Showing posts with label Sleep. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sleep. Show all posts
15 December 2008
Where Was Camden Sleeping?
So, I had to include this shot of Camden. On Sunday afternoon I went in to get the boys up from their naps, and Camden wasn’t in his crib. I looked under his crib, under and behind Isaac’s playpen, under the table in the corner, inside the cupboards, and even in the window above his crib, but he wasn’t anywhere. I finally found him in the closet (with both doors closed), sound asleep on one of the shelves. It took me a few minutes to wake him up, and as soon as he did wake up he quickly shut the doors of the closet again, and then he opened the door and hopped out and he was happy from then on. What a silly kid!
03 July 2008
"On Call"
It’s 11:30 at night, and there really isn’t any good reason to be up anymore. It’s not especially late yet, but I’m sitting at the computer, the blog updated with the latest photos of the kids, my e-mail checked (and re-checked, just in case someone wrote me while I’ve been sitting here tonight), my blog feed subscriptions updated (yes, I have all of my friends’ and families’ blogs e-mailed to me, so I don’t have to go look at them all the time to see if they’ve posted anything new or not), and I have even checked on eBay and think I may have found the perfect Halloween costume for Kolby – yes, for October. My problem: Michael is on call at the hospital. [For those of you who have not lived through medical school, internship, residency, etc., “on call” is a deceptive term. No, it does not mean, like it sounds, that the intern is at home, enjoying time with his family and waiting to be paged and rush into the hospital if needed. No, “on call” means that the intern is in the hospital, waiting to be paged for the next possible surgery case, at and time, day or night.] It’s really not been that bad of a month – surgery has been a nice enough schedule, although Michael is more tired from having to get up early in the morning, but most nights have not been late. Except he’s on call (overnight) every few days. Which isn’t all that terrible, either, really. I just can’t go to bed at a normal time when Michael’s not home at night. I mean, I can, but what for? With the kids all in bed hours ago (counting my blessings), there’s no one waiting for me to say prayers, no one wanting me to go lay down with them for the night (well, technically Kolby is waiting in my bed – this is the second time Michael has been on call and I have let Kolby sleep with me for the night). Kolby got really sad earlier when Michael wasn’t home to say goodnight, and after a long explanation of what “on call” means, how the doctors have to take turns staying overnight at the hospital to help the sick people, that the doctors don’t have to wait in line to take these turns, what surgery is {note to self: an explanation that doctors cut into people, fix them up, and then sew them back up is probably not the best idea for a 4-year-old, even if you try to make it sound less scary by saying that the doctors are helping, and this only happens to people who are really, really, really, really sick or hurt. Oops, I guess you learn as you go, as with everything in parenting}, and that doctors who perform surgeries use special tools from the hospital and not the tools that Grandma keeps in the garage for gardening; I was able to get Kolby to go to bed by telling him he could sleep in my bed tonight. Why not? Anyways, it’s now 11:48, and I am starting to get that faint sick feeling that I used to get when I would pull all-nighters to finish procrastinated homework assignments in high school (it’s really not all that late yet – what happened to those days when we were dating and it was an early night if we got in by midnight or 1am?) Anyways, good night.
13 April 2008
Double-Swaddling and Other Baby Sleeping Tips
The other day my friend who has a toddler and a baby Isaac’s age e-mailed me for suggestions on how to get her baby to sleep better. I have been thinking for a while now that I should share our “tricks” to getting our babies to sleep on the blog, especially our swaddling technique, which is rather uncommon. So, instead of re-writing what I wrote to her, I will just post part of the e-mail I sent her, and add a few photos. Hopefully this can be as helpful for you as it has been for us:
I am not the type of mom who cancels activities for kids' sleep schedules -- I do try to plan doctors' appointments so they don't fall right after lunchtime (when my kids take their daily nap), but I won't stay home from something because my kids will miss their nap or get to bed really late at night, and I know that doesn't work for lots of other people. Also, when the kids are babies (like with Isaac now) I don't have them on a certain sleep schedule during the day. When they are happy, I let them lay on the floor, sit in a swing, jump in a jumper, or hold them, and if they get fussy and they're not messy or hungry, I try to put them to sleep -- no matter what time it is. And they may not sleep at a regular time during the day, but as long as they sleep through the night (and sometimes during the day) I'm ok with that. The other thing I do with Isaac is try to feed him every 4 hours in the daytime, not at certain times of the day. So, if he wakes up at 7am and he takes a bottle, then I'll give him another one at 11am, then if he happens to be asleep at 3pm I'll wait until he wakes up to feed him (I NEVER wake up a sleeping baby [unless the baby is underweight or has some health issues and needs to be fed on a schedule in order to gain weight]). So, then if he were to eat at 3:30, and then at 7:30 he is acting happy and not hungry yet, I will wait until he acts hungry and give him a bottle then. That works better for me, because I'm not trying to make him eat or sleep when he doesn't want to, and if he takes a longer/shorter nap than usual it doesn't throw off the whole schedule.
