Sleeping all night, knock on wood...

We finally have a little guy sleeping through the night. Once he got used to not having the bink or bottle at night it just ended up going hand in hand with it. I am knocking on wood, but we are so glad he is sleeping through the night. We haven't had the most consistent sleeping boy. Ever since he was born it has been a roller coaster to get "T" to sleep through the night. He would go through such awesome spurts of sleeping and we would finally start getting used to it and then over night it would change to waking up numerous times at night. I know some of it has to do with growing and with feeding, but it is hard as a parent when you read other blogs or Facebook posts of parents with kids similar to your kids age and they have a little one sleeping all night. it gets a little frustrating. I know you are not supposed to compare to other people, but it is just human nature to do so. Maybe I am the only one who does this, but I have a feeling that lots of parents do the same thing.

I don't know if I mentioned in a prior post, but with "T" being in a toddler bed, it made things a little harder to get him to sleep through the night. When we originally put him in the toddler bed he was still using the binky so he would go right to sleep at night, but yet he would still wake up throughout the night and knock on his door or cry until we went in there. Once we eliminated the binky, it was hard to get him to even lay in bed at night because he knew he could just get up and walk around. Luckily it didn't take "too" long for him to adapt to the binky/bottle being gone, but it still made things hard with being in a toddler bed. I think if we are able to have any more kids, I would try and remove the binky/bottle prior to the toddler bed being introduced just to make it all a little smoother.

Anyiways, we are loving the sleeping all night for all three of us. It makes the Mr. have a more pleasant work day and it makes me a bit more productive during the day. "T" still is on a one nap schedule, but with him sleeping through the night, we are a lot happier and can do a lot more together in the mornings since now he takes a later nap in the day.

Binkies and Bottles

So we are currently in the get rid of binky and bottles phase. "T" has loved both since he was a baby and he is now almost 20 months old and still LOVES them. A little too much. He has been using a sippy cup as his main drink cup, but his night time and occasional morning comfort is his bottle. I didn't realize how hard the getting rid of the bottle would be. I mean it is getting easier, but it has had it's trials. Besides him getting older, we also had an issue with the bottle the other night that prompted us to start this process. The Mr. brought "T" his night bottle and next thing we know he had ripped the bottle nipple out of the bottle and poured it EVERYWHERE! At that point I was ready to be DONE with the bottles. The first night was the hardest by far and it has now been a week since we started this process. On that first night he just screamed at me and the Mr. We would put him down and sing him songs and rub his back and he just was not having it. He just kept yelling for his bottle. It ended up taking an hour to finally get him down to bed, but it was not without its resistance. Every night has been easier, but each night has come with his own challenges. I finally decided yesterday to have "T" throw away his bottles. We did the binkies the day before, but we will come back to that. I had thought he would be too young to understand what he was doing, but he did it and last night actually was a lot easier getting him to bed. We will continue to work on it, but I am not regretting getting rid of the bottles at all.

The binky has been even more of a challenge because he has been very reliant on it. I know it is partially my own fault, but every time he would get upset or yell while we were at church or other events, i would use it as the "Mute" button per-say. He then just wanted it all the time, even when he didn't need it. The other night I went over to my brother and sister-in-laws house for "The Bachelor Wedding" and the Mr. was putting "T" to bed. Normally this would be all fine and dandy, but we had misplaced two of the three binkies we had left and the third was in the car which I had driven. "T" was not happy about this and gave his daddy quite the task of getting him to bed. It took an hour and a half for "T" to FINALLY fall asleep, which happened to be about ten minutes before I got home. After that trial, we decided that we were going to get rid of the Binky. I know I am being quite ambitious to do both at the same time, but I decided that by the end of February I wanted "T" to not have either and decided that the best plan of action was to just do both at once. It has not been easy, but I am seeing it be worth it. "T" has always talked a lot for his age, but now he is talking more to me since he doesn't have something blocking his voice. The day before we threw away the bottles, we threw away his binkies. (Well the ones I have been able to find so far haha.) I had reached out on Facebook about getting rid of the binkies and I heard back some awesome ideas on getting rid of it. Some of the ideas were to put it in a balloon and let him let go of it. There was also the idea of cutting off the tip of the binky and eventually they don't like to suck it anymore. I also heard the cute idea that people would bring in their binkies to "Build-a-Bear" and put it in the bear before they closed it up. The final thought i heard was to do the "Binky Fairy" which was what we ended up doing. I just gave "T" his binkies and he threw them away to the Fairy. I wish I would have done it sooner in the week because he totally got what he was doing and I have found the last few days have been easier without the binky. Thank you Facebook friends for all your wonderful ideas!

