March had a beautiful beginning. On March 7 Israel turned 2 weeks old and we went to my sweet and incredibly talented friend's home for a photo shoot. The pictures are treasures:
Our sweet Israel never really did "sleep like a baby." Even in the hospital I couldn't get him to sleep on his back and, although things got better for a week or so at home (I put him on his side or on his tummy) it got progressively worse. By the end of March he was so gassy that I started just wearing him during the day for his naps and holding him in a recliner at night.
Here he is the day he turned 1 month old.
It was only a couple weeks later that his colic got so bad that he couldn't sleep, even when being held. I've never had a baby cry so hard, even while being soothed. For several days in a row he has been crying from roughly 8 PM-11 PM or later. Even with our attempts to soothe him, which worked for all of our other kiddos. I hate seeing him in pain but it's also just frustrating because we're so tired! I actually put him in the car seat and took him for a drive one night at 11:30 or so to try to get him to sleep. I'm happy to say that it worked that night, although it didn't work the following evening.
Thankfully, we think we may have it figured out, at least a little. Last night, the last night of March, we were able to get him to bed by 10:30 after a much more peaceful night. He still had bouts of colic but they were shorter and he was able to nap between them. He also had his longest stretch of sleep, yet! Five and a half hours is amazing for a child of his age and I woke up and prayed with tears of gratitude for such a blessing after a month and a half of sleep deprivation. We'll see what April brings for our sleep saga. For now, we are very, very grateful.
Lucy was so hard at the beginning of the month. It's a little difficult to explain why she was just so difficult. She just seemed stuck in her own world. She would stay in her room for hours, pulling clothes, underwear and diapers out, then she'd sit with them all spread around her on the floor and stuff some in her backpack. Any attempts to clean up would get her upset. She would refuse to get dressed (Maybe she'd put a pair of Hinckley's Spider-man underwear on over her diaper, but that's it!), refuse for a couple of hours to come down to breakfast, refuse to go anywhere... And being distracted with a newborn and the boys' needs made it difficult to make her do anything.
Usually, by 9:30 or 10 she would come down for a late breakfast, but often she would stay in her pajamas until after her nap or she'd even be in just a diaper when she would take her clothes off. We would try to dress her and she would be so indecisive that we'd give up and leave her crying.
Thank heaven, things have gotten much easier. The only problem we have, at present, has been that she started getting scared at the end of the month. She woke Dane up in the middle of the night (I was already up with the baby) saying she was a scared of spiders. Since it happened more than once we decided, for better or worse, to let her sleep with the boys on the extra bed we have in there. It's only been a couple of nights and they are all extra tired... but but she hasn't complained about being scared since. We hope we made the right choice. We are just too tired and stressed to have one more person to worry about in the middle of the night!
Listen to Lucy:
- "Mm-hm." (Her only response- she never says, "Yes.")
- "Don't get mad, Mom."
- "I not make mess, Mom."
- "Lucy is pwincess, too!"
- "She's petty, she's petty... she's petty..." (Pointing at girls wearing dresses in books)
- "This is cute, this is cute... this is cute!" (Looking at her clothes, especially some recently received from cousins.)
- "I cahn't do this, Mom." (She still pronounces all a words with ah, as in pants- "pahnts.")
- "This not Hinckley's (or Atticus's). This Lucy's." (Not yelled, said in a slow, deliberate way.)
- "I tired, Mom/I cold, Mom."
- "Good moning, Dad." (after her nap.)
Another source of frustration this month has been our Hinckley. He can be such a peacemaker and source of joy but he can do just the opposite.
Here he is at a soccer practice, refusing to play. Before this he had been yelling at me every time things didn't go his way. He'd say things like, "It's all your fault!" when he missed the goal or "I'm not doing another thing for you!" when he'd go back and rejoin the team after stomping off in a huff.
This was the worst of the times he got mad and took it out on me. After thinking it over I realized this was probably the result of very little sleep (his allergies were so bad at the beginning of the month, which I'll discuss more next.) and a sugar crash after a special lunch with Dad earlier that day. There were several other occasions, however, when he lashed out at me. He has mentioned to people that the baby is "hard" and that having his dad at home is "challenging."
