Memories

I've been thinking a lot today about all the milestones, amazing memories, and favorite days as I approach my 26th birthday. Oddly enough all those memories and favorite days have happened in the last 4 years! It seems like my life really began when I met Andy. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, but I think all that time I was being prepared for this life.

Andy has been such a wonderful friend, husband and dad. We've had our bumps but for the most part it had been the best years of my life. He gave me my girls who fill our lives with such fun and unconditional love. And he gave me an extended family that loves me as if I was their own.

It's hard to think 4 years ago I was dreaming of love, dreaming of getting married and starting a life with someone. If someone had told me on my birthday 4 years ago that I'd be a wife and soon to be mom within 13 months I would have laughed in your face! But here I am a wife to my best friend and a mom cubed. There have been challenging days like when the girls were born and enduring all 3 of my kids in the NICU for the first days of their lives. And there have been joys- my wedding day, when my girls smiled at me for the first time, said "mama" for the first time. It's been a very full 4 years and I'd never trade it for anything in the world.

I'm so blessed to wake up on my 26th birthday to 3 smiling beautiful faces who want hugs and kisses and a husband who loves me like a stalker:) I have a wonderfully full life and pray God's blessings continue to rain on us.

Changes

Well, I spoke too soon! I was so gung ho about the schedule and we were all doing good, then life changed...

After trying a "dream feed" little miss Nora woke up at 1am, 3am, 5am and 7am...so needless to say I will no longer be doing a "dream feed!" She has now taken after her sisters at this age and is feeding every 2 hours! Which is not all that bad as long as she will sleep her 13-15hours like her sisters did at 3 months...which is coming soon! So crossing my fingers once again that this will happen:) She seems to be quite more content too. I was so strict about making her lay down for a nap about an hour after she ate for a few weeks and it was a struggle. A lot of times she wouldn't sleep, or she'd wake up after 30 minutes. Now she stays awake every other feed...which is what my mom recalls that the girls did(my mind ever so inconveniently blocked out). And Nora seems so much more content being doing this every other thing. Before she was so restless to sit or lay for even 10 min...which was so frustrating, but now she is very happy to play on the floor for 40 min. Maybe this will change next week, but for right now life is good:)

Babywise is a very helpful book and answers a lot of questions and gives good reassurance, but my kiddos are just 2hr feeders and great sleepers:)

Scheduling 2

Nora 2 months! Jan 24th, 2011

Well, last night I wrote I was going to implement the "dream feed" which is the feeding at 10:30-12 at night with the hopes of Nora sleeping till 7:30, but I quickly decided (being the early bed timer that I am) that I'd rather wake up at 4:30 and feed her (since I' already up to pump my engorged milk makers) than stay up or get up at 11pm to feed her. I'm a lot happier for some reason at 4:30am than I am after waking up at 11pm.





So I'm going to stay on this track until she gets a little bigger and shows she wants to sleep all the way till 7:30. Hopefully I'll be happy to report in a couple weeks my method has worked , but if not...oh well this is a learning process right?!





Here's the blog I've been addicted to lately. She has got so much great info that has helped me out in these past 2 months. babywisemom.com

Schedules

After reading a lot of books I have come to the humbling conclusion I know so little about childraising! I've stumbled across a great help called scheduling. Most days I simply turn the TV on after breakfast to entertain the girls with the goal of it only being an hour tops, then it ends up all day long. So reading about scheduling your kids was awesome. Making the girls have room time, structured play time, independant play time, mommy time, reading time has quite unbelievably freed up my days! I have time allotted for everything I need to get done and the girls are learning patience, self control and the stinking tv in only on for maybe a half hour!!

Don't get me wrong about scheduling. It hasn't been easy and I don't think it will always stay easy. I just got done reading a bit more information on what Nora should be doing now, which I've been doing a little backwards which explains some things:) But life is a learning process...I'd just like to get it right and stick with it.

Our days have turned into something like this or what we're working toward

7am-I get up and do devotions and get breakfast ready
7:30-Feed Nora
8am-Get twins up and feed them breakfast
8:30-put Nora down for a nap clean up girls breakfast and let the girls have free playtime
9am-Exercise while girls play downstairs with me
10am-Put girls in their room for quiet time/I do a few chores
10:30-Feed Nora/get girls out of bedroom and put in chairs for coloring time
11:00-TV time/My cleaning or personal projects time/get dinner going
11:30-put nora down for nap/fix girls lunch
11:45-Lunch time
12:15-clean up lunch/reading time
12:45-free time
1:00-Nap time for girls/I shower
1:30-Feed Nora and do her exercises
2:30-Put nora Down for nap, along with me!
3:30-Get girls up from nap and give snack
4:00-Mommy play time
4:30-Feed Nora/girls have free time
5:00-Play with Daddy while I get dinner ready
5:30-put nora down for nap or in swing to sleep
6:00 We eat dinner
6:30-Girls bathtime
7:00-Twins bed time
7:30-Feed and bathe Nora and put her down
10:30-Last feed then back to bed

Now in the perfect world she sleeps till I wake her up at 7:30, but lately I've been letting Nora sleep from 7:30 until she wakes herself up which has been around 4. I'll get up and put a passy in her mouth and she sleeps till 5:30. I feed her and put her back to bed then get her up at 7:30. This week I'm trying the late night 10:30 feeding to see if this will help her sleep till her wake time...we'll see.

After this week of getting the twins used to their schedule we will be potty training. I've read Pottywise and I'm stoked and geared up to get er done! Wish us luck as we all try to get organized and routined!

Princesses

Grandma got princess dresses for the girls and they LOVE them! I've definitely got some girly girls on my hands!

Thursday, Thursday...