So here we are, a week later and "T" is doing better. I know it is still going to be a bit before he is totally over the two, but at least we are on the right path. Next thing to master will be the sleeping through the night, but we will get to that another time!

Life Style Changes

SO this year I have decided not to make any resolutions. I very rarely keep them and very rarely even start them. The word resolution to me has always been so short term or so temporary. It reflects what things i am only going to change for the upcoming year. This year instead I have decided to make "Life Style Changes." Some of them are small and some are going to take a long time, but that is okay because they aren't going to be something that just goes away once January 2015 rolls around. They are going to be part of my life forever.

My life style changes that I am going to make are;
-Laugh more
-Become healthy
-Teach my son something new everyday (this could be a word or a place, etc.)
-Keep a journal (Aka blog)
-Be more forgiving
-Be more open
-Be a better wife (listen more, love more)
-Be more patient
-Cut out social media during mommy/son time
-Pray more
-Go to the temple more
-Let things/people go

I know these things are not going to always be the easiest, but these are things that are necessary to make me a better me. They are things that are going to help my happiness and my families happiness. I know throughout the year I will come up with more things i want to change in my life, but these are my main focuses.. These are things that I know will make me happier and will make me a better mom and wife.

Here is to a wonderful life and lots to look forward to!

Sometimes...

Sometimes being a mom is really hard. When I was little, I had this image in my mind about what it would be like to be a mom. I thought that I would always be dressed so nice. I would always have dinner ready for my husband. I imagined that my kids would be so well behaved and that we would enjoy activities and learning together and everything would just be amazing and peachy. Well, as an adult and Mom, you come to realize that is not a very practical life of being a mom and wife. You get those days that you have a clean house and dinner done. You also get those days where you do everything I imagined. The reality of that (at least for me), is that it doesn't happen very often. I have a lot of days where I get to enjoy moments with my son and we get to play and read and do crafts, but on most of those days it ends up with a messier house or dinner being far from a thought in my head.. It also ends up with me showering once my son has actually gone to bed for the night. I am always at working to get better and manage my time better, but it doesn't always go according to plan. I may be the only mom out there who has a life like this, but i am betting that everyone, at least once in a while, has days/weeks like this.

Today I had one of those harder days. My son was wild.. He wanted me to either hold him or be right next to him. Even at moments, that wasn't good enough and he would just look at me and just say "no no no." Anybody out there with a one and a half year old may know what I am talking about. My son is going through a major tantrum phrase. I gave him once piece of popcorn, which led to a major breakdown because he wanted "moe and moe and moe." Then we continued our day with me cleaning up our kitchen from us just cleaning out our storage unit. I was handling the pile pretty well, and then "T" decided that he wanted to "help" clean and a little mess ended up in a MUCH MUCH bigger mess. My patience was running pretty thin at this point and I decided it must be time for nap time. Boy was that a task in itself. Finally I got my little guy to nap and as I worked on the major explosion of a mess in my kitchen, I stopped and smiled. How strange you may say, but even with my patience totally gone and the mess hovering over my head, I pictured "T" moving all the pans out of the cupboard and bringing all of his toys into the kitchen and just thought how lucky I am to be a mom. i really am. So even when I have hard days like today, I remember, I am a mom and am so so lucky to be that. There are so many people out there who don't get the privilege of being a parent and I am.

So just remember on those days that are SOMETIMES too hard to bare, feel lucky that you have a mess to clean up. Remember that the time is flying by. You won't always be "lucky" enough to have such a mess to clean.  

New Blog, New Year

I know it is already February, but one of my life changes for this year is to journal more. Well in this case, blog more. I am hoping to get better at keeping track of all the fun and maybe not so fun things of being a mom and a wife. I have high hopes for this blog. I believe in myself to make this blog stick and show and tell all the joys of being a mom. Sometimes the joys aren't so much "joys" per-say, but being a mom regardless of the ups and downs is a joy. So here is to the new blog, Being Called Mom!