Keeping Afloat

I can't say I'm the most positive person around, my wife likes calling me a debbie downer.  It's funny because, despite her accusation, I make great efforts to stay positive and not dwell on myself.  But right now I need to vent a little.  Maybe a l not.  I'm only human, I have feelings and emotions and pains.

For the past two or three weeks... maybe a month, I've not been well and the only thing keeping me going forward is knowing it could be worse.  And it looks like life is on a mission to make that as painfully obvious as possible right now.  I have two friends that have lost husbands, one with a daughter the same age as Nicholas.  One friend who was in the hospital for almost a week due to strong contractions and, basically, premature labour.  She's only 26 weeks along and very young and scared.  Someone who miscarried at 30 weeks due to shitty doctors (not in the US, no possibility for suing).  I could go on with what is going on around me and I do feel for these people and I know full well their situations are far worse than mine.

But I still have mine.

Potty Training - Week 11

Days 71-77

9/6-9/12

I may be getting ahead of myself, but I think we have achieved day time potty training.  It took 11 weeks but he is now consistently telling me when he needs to go before he goes and we had only one accident this week (half a block away from home) so I think we've got this.  He has even told me he had to poop and pooped in the 'the big potty.'  I think a little celebration is due!

I am not naïve, I know we may face some regression and accidents will continue, but I refuse to let that burden our accomplishments.  Right now, at this moment, we have done well.  He has mastered this skill and I am proud.

Night time potty training is another obstacle.  He does wake up most days dry but still has days where he wakes up with a wet diaper.  I am not stressing this right now.  I do try to get him to pee before he goes to bed but we still have times when I find him sleeping on the couch or I simply send him to bed because he's being cranky.  All in time.  I am proud of what has been accomplished nonetheless.

I will now stop the weekly potty training updates.  The last couple of entries have been difficult since I have no time and there is very little to report.  The final hurdle was pending for a while and now we have passed it.  I will now only post a potty training post when there is something of note to post.

Potty Training - First Two Weeks In Review

Tomorrow (today, I guess, judging by the time) will be the first day of the third week of potty training.  While I have been making regular posts on how we are doing (click 'Potty Training' under labels to the right for the play-by-play), they have been focused on the details of actual potty training and not on how this is affecting us overall.

Potty Training - Days 11-14

(7/8)
The new chart was a hit.  I heard him get out of bed and come into the play room then exclaim "WOW! A train!"  It made my morning.

Which was needed because it was another stressful day for me.  He only peed twice today, at 1pm and 5:30pm.  Both times on the potty but it was worrisome.  I looked over the charts and he has been drinking the same amounts so maybe he is just holding it again because he doesn't want to stop playing.  Which makes sense since he did wet his underwear several times.  But then doesn't because I make him stop and sit on the potty more often when he does this.  Hopefully it's just something he is trying out and will stop once he sees it's better to just pee.

The 'New' Playroom

It's 1:30am.  WTH am I doing up at this time??  Cleaning, that's what.  Hurricane Nicholas came through today will full force leaving behind a disaster zone that makes Katrina look mild.  These past couple of days have been rough, he's been acting way out of character for him and by the time he is in bed I have been too exhausted to attempt cleaning up.  Today I had a little extra energy, we had a surprisingly ok evening after his nap, so I went to work before FEMA has a chance to try and 'help.'  

Cleaning up, while it took almost an hour, was a breeze!!  All thanks to my new set up and system (yay!).  I didn't move too much of his things around but did take out my bookcases from the playroom (aka living room) which has left an incredibly nice space.  Moved a couple of things around and I have been incredibly satisfied with the result.  And since insomnia has kicked in, I shall tell you all about these changes.

Lessons: The Sickies

I consider myself lucky for having such a healthy child.  He rarely gets sick and he is such a trooper when he does.  He tries to be his normal self but sometimes the illness brings him down and he gets whiny and cranky and clingy.  This week it was a cough with a slight cold.

He started maybe Friday with a cough.  I didn't think much of it, people cough without being sick.  Then Saturday he was cranky and had a fever.  He didn't grub on french fries.  That's when I knew he was sick.  He suffered this cough Sunday night and every night since then, not eating much and being very whiny.  I love my baby and don't like him feeling sick like that.  I was tempted for a moment to call the doctor but I know what he'll say: fluids, rest, tylenol for the fever, bring him back if he doesn't get any better in a week or to the ER if his fever gets really high.  Why bother?  So I decided to take matters into my own hands and play pharmacist.

I spent about 20 minutes standing in front of the children's medicine section at the Walmart comparing boxes.  I decided on the Triaminic for cough, grape flavoured (yuck!).  It says for kids 4 and older so 3 1/2 is close enough and I wasn't going to give him the full dose anyway since he doesn't take meds often.

I tried it right before bed, at 10pm, with surprising success.  It is much more liquidy than the tylenol and I knew the grape flavour wasn't going to be a hit.  I used a siringe and little by little with plenty of silliness from me he took 3/4 of a teaspoon (the box said 1 teaspoon for 4-6 years) with little mess.  Then I put him in bed.

Big mistake.

Within minutes we noticed he was happily playing in his bed, no coughing, and no intentions of sleep.  I kept telling him to settle down and he would, for a few minutes, before starting up again.  Then I heard velcro.  There is no velcro on his bed so it only meant one thing.  I stand up and look into the bed and notice lots of skin.  I stand on my bed and see a fully naked, laughing, Nicholas.  So I climbed up the bed and put the diaper back on, telling him that if he took it off again he had to wear underwear (I know, BAD!!), dressed him and tucked him in.  A few minutes later his feet were hanging off the side of the rail.  *sigh*  So I tell my SO, over Skype, "Good thing they don't add alcohol to cough syrup anymore!" and reached for the bottle that was still on my bed.

I'm taking very basic chemistry right now, the professor calls it toy department chemistry.  Right now we are learning about organic chemistry, at a very basic level, and I am actually understanding this tuff.  So I start reading the ingredients list and actually understanding what this crap is and what it looks like.  One of the 'inactive' ingredients is sorbitol.  The -ol ending tells me it's a type of alcohol.  Double *sigh*  He finally fell asleep around 12:30am.

Sleep!

This is the post that got lost.

It seems Nicholas has always been an interesting sleeper and I have gotten some very interesting sleep pictures.  I wanted to compare them and this seemed like the best way to do it.  Enjoy!

Ten days old, momma is the BEST place to sleep!