Sleep redux, version 5.0

So we started a new sleep trial as of about 16 days ago. We decided (modified from Dr. Jay Gordon by our instincts) that the way to try to get Olive to sleep better at night was to completely stop all nursing between midnight and 5 am. We moved her little bed into our room to create a giant bed - separate but together. We felt like a 5 hour stretch wasn't too much to ask, and I really felt like if I could get 5 hours in a row (eventually, I knew it wouldn't happen magically overnight) that I could survive the rest of the night nursing until she was ready to wean or sleep on her own.

The first couple of nights she FREAKED out, but could be soothed into sleeping on mama or papa as we walked around the dark house with her tucked into a sling. Then we'd lie her down on her bed and she'd wake back up again. This would happen over and over for about an hour and a half, until she'd finally pass out from exhaustion. She was averaging about 2 wake-ups between midnight and 5, and the second wake-up was generally easier to get her back to sleep from (say, half an hour). Then it started to get better. I could just lie down beside her and sing to her while cuddling and she'd pass out in 5 or 10 minutes. Then Doug could do it too. Sometimes we'd just sleep with her in her bed, sometimes we'd get back into our bed. And one night she even slept from 11:15 pm to 3:15 pm and SO DID I. I felt like a brand new woman. Doug could spell me off. Things were improving. When she woke up anytime after 5 am she would just come into bed with mama and nurse as much as she wanted until she got up for the day, and daddy just rolled onto Olive's futon.

Then something happened. She started getting 3 new teeth all at once. There were some adult tensions around the house. And suddenly, suddenly, she's back to freaking out, taking an hour and a half to get back to sleep, screaming and screaming. And I think, sweet baby Jesus, will this child ever sleep? Doug thinks that she figured out that we were serious about this change, that it's not just some temporary fad, and she is ready to fight to the death.

We are completely unwilling to leave her alone to cry in her room in a crib (which she refuses to sleep in). I don't want to wean her. She's still getting the vast majority of her calories from me - this babe loves her milk (she even asks for it now, crying "Mama, mama" and making the 'milk' sign). And I love feeding her. And I can't even imagine how traumatic it would be to try and get her off the boob with the way she nurses right now. I will nurse her until she decides to wean herself, as long as she gives me 5 hours at night. I have to go back to work part-time in August, as well as caring for Etta 3 days a week. I have to get healthy again. I need to spend some quality time with my husband. I cannot do these things when I am getting no sleep.

So, I'm at a loss. Thank the gods Doug is done work in 3 days. It's going to be the summer of daddy teaching Olive how to sleep. And there is no going back. Sleep is now an imperative, meaning that our sweet monkey is going to have to adjust. I feel like I/we have done all of the adjusting this year, and now it's time for Olive to step up. We've done our best to give her an incredibly solid sense of love, attachment and security, and now there's going to be a little tough love chez nous.

Wish us luck.

Butt firmly stuck in neutral

I've been stuck in neutral these days, whiling away hours on the internet (blogs, facebook, you're eating my brain!). I feel really disconnected from people and things that I should be connected to.

So, we're going away. In a week we'll be leaving the land of electronic and telecommunications for three weeks in the land of sun, fresh air, canoeing (yes, Olive, in the canoe! woohoo!) no plumbing, blowing off the stink in the lake, a 25 year old outdoor toilet (appealing perhaps only to me - there are paintings of sea creatures that my sister and I painted as kids - what is better than to pee with the door open, surrounded by spiders and childhood art?), crosswords, board games, cards, a beer fridge, a porch with a view, a 50 year old record player and a supply of music ranging from the Mary Poppins soundtrack to Wham! to Roger Whittaker. Yes, Roger Whittaker. Mammy Blue is one of my all time favourite songs, so kiss it. We're going to have some alone time, then we're going to hang out with Great Grampa, Auntie Chris, Nanny, Kaitlyn and 3 precocious dogs. Full house. I cannot wait to introduce Olive to my favourite place on earth.

We'll be heading out to some amazing theatre and hopefully making jam with my grama. Then we'll be heading to the island to visit Doug's family and maybe do some camping on the beach (oh, how I'd love to visit Quadra Island again!).

Then, in August, mama has to go back to work (half-time). So, time to soak up the sun, the babe, the husband, the love.

And now it's time for me to wash the floors, do the laundry, bake, dust.....

Ridiculous

Oh. My. God. I love her. Look at that fizzog. It's insane. It should be illegal. It drives me to distraction.