I can't believe I'm posting twice in 1 week!! This is turning into my almost diary:)

Well Last night was great. After only a half hour of baby blues when Andy got home we had a very calm relaxed evening putting the girls to bed and sleeping all night! My little Nora is doing so great (thank you babywise for enlightening me!) and on a flowing schedule. I have to say I was pretty arrogant after the twins came home and they started sleeping through the night. I thought I had this mommy thing down to a T, well it's funny how God brings you back to reality. I was completely lost when Nora came home. It was like I had forgotten everything that happened the 1st year of the twins lives. I didn't know how often I should feed, when she should sleep, how long she needed to stay awake, what her cries meant, how often she should be pooping..the list goes on and on. Then a gentle yet direct best friend brought me out of my pity party and said, "this is why there are books, women forget and need reminders". So i got a book, well I got several of them and set out to get my kids lives in order.

The first month we were home I was really slack about schedules. I just went as I pleased, took the kids out whenever I wanted to leave the house and stuck to no normal routine. So of course after a month of this they were a little out of sorts not knowing what to expect. So buckling down this week and locking ourselves inside has majorly paid off. Even though the little buggers are really flexible about going out, they are so much happier and settled when they know whats coming. I know there are a lot of opinions out there about how scheduling kids is bad and a form of child abuse...well, I believe most of those opinions were formed in the quiet living room of a singleton parent sipping their Starbucks and watching days of our lives while their nanny tends to the kid. My limited experience has taught me that predictability is a powerful thing to a child and when that child is content and happy...mom is content and happy and the home becomes a peaceful refuge instead of a chaotic emotion pit.

So for this mom of three, things are looking up! I'm not naive enough to think there aren't going to be hard days and nights, but at least I know what to do when they come and I'm expecting them to happen.

Week 7

So after 6 weeks of craziness, fits, fatigue, and no order I am finally buckling down and forcing my kiddos into a routine. I read the babywise book and I have to say about the 2nd round of the eat/wake/sleep cycle Nora was a new baby. She seemed to almost crave this routine and it has eased my mind a lot!

However here we are in week 7. The week where I've decided not to leave the house so I can get all of us into a preditable routine. Nora has refused to go down for her nap and stay asleep. I've been reading Chronichles of a Babywise Mom and have found a lot of helpful tips, but today nothing seems to work. I've been letting her CIO and she'll fuss for maybe 5 minutes drift to sleep then wake up and fuss another 5 minutes. This continues it seems like for an hour!!! I'm at a loss and have no idea what to do! I thought maybe I was keeping her up to long so this last time she was up about 45min and started yawning and drifting to sleep so I put her down, then 45 min later the crying cycle began. Hopefully this is just a 1 day thing and she'll go back to normal.

My two toddlers...oh how to begin. This weekend has been the hardest week of parenting so far. Overnight it seems Abbie has perfected the fit throwing. She has been a raging terror the last 3 days. She started getting a cold and I attributed most of it to this so the first day we coddled her a bit...turned out to be a BIG mistake. We set ourselves up for sleepless nights, mom and dad crying and fighting and many many headaches. But of course overnight, she has returned back to her normal self. Now Ella has a pretty bad cold and I'm very prepared to deal with what's to come now:)

On a more positive note, Nora slept through the night last night for the first time!!!!! I got 8 hours of sleep and I feel like a completely different person. After bouting the baby blues for several weeks and trying to figure out a newborn with 2 year olds.

New Years

Well this is probably the 5th time in a few weeks that I've sat down to write something, but everything coming out was a downer, so here goes my 6th attempt at an update!

Praise the Lord our Jackson family entered the new year in great health! Times would be so much more strained had I had sick kiddos to deal with. But thankfully we are all healthy and I pray it stays that way!

Our little Nora is beautiful and so perfect. She has started smiling when you talk to her and it's the most precious smile ever! She is a great eater and overall very content to not be held, which is a must in a house with two toddlers who get into EVERYTHING!! She is 5 weeks old tomorrow and 9.5lbs. We had to go to the doctor with her last week to get her stitches taken out from where her PIC line was in and the doctor really laid it out to me how sick she really was when she was at Children's. Thankfully the wonderful nurses and staff at Children's were so comforting and positive that had I been fully aware of the severity of her situation I would have lost it completely. I am thankful everyday (and every sleepless night which are many many) for her to be here and healthy.

Little Ella Noodle is doing great. She is 23 months old and a little firecracker! She is a mimic to everything I do. She wats to help me do anything whether it's vacuuming, dusting, emptying the dishwasher, changing Nora...she just wants to be mommy's little helper. She is talking up a storm. Both the girls are spouting off full sentences and conversations. Ella has had a hard time adjusting to Nora being here. She is missing the one-on-one time with mommy and has been naughty lately when she doesn't get it. It has been a real challenge to discipline and deal with her tantrums. However if my Great Grandma did it with 4 by herself I'll make it.

Abbie is a complete ham. SHe loves loves loves to laugh and dance. She has had a very easy transition to Nora being here. She has always been content to play byherself and doesn't want a lot of single attention from momma. She loves to do workout videos with mom and she's better than I am at them! She is getting so big and growing a lot of hair! I can't wait till both the girls hair gets long enough to put in ponytails:)

Andy is doing great, just exhausted from a heavy work schedule. He has only 3 weeks left of this ridiculous schedule which we are all happy about. He has been really missing spending time with his girls and me.

I have been trying to keep up with everything. I'm not gonna sugar coat it, it's been hard, very hard to transition to life with a newborn. Nora isn't the hard part, although I would trade my left arm for a solid nights sleep. The twins are the kids that are wearing me out. It's game on from the time they get up until the time they go to sleep. Our days are filled with giggles, fights, smiles, tears and hugs and kisses. I wouldn't trade them for anything!