas play.
The baby doll looked so real that he fooled many in the audience!

Jack-Evan helping “DaDa” cut down the tree at our local tree farm.

Getting our tree loaded!  It’s a family tradition.  The farm we go to has a petting zoo, acres & acres of a wide variety of trees, a building to eat, a playground, a large ornament shop, and even an old fashioned trolley to ride.  It’s awesome.

Jack-Evan playing on Christmas eve.  The art easel in the back was a gift from his Grammy & Papa!
He likes wearing hats, but ONLY if HE puts them on.  He’ll snatch one off in a jiffy if we try to put it on him.

Another present from Grammy & Papa was Jack’s first full sized piano keyboard.
He loves music and will play the one at their house for over 30 minutes in one sitting!

On Christmas morning, after all the presents were found and played with, he snuck off by himself and devoured some of his daddy’s chocolate peanut butter cups.  He thought he was slick and no one would find out….

My poopiehead and I on Christmas night.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Index of Moving a Co-Sleeper to His Own Bed

1. Moving a Co-Sleeping Toddler to His Own Bed: Prologue
2. Moving a Co-Sleeping Toddler to His Own Bed: Day 1
3. Moving a Co-Sleeping Toddler to His Own Bed: Day 2

WRITTEN ON OCT. 1, 2009

Two nights ago I did something I never thought I woiuld do. I put my 17 month old co-sleeping, breastfed, feed-on-demand firstborn baby in his crib. It was a little after 4 am and he had been up all night, crying to nurse (we’re in the middle of weaning) and having temper tantrums. These nighttime jags have been going on for well over 3 weeks now, every night. ALLL night. We had been losing so much sleep it was ridiculous. What was strange was that even when he was a newborn we never had troubles at night with Jack-Evan. He’s always been the perfect sleeper, never even crying a bit at night!

Something had to give.

And give it did. You can read about the entire experience here. But if you’re just browsing and don’t care to read deeper, here’s the short form - my son is weaning since I’m pregnant with #2 and began to dry up. Daytime weaning is pretty much done, but night time weaning is a booger. He’s been waking up every 15 minutes begging to nurse. After a 3 hour final “battle” I picked him up, walked into his room, put him in his crib at 4:15 am (two nights ago), and there he stayed until 8:30 am. Cry? Oh yes. He howled like a pack of wolves under a full moon for 2 whole hours.  I cried about that long too.

But as I said, something had to give.

Yesterday morning, upon gathering my very-happy-to-see-mommy son from his crib, I knew that our family situation was about to change forever. Co-sleeping was never something I planned to last permanently (heaven forbid we still co-sleep in high school!), but still, he’s only 17 months old now. He’s still my baby…my first born…my current only. My heart.

Yet it was time. He was no longer happy in our big king size bed. He was getting very little sleep, Mommy was getting very little sleep, and poor Daddy (who gets up at 5 am for work) was the most unfortunate of all of us. My mommy instincts told me it was time to move on in life and that Jack-Evan was ready for his own space.

By himself.

When my husband Kevin arrived home from work last night, I had a talk with him over dinner about the changes that needed to take place. He was completely on board with it all (especially since it meant he would get a full nights rest again soon).  Plus we both hated to see our little boy so unhappy!

Later on, when it was time for bed, we gathered Jack-Evan up, gave him his bath, brushed his teeth, put on his pajamas, read him a story….

Then laid him in “Jack’s new bed!”. We also handed him the “new NU NU” (what we call a bottle of milk…since Jack-Evan called nursing “nu nu”).

Beside his crib was a blow up mattress and my own pillow where I planned to sleep (for at least a week).

Just as I thought, Jack-Evan threw a huge tantrum. But contrary to my other thought, this one only lasted 30 minutes! As I lay there on the floor in the dim Winnie-The-Pooh nightlight glow, I ignored my screaming son, with just an occasional ”Mommy’s here, Mommy loves you” to reassure him he wasn’t alone. It was hard, but at least with each passing minute I knew we were marching towards a new stage in life.

Finally the room grew quiet, with the exception of a fan we always have going for “white noise”. It was only 30 minutes into this new lifestyle change…and he was already asleep.

It took me a good 2 more hours to fall asleep. Afterall, having slept 17 months snuggled close to my child and the 9 months before that with my child snuggled inside of me, things seemed a bit odd.  But I finally fell asleep.

This morning as the 8 am sunlight streamed into the room, I heard a tiny “Mama? Maaaama?”. I turned over and there he was, looking at me through the bars of his crib.  Awake and happy.  I realized with a start that he had slept the entire night without waking.

My instincts were right….It was time for change, and we had now survived the first full night of the transition.