Our days are currently full of sunshine, watermelon, and getting absolutely coated in dirt and strawberries, then splashing in water.

If only someone else could cook me fabulous, organic, local meals while I go to yoga and the gym. Mama's feeling really out of shape these days. Looking for a little more balance so that I can feel better and in turn take better care of the sweetest babe in the world.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Inspiration:
This amazing exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery (loved her ideas about time and space).
This sweet lil' guy. His asymetrical whimsy will inspire my version of Hillary Lang's Wee Bunny for Olive's birthday.
This awesome tree, which I plan on turning into a mobile for Olive. She loves mobiles. Why not?
Build Green on The Nature of Things last night. Now we really, really want a rammed earth house. (Can you say polar opposite to the black mold covered co-op we interviewed for on Saturday? The one that they're going to recarpet and paint right before we'd move in? Why is almost all social/co-op housing completely unhealthy? We say thanks but no thanks to toxins off-gassing everywhere).

Deflating:
All of the news. I cannot listen to one more story about the planet dying and the futility of trying to fight it because India and China are industrializing rapidly and once all of the billions of people there have cars we are truly fucked. De-press-ing. Why don't we all just shoot ourselves now?
The movie Blood Diamond. What was I thinking? I'm finding that now that I'm a mama, I am hyper sensitive to films (especially those based on facts) or stories about children being maimed, hurt, neglected, abused or exploited. Child soldiers? Hands being chopped off? I know about all of this already, so what made me think I needed to watch a dramatization? It all just makes me feel hopeless. How can we treat each other this way?

So, where is the balance? Excess, consumption, waste, total and complete disregard for our fellow humans and the planet. And what can I do to make it just that little bit better? Oh Olive, I truly hope that we turn that corner, otherwise, I don't know what I have done.

10 months, 23 days, 2 hours and 19 minutes

Olive chuckles and screws her face up into a squinchy-eyed, crooked grin all of the time these days. At random things and often at herself in the mirror. She loves dogs, but she loves Etta most of all. The other day I told her that we were going for a walk to see Etta and she swiveled towards the door and exclaimed "Et-ta!". She is scooting all over the house now, right leg bent and tucked, left leg out straight. She loves standing up at the coffee table playing with whatever happens to be there, then bending over to check out her book stash hidden on the shelf underneath. She said "Booh!" yesterday when I put Moo Moo, Brown Cow down on the bed. She gets braver by the day, bending over, pulling up, reaching and getting into all sorts of yucky places. Mmm, mmm, the bathroom floor is so tasty. She likes to brush my teeth and feed her daddy. If she could, she would only eat bananas and products containing white flour (cinnamon bagels, oh my!). She can readily identify the location of her own and mama's belly buttons. She will go to sleep in daddy's arms. When Doug walks into the room she says "Hi da" and waves her wee hand. She is so, so excited about life. She doesn't want her diaper changed. She can play the tambourine. She is a patient, sweet, gentle little soul except for when she boot kicks me in the stomach. She held my finger in her hand as she slept nestled against me last night. Her hair is the softest, softest thing, perfect for nuzzling and stroking. I love her so much it makes me crazy. And makes me want to let the crazy go. So we can be happy. Oh, Olive, you make mummy so happy baby.

Tacking on the positive.

I miss my friends. (So I'm going to make a real effort to reconnect with them because it will make me feel good).

I am feeling weepy these days. (Maybe I should sit down and just have a good cry).

I am almost constantly challenged (but doing a great job!).

I want some balance in my life. I am so tired of worrying about stupid shit like whether Olive's teeth are going to rot out of her head because we sometimes forget to brush her teeth, and when we do it's not very well because she doesn't really like it. Like, hello, maybe they will, maybe they won't - what are you going to do? (I have hardly any cavities and I only ever brushed once a day throughout childhood and I drank slurpees all of the time, Doug didn't go to the dentist for years and remained cavity free - perhaps she has our enamel).

I want to plan our summer trip and not worry about how hellish sleep might be in a tent (nothing a little beer and fresh air can't cure).

Yeah. Oh, and I want some new clothes and I'm going to buy some even though they will probably just get covered in stains and goo and we can't really afford it. (Because, fuck it, I might as well look good under the globs of banana).

I hate my hair. It is a giant helmet of coarseness. I also don't enjoy my hairdresser. (I'm going to cut my own hair. And if it looks bad, I look really cute with a pixie cut).

I'm going to start inviting people over in the evenings because I'm sick of being a hermit. (If Olive doesn't sleep, at least she'll learn that parties are fun!)