So, here are some things that we do that I think really help with the sleeping -- you may have tried some of them already, but this has worked for us. We swaddle our babies. All of our boys have been swaddled, and it has helped them hold still so they can sleep longer. And then when Camden was a baby my friend showed us another way to swaddle that we'd never seen before, and I love it so much that I show all the parents/potential future parents that I can. We call it double swaddling. I will post pictures with this description of the swaddling, because it is kind of hard to understand if you can’t see it (thank you, Kolby, for taking many of these pictures for me – this is the first time I’ve let Kolby use our digital camera). So, basically I take two blankets -- usually lightweight cotton blankets, and it is easier if they are square. I've looked around a lot, and the best ones I've found are at Wal Mart (or at least they were there when Isaac was born), they come in packs of four and are rather cute designs/colors. They are 40x40 inches (rather than the more common 30x30 or 30x40 inch ones I find most places). The 40x40 is the perfect size for a little baby, and now that Isaac's getting a little bigger a 50x50 or even 60x60 inch blanket would be nice, but you might have to make them. And they need to be thin, or they will be way too bulky once you get them all wrapped up.
So, I lay out one blanket with a corner pointing up, and fold that top corner over, then I lay the second blanket on top of the first, folding the top corner over on that one too. Then I lay the baby down with his head off the blanket at the top where it has been folded down. I take the top blanket on the left and wrap it over his left arm, then lift him up by his legs and wrap it under his back, then do this on the right too. Then I use the bottom blanket to swaddle like normal -- wrap over the left side, up over the feet, and then over the right side. I swear this technique adds an extra few hours of sleep because they can't get out and whack themselves I the face as they flail their arms about -- Isaac has only gotten out of this swaddle a handful of times, and that's usually when we are lazy and don't wrap him very snuggly. I know people who think our kids would be too old for swaddling, but why stop something that works so well? I continue to swaddle as long as I can keep them in the blankets, and once they grow out of it I have never had a problem with the baby transitioning to sleeping without being swaddled. I swaddle him to sleep every night, and off and on through the day to nap. One thing I have noticed, though, is that since I've done this type of swaddling with my last two boys, they seem not to roll over, crawl, or walk quite as early as the other two did, but not really delayed -- like Camden walked at almost 12 months as compared to Kolby walking at 10 months and Eli at 9 months, but I don't know if that's just the different kids or if it has to do with being swaddled so they don't do as much tummy time or rolling over as early on. But either way, they haven't been delayed later than the norm.
The other sleeping aid that I swear by is our swing. We were given a Fisher Price Aquarium Swing (it has a fish design on it, and fish hang from the mobile) when Kolby was born, and we use it so much that we are now on our second one with baby number 4. It is the kind of swing that goes from side to side or can be turned to swing from front to back (my kids have all preferred side to side, although sometimes it does calm them down to switch the direction of the swinging if they get fussy and change things up a bit, although Isaac has only ever swung side to side). I think the type of swing is key -- we have visited family several times and they have borrowed normal swings, and I don't like them at all (they do sleep better in those than just in a crib, but not nearly as well in a side-swinging swing). The old ones just swing front to back, they usually sit up pretty straight, so they can't lie back at all (which really doesn't work for newborns), and some old swings have to be wound up, which would not be nice to deal with. Our swing goes through batteries every couple of weeks or so, but our sleep is worth that to us. And they aren't too expensive -- I think this swing was around $99 new, but that was almost 5 years ago, and I got our second one at a garage sale for $30. I saw one that looked brand new the other day for around $60 at the Once Upon A Child store near our house, over by Kohls on 124th Street. Anyways, our kids sleep in the swing all night long, and nap in it during the day. I swaddle Isaac and then lay him in the swing (this works because the seat reclines enough so they are more laying than sitting). And I don't worry about buckling him in yet, because he never gets out of his swaddling, so he's not going anywhere. And again, I haven't had problems with our kids transitioning to sleeping in a crib later on, when they grow out of the swing/swaddling. My kids stay in the swing for months -- which also saves room because the swing takes up a lot less room than a crib. The only problem is when going for extended stays to family when they are still babies and used to sleeping in the swing, it is hard to get them to sleep as well without a swing, and can be difficult to find a side swinging swing to borrow while out of town.