Index of Moving a Co-Sleeper to His Own Bed

1. Moving a Co-Sleeping Toddler to His Own Bed: Prologue
2. Moving a Co-Sleeping Toddler to His Own Bed: Day 1
3. Moving a Co-Sleeping Toddler to His Own Bed: Day 2

WRITTEN ON SEPT. 30, 2009

Well.  I did it.

I never thought I would.  But I did.

I just. couldn’t. take. it. a.n.y.m.o.r.e.!

Last night was the worst night we’ve had since Jack-Evan was born.  Even through his 2 colds and the reflux when he was tiny, we didn’t have nights like this.

It all started out normal.  Well, about as normal as any night this month has been.  Sometime between 9 and 10 pm, our normal bedtime, we prepared for bed and laid down with Jack-Evan.  For the 5th night in a row I refused to let him nurse before falling asleep….and ohhhh what a howl he let out.  It had to be the mother of all temper tantrums.

Finally, I’m not sure how, but he managed to fall asleep, as did both of us.

And all was quiet as a mouse…until 1 am.

That’s when he woke up for the first time.  After refusing him “nu nu” (his word for nursing) yet again, he then refused to sleep.  For the next 3 hours we battled in between snatches of sleep here and there.  He wouldn’t accept anything else, not his sippy cup, no water, no bottle, no milk.  He wanted his NU NU and nothing else would satisfy.  At no point did we get more than 5 minutes of sleep at a time last night.

Mommy just wanted sleep and no more sore bosoms.

Battling between my intuition and my logic, I refused to let him get on up to “play”.  After all, wouldn’t that be considered “rewarding” him for waking up and throwing temper tantrums?  I remembered all of the “words of advice” I’d read over the years about how you should hold your child, rock him, sing songs, comfort him, and show him how much he’s loved - and POOF!  - all would be well.

Weeeellll…all was not well.

My son is not one for basic comforting when he’s upset.  Touching him during a tantrum or howling mode only makes him angry.  Rocking will not suffice because that involves touching.  And singing sweet soothing songs?  Fuggitaboooutit!  Any sound that came out of my mouth, at any point, made him scream at 500 decibels louder than my own voice was.

So there we were, mom & son, battling in a huge king size bed in the dark, catching short snatches of sleep here and there.  I would lay him down in the middle, he would pop back up.  I would pull my shirt down, he would try to pull it back up yelling NU NU!!! at the top of his lungs.  He would pound my chest, I would hold his hands and lay him back down.  Back up he popped.  A few times he climbed on Daddy, hoping Daddy would wake up and force Mommy to comply to his wishes.

Daddy woke up, opened one eye, turned over and pulled the covers over his head.  But that’s about it.

By 4:15 am I had about all my frazzled mommy nerves could take.  And I did it.  Something I never in a million years thought that I, as a semi-attachment, breast-feeding, co-sleeping, easy going, baby-wearing parent, would do.

I picked up him, walked to his room, placed him in his crib, said goodnight, turned around….and walked out.

As I laid down, the house reverberated with my poor little son’s pitiful howls.  I knew he was safe.  I knew there was no danger.  Yet my heart about gave out on me.  Never in my life had I thought I’d be on a mission to just let him “cry it out”.  My mind raged with thoughts of scarring my son for life because of what I had just done.  Would he ever forgive me?  Would this ruin any chances of him ever living a normal existence?  Would he end up in therapy one day uttering to his psychologist from a couch, “Why yes, there was this one horrific moment in my childhood when it all started…”

But that’s exactly what I did.   I just let him cry it out.   As I pulled the covers over my head, I half dozed for the next 2 hours half while listening to my firstborn’s wails.  The wails of a 17 month old child who had never slept a night further than 6 inches from me. Nevermind that Jack-Evan’s room door is only 18 inches perpendicular from ours.  At least Kevin was able finally able to get an hours rest before heading off to work, considering that Jack was now crying in another room instead of directly into his Dad’s right ear.

Finally, by 6:30 am, I suddenly realized the house was quiet.  Slowly I crept out of bed, tiptoeing, lest any small floor creak would send Jack-Evan into banshee scream mode again.  Peeking out of our room door and into his, I saw his little tiny tired frame, sitting up on his pillow, staring out the window.  He was, at least, quiet now.

I crept back to bed and laid down, falling asleep until 8:30 am when I heard a tiny voice quietly utter “Mum Mum?”.  I hopped up, ran into the room to my baby, picked him up and enjoyed a 5 minute bear hug from his tiny arms.

I could sense a new era was already dawning in our development as a family.  It was a change I wasn’t emotionally prepared for, yet I had always known the day would eventually come.  My gut instinct let me know it’s finally time.

Tonight, we begin a new bedtime routine, one which involves separate beds…and separate rooms.