On top of having a fussy baby, poor Hinckley's allergies acted up again this month, as I mentioned earlier. He is pretty much stuffy all year round and we're all so sick of it. It can make sleeping so difficult for him and he always breathes with his mouth, even when eating. It causes a whole host of problems.
SO we finally got a referral from the doctor to get his blood tested for allergies. We were so excited at the prospect of finally getting some answers as to what specific allergies he has. Unfortunately, things didn't go so well. The phlebotomist botched taking Hinckley's blood and was pretty much digging through his arm trying to find a vein.
Poor Hinckley, who had been SO brave initially completely refused to let the guy try his other arm and I didn't blame him. When they asked if I wanted to have him held down I just couldn't do it. The poor little boy was already in so much pain and was terrified. So we were unable to get any blood drawn and we're still in the dark about what specific allergies he has. It was very disappointing and, for Hinckley, very traumatic.
Even with all of these negative experiences, we hae such sweet moments with our Hinckley, His heart is so big and so tender. On one occasion he walked in the house and with a sweet smile on his face asked me, "Mom, when is a time you felt the Holy Ghost?" I shared an experience with him and he asked Atticus the same question. With some help Atticus answered the question. Then Hinckley shared, "I felt it outside now. I just gave [his friend] back his bow staff and I felt warm inside and it spread through my body." It was a beautiful conversation that I don't want to forget.
Hinckley Speaks:
- "I hate daylight savings!" ("Do you know what it is?") "No! What is it?"
- ("Shoot, I'll read this to you in a minute. I have to go to the bathroom.") "It's okay, Mom. Just don't poop in my bathroom."
- "Israel used to smell so good. Now he just smells like spit up. Why?"
- "When are they going to heal me?" (Talking about his allergies, hoping an allergy test will help him.)
- "Israel is my baby friend."
- "I'm going to make Israel a lullaby playlist."
Atticus has had quite a month when it come to soccer. His team began playing games at the end of the month and he started the season off by getting a hat trick (scoring three goals.) We also have him training with another team right now (he was attending a camp and the coach of a club team invited him to train with his players), which he loves. Getting him to practice three days a week with our colicky baby and other demands has been stressful (in addition to games on Saturdays) but we love seeing him improve and it certainly helps channel his seemingly endless energy.
Something that should be written down has been the hard lessons Atticus and Hinckley have had to learn recently. Last month, the two of them were playing upstairs and broke a small TV we have in the playroom. It happened after repeated warnings from me that they were going to hit the TV so we were pretty frustrated with the boys. At first we looked up the price of a Tv that size and Atticus grabbed his hard earned cash and gave us half of the amount. After talking it over, mercy won us over and we decided that for their consequence the two of them wouldn't get their allowance until April.
This month, we discovered that Atticus had broken a goal we had gotten for him in anger. We decided he could make up for it by doing the dishes for two weeks.
We hope we weren't pushovers, but we both agreed: we don't want his money, just for his behavior to change. We'll see if it helps at all.
For homeschool this month we studied Native Americans, American Expansion, Cowboys, Pioneers, and the Middle East. We watched a bunch of Western movies, which was so fun. They loved seeing Shane, watching The Lone Ranger (Hinckley once asked me how the show "lost its color") and we especially loved The Apple Dumpling Gang.
We read a book I used to read with my 7th grade students, The White Indian Boy. I had forgotten how exciting it was and how much great information it has!
We learned about Persian weaving and rungs and then did some weaving of our own:
We read so many awesome picture books but a memorable one was Tomie dePaola's Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Afterward, the three of us drew Sunsets with a Native American village in the background. They turned out really nice!
We also made Indian fry bread and it was a HUGE hit. We definitely need to make it again.
It was frustrating to be so tired and have zero time for planning, but we still learned a ton together. Next March we'll be able to delve into these topics further.
We hope Baby Israel will get easier next month so we all can sleep and feel better!
