Saturday, March 29, 2014

March 22- Oh sleep! How I miss you!


Sat. March 22

We’ve had full days! And are all suffering a bit from sleep depravation.  I woke up a few nights ago and couldn’t figure out what had roused me.  After 35 minutes I still couldn’t get to sleep and then I heard Collin just choking on his sobs.  I sprinted upstairs and found him just standing in the middle of his room completely hysterical.  I couldn’t believe it.  He was crying so hard he was coughing and choking and hyperventilating.  I was shaken up but help him and tried to calm him.  I felt terrible that I didn’t hear him earlier.  It just killed me that he was up there all alone so scared.  I took him down and Blake joined us on the couch.  He finally calmed down and curled up in my arms to fall back asleep.  I don’t know what happened exactly.  I am afraid that watching Mupett Treasure Island may have been the trigger for some nightmares.  My Collin!  I am sorry to see you so sad!  We made a bed in our room on the floor and when I told him as I put him down he said, so like everything was normal, “I think the mattress would be much more comfortable.” J But I laid down with him for a bit.  He coughed all night,  His throat sounded so swollen it sounded like it was going to cough right up.  He jumped up after a few hours and Blake brought him right into bed.  They cuddled and slept quite nicely.  I didn’t.  I don’t know why I can’t sleep with them in bed.  But I can’t.  Collin got up the next night, but came down to us since I told him that we are here for him but he needs to come to us when he needs help.  He had a whole list of reasons he was out that night.  J But I took him back up to bed and he was fine.  This morning he came in early again.  So, we may have to take a while to get back into normal night-time sleeping.  We are all tired though!

Thursday was the first day of Spring.  And it felt like it.  Sarah invited us to go to the Botanical Gardens with them and it was perfect!  There were hundreds of daffodils all bright and happy to welcome in Spring.  The kids played for a long time on the pirate sand hill.  Avind got down to for the fun and just loved squeezing fistfuls of wet sand, often stuffing his mouth full of it.  He crawled up and scooted down and found some nice squishy mud too.  It made me happy to let him play and be outside to explore the world a bit. 

Yesterday I felt like I spent the whole day doing visiting teaching.  Which is funny because it was only an hour of actually visiting.  But it was the back and forth of taking the kids to be watched and picking them up and it really seemed to take all day.  We did end the eveing with dinner on the patio at Abuelos with the Kyriopolous’.  It really was nice.  But, Avind has reached the point where he is not restaurant friendly anymore.  It is almost not worth it.  He is soooooooooo wiggly.  I have people comment to me all the time, “wow.  He really moves a lot.  He is really active isn’t he?”  So, I guess I make busy kids.  He seems less difficult than Collin was, but then again maybe I just expect it now so it doesn’t seem as overwhelming. 

This morning was our first day of Collin’s official sports career.  :) We began soccer.  His team, our team since Blake and I are the coaches, is the Tigers.  We have 10 3-4 year olds.  I have never seen so many little people with little balls.  And so many parents with such high hopes and expectations for their kids.  It was a little difficult to figure out what was going to work.  Blake began as we had planned with some drills but I was not prepared for tears, and refusal to stay on the field and the clinging to mom.  I should have, I know 3 year olds, but I just didn’t realize that those things would happen.  The parents would get so flustered and try to make them stay saying, “he loves soccer!  He has been so excited!  I don’t understand what is going on!”  But it makes sense.  This is a totally new situation and if it felt a bit overwhelming for me, I can’t imagine how it was for the little ones.  I suddenly felt the light come on.  We needed to make this like primary or nursery.  It needed to be a game and be fun.  So, I took over and became silly and funny and talked high and played red light green light and follow the leader and had races and was silly and it totally worked.  I am so glad!  but it was a LONG 45 minutes for sure.  I think 3 is really too young to do a team sport.  But, here we are.  Because Collin really did want this.  It will be interesting to see how he likes it through the season.  It was hard to give him much attention with all that was going on.  Maybe that is good though.  For him to not always be the center of my attention.  Blake played some more with him when practice was over and he loved that. We celebrated with an exploration drive and then Chick Fil A.  Althought today Collin claimed he didn’t like those chicken nuggets.  AHhhhhhhh!  I am sure my parents figure this is payback.  I am getting what I deserve. 

The best part of the day was a good ol’ afternoon nap with Blake.  And when I say nap, I mean nap.  :) It only works during the day when we both don’t fall asleep before we can get anywhere.  Later, I got to do some work in the yard while Collin and Blake played Pirates on the Xbox. Avind joined me soon and once again enjoyed the rocks and dirt.  I love watching him discover things.  It is just delightful to see how wonderful simple things are to a 11 month old.  It is all so fascinating! We had dinner with some families in the ward and it really was great.  Blake had a huge wrestling match with all the kids and there was utter chaos and lots of peals of laughter and screams.  And Bro. Bell got Avind to take his first 3 steps!  Oh, it made my heart jump!  I love to see my babies do their firsts!  He did it once more a bit later for Blake. 

I was feeling a bit nostalgic about Collin and watched some videos of him when he was 19-23 months.  Oh my!  He was perfect!  It made me cry and I missed him.  I missed my little buddy.  It gets so much more complicated as he grows up.  I still adore him but now I see his weaknesses.  And maybe even worse is that he is starting to see mine.  But he was such an amazing talker!  I know everyone tells me how well he speaks and always has, but I don’t think I realized just how out of the ordinary he was.  Now though I hear other 2 year olds and I can see that he was way ahead of the curve there.  I love to hear him talk.  Okay, well most of the time.  J I need to make sure I don’t expect the same thing from Avind.  And that I don’t try to push him or feel disappointed if he doesn’t do the same. It really is hard not to compare children to one another.  I never want to make one of them feel inferior as I compare one of their weaknesses to the other one’s strength. 

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