I'm going to establish boundaries with the babies because sometimes, I feel like my lifeforce is being sucked from my body and by the end of the day the only thing that perks me up is a glass of wine, a good book and some dessert. (Chocolate and wine are antioxidants. Babies need boundaries).

I am really, really, really looking forward to going to the first farmer's market of the season this afternoon!

Uh. Yeah. We're working on things. I love you friends.

Pathways

I feel like I only really write blog posts when I'm upset. When I need to expunge some poison, frustration, anger, disapointment, and almost never when I'm happy. Because when I'm happy, I'm too busy being happy to sit in front of the computer and write.

I've always had a tendancy to dwell on the negative, to catastrophize - there is a report card of mine from about the age of 9 wherein my teacher remarks upon my morbid nature. I am generally riddled with anxiety, worry and am sensitive in the extreme. I am intense and ever so slightly crazy.

Two things I'm in the process of learning right now are a) to relax, let go, surrender and to b) state things in the positive, even if I don't feel positive. This weekend (while washing the floor) I listened to Michael Enright's interview with Allen Shawn about his new book Wish I Could Be There: Notes on a Phobic Life and Shawn made this very simple statement about how dealing with his phobias was just a simple matter of creating new pathways in his brain. And I got to thinking about how simple it really is - my reactions to things, my persistent negative thinking are all just a result of the pathways between the synapses in my brain. Olive's dependance on nursing for sleep is also just because that is the pathway in her brain. And so for us to change things for the better all we need to do is gently and consistently create new pathways - when I catch myself thinking or speaking negatively I need to pause and rephrase in a positive manner. When putting Olive to sleep we need to gently introduce new ways for her nod off, and eventually they will become the default.

I went to yoga class yesterday and afterwards as I was driving to pick up Olive I was thinking about control and my obsessive need for it - I am constantly tracking how much she eats, when she nurses, how long she sleeps, how often she poops. It's crazy. And I can't control any of it. And I shouldn't, it's not my job, it's only suffocating.

I have to let go. When she won't sleep, she can get up. When I am frustrated I have to walk away and take a break. If she is in the care of a responsible, loving adult, I don't need to know the details of what took place while I was gone.

So, letting go, surrender, positive thinking, new neural pathways. Good luck? I can do it.

Whipping out the cranky

Warning, warning: this post contains more than its fair share of the F-bomb.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

It's a cranky morning.

Olive doesn't sleep anymore. Whatever happened, whatever changed, I'm sure that it's my fault. Because mother is the root, the cause of all problems, n'est-ce pas? I can cure all, I can screw it all up.

I now recall why I don't enjoy co-sleeping. If I move, she wakes up. If I don't move, I wake up exhausted, cranky and cramped. But if we don't co-sleep I'm busting my ass down the hall every hour or so to nurse the little bugger. The little bugger whom I love very, very much.

On one side I have the "let her cry, the only way she'll learn how to sleep is to cry", the "close down the all night boob buffet" brigade, on the other side I have the "if you let her cry she'll only sleep worse, and she'll be fucked up beyond all recall, hate you as a teenager and start snorting cocaine at twelve". YEEfuckin'HAW gang. Catch-22 up the wazoo.

I'm tired of being the endlessly sacrificing mother. I'm tired of being so goddamn tired. The only way I'm making it through the days these days is to remain perpetually jacked up on coffee, which in turn makes it almost impossible for me to unwind enough at night to go to sleep. I'm tired of giving, giving, giving, all night long. I'm tired of being so freaking sensitive to her every whimper. I'm tired of having no energy for anyone other than Olive, including myself. I want to go out occasionally without feeling guilty. I want to feel physically well. The situation is totally, completely out of control. And somebody (somebody pretty damn cute) has figured out exactly which frequency of whine-cry to make to get mama to plug up that gawd awful noise with her boob. And now I'm scared of trying to do the nightweaning (the totally sensitive, loving, daddy-by-your-side-all-night-long nightweaning. Not the alone-in-the-crib-in-the-dark-screaming-until-you-barf nightweaning) because ONE PERSON I know said that her daughter slept worse after trying it.

What. the. fuck.

So, Olive, my love. My sweet, sweet baby. We're going to have a rough end of June so that mama doesn't lose her marbles completely.

In the meantime, it's a beautiful day, the big D. is skipping work (yay!) and we're going to the park for a sushi picnic. And tonight, mama is going out for some cocktails.