this, that and the miracle of sleep

Brr. The chilly days have arrived! Sophia is constantly outside none the less, barefoot but cranking her winter woolies (super cute hat knitted by her great-grandmother).





Our son spends minutes at a time in this position at the moment. He wants to be a Navy SEAL and is getting a head start on the training.





I have been walking around like a zombie for weeks. William's deliciously long night time stints have been a thing of the past for months now. We are talking two hours, total, of broken night time sleep and over twenty wake times. I have been living off cups of tea, fantasizing about curling up on the carpet in the middle of the day, and snapping far too often at my poor little three year old (for which sleep deprivation is no excuse, I know--I have a way to go towards my long term goal of managing my behaviour under any circumstance).

I wish I could feed and cuddle and rock my baby to sleep and have him stay that way all night long. Turns out all that feeding and cuddling and rocking has created a bit of a problem. Surprised? No, just disappointed. ;)





So we finally reached the point this week where we decided to embrace tears (to put it mildly) with a view to change. This would be an easy decision if William was the sort of baby who would cry for 10 minutes and then give up and sleep. Needless to say, he is not.

So, shaking with nerves for what I knew would be a long and heart-wrenching night, I began the Sleep Easy Solution sleep training dvd. Determined to be consistent and see it through properly, as hard as I knew that would be. (We had similar night time issues with Sophia and, after trying what felt like everything else, gave this dvd a go. Sophia very quickly became a consistent 7pm to 7am sleeper.)





I am not going to tell you how hard it was because it disturbs me just to mention it. I will say that we got approval from our doctor first, for peace of mind.

So here it is three days in to the program: William is currently asleep. He slept all night long last night and the night before. He has had two beautiful long day time sleeps today. Time spent rocking/feeding/bouncing/willing him to sleep = 0 minutes. Stress and fatigue levels = significantly decreased. Give us a couple of weeks to perfect it and catch up on missed sleep and I think we'll be doing pretty well.

I wish I could have had the same success with the no cry methods. I did try. But, there it is. We needed to embrace this difficult thing to get to the easy stuff on the other side of it: a happy and well rested baby, mum and family. Much better for William and much better for all of us.





Goodbye sleep deprivation, we won't miss you.


:)


x

i love

1. marmite faces

2. long holiday mornings in pjs

3. easter cupcakes

4. my boy in his highchair

5. the moon

6. sammy

7. easter egg hunts on dew covered grass

Hope you all had a happy Easter!

:)

x

dining

Busted!







There is a photo much like this one of my brother as a toddler--caught bitting into a french stick. I think he was sitting on a potty surrounded by bags of groceries at the time. Priceless. My husband went to cut this loaf later and found bite marks at each end and in the middle. He chopped square shapes into it to remove the bites and served up a block of tetris bread. :)

So today, given the things I have been working on this week, I thought I'd start the first of many posts on a favourite topic of mine: dining. There really is a lot to be said for sitting around a table together, sharing food and conversation. It creates a natural pause in the busyness to listen and be fully present. It is and will be a key, I think, to keeping the connections with our kids alive and strong.







The above pic was of our first family meal together in the new home. The biggest challenge for us is the long hours my husband works. Often we eat without him which makes the nights we spend with him all the more precious. And things are always more fun with Dad around.

Over the last week or so I have begun a bit of a revamp of our dining area. When Nat and I first got married we bought a dining table. I liked it in the shop but once it arrived at our house a bizarre thing happened, I realised that it was very different in reality to the picture I'd built of it in my mind. In my head was a nice plain wooden table with nice plain, normal legs. Somehow in the shop I'd managed to completely over look the fact that the legs had random silver strips down them and were all turned in differing directions. I was hearterly disappointed. Strange, I know. And it's not the first time this sort of thing has happened. I remember a trip to England as a child where my mum took me out to look for character ballet shoes (they were reportedly cheaper in London). Well, we went to every ballet shop we could find and I wouldn't let Mum purchase any because they were not black suede. My ballet teacher had shown me black suede character shoes. I was adamant. Needless to say on return I discovered that the navy blue canvas shoes we had seen everywhere in London were the shoes my teacher had shown me. Mum was right, and she had to pay twice as much for them here.

[I never really liked my pair of character shoes. I still want some in black suede. :)]

Anyway, all that to say, this table has been something I have been disappointed with for years. So, new house = time for a revamp.







Much better.

And beside the dining table is a large frame I have scrubbed up, taken the glass out of and am using to peg up family snapshots. I think I'll rotate them frequently, and add pictures and cards we receive from people we love. Kind of an alternative to photos on our fridge. One day I will find a great print to fill the frame, but this idea is doing the trick in the mean time.











I also managed to find these great stork-line chairs which I am thinking I might use as dining chairs for a while. I can't decide whether to paint them both or not...











And what would a post of mine be without a few 'pics of the week'?
























I had other things to say involving home cooked wedding anniversary meals and butter. Mmm, butter. Flavoured with anchovies and lemon and all sorts of good things. But alas it will all have to wait until next time... :)

So that's all for now. For some great family dining inspiration check out this blog: Dinner: A Love Story.



:)


x

wedding bells!

Ah, this week five years ago! So I've pulled out the pics (taken by the gorgeous and very talented Jo Currie)...

Looking cute Becs!

It's been an amazing five years! Love ya Nat!

:)

x

7 happy things

1. Baby modeling aforementioned pillow slips in new master bedroom.



















2. Mugs of tea and wood.














3. Books and afternoon sunbeams.









4. Farmer Brown's boiled egg shrinkies for Easter fun-ness.














5. Christening the new home with a some craft. We cranked our collage box and a gift from a dear friend bought from here.














6. Exploring our new 'hood'.














7. Giggly kiddies and evening patios.

And a very happy weekend to you!




:)


X