Our kids also use pacifiers. Isaac mostly uses his now to fall asleep -- he doesn't keep it in his mouth well, and we hold it in while we put him to sleep, then it always falls out while he is sleeping. Sometimes, if he is in the swing, swaddled, trying to fall asleep, but I don't want to sit there holding his pacifier in, I take a flap of his swaddling blankets, a burp clothe, or another small blanket, and bunch it up behind the pacifier so it can stay in place until he falls asleep all the way. He uses a Soothie, just because that's what they gave him in the NICU. The other boys used ones from the grocery store, and Kolby never really took one at all.
I think those are about all of our sleeping "tricks." Oh, and I guess I should mention how we actually get Isaac to sleep. If he doesn't happen to fall asleep on his own, and we know he's tired and ready to go down, we check his diaper, swaddle him nice and tight, feed him a bottle, give him his pacifier, and then if he starts to wake up a bit before we lay him down this is how I get him to fall back to sleep (and it has worked pretty well with our other boys too). I stand up and hold him almost horizontal in my arms (and since he is swaddled I don't have legs and arms moving all around), and I hold him facing me (so his pacifier stays in his mouth), and then I make little tiny jiggling movements, kind of like jello. I know that's a weird way to describe it, but that's what it makes me think of. He usually can't last too long awake when I do that. If we really starts to wake up and starts fussing, I make loud shushing noises close to his ear (I guess that's more for a little baby, but I still do it).
Also, if you haven't read The Happiest Baby on the Block, I would recommend it. Lots of the things I do are covered in that book. (Although the author gives some pretty ridiculous reasons for why he thinks his suggestions work, the suggestions do work). He suggests the 5 'S's: swing, swaddle, shush, shake (jiggle), and suck. And the more of these suggestions you use all together, the better they work. I was already doing many of these things before I read the book when I was pregnant with Camden, but it gave me a few extra suggestions I hadn't been trying.
So, does anyone have in good suggestions for potty training? (Especially for helping kids that have been potty trained successfully and then regress later on?)
I am not the type of mom who cancels activities for kids' sleep schedules -- I do try to plan doctors' appointments so they don't fall right after lunchtime (when my kids take their daily nap), but I won't stay home from something because my kids will miss their nap or get to bed really late at night, and I know that doesn't work for lots of other people. Also, when the kids are babies (like with Isaac now) I don't have them on a certain sleep schedule during the day. When they are happy, I let them lay on the floor, sit in a swing, jump in a jumper, or hold them, and if they get fussy and they're not messy or hungry, I try to put them to sleep -- no matter what time it is. And they may not sleep at a regular time during the day, but as long as they sleep through the night (and sometimes during the day) I'm ok with that. The other thing I do with Isaac is try to feed him every 4 hours in the daytime, not at certain times of the day. So, if he wakes up at 7am and he takes a bottle, then I'll give him another one at 11am, then if he happens to be asleep at 3pm I'll wait until he wakes up to feed him (I NEVER wake up a sleeping baby [unless the baby is underweight or has some health issues and needs to be fed on a schedule in order to gain weight]). So, then if he were to eat at 3:30, and then at 7:30 he is acting happy and not hungry yet, I will wait until he acts hungry and give him a bottle then. That works better for me, because I'm not trying to make him eat or sleep when he doesn't want to, and if he takes a longer/shorter nap than usual it doesn't throw off the whole schedule.
So, here are some things that we do that I think really help with the sleeping -- you may have tried some of them already, but this has worked for us. We swaddle our babies. All of our boys have been swaddled, and it has helped them hold still so they can sleep longer. And then when Camden was a baby my friend showed us another way to swaddle that we'd never seen before, and I love it so much that I show all the parents/potential future parents that I can. We call it double swaddling. I will post pictures with this description of the swaddling, because it is kind of hard to understand if you can’t see it (thank you, Kolby, for taking many of these pictures for me – this is the first time I’ve let Kolby use our digital camera). So, basically I take two blankets -- usually lightweight cotton blankets, and it is easier if they are square. I've looked around a lot, and the best ones I've found are at Wal Mart (or at least they were there when Isaac was born), they come in packs of four and are rather cute designs/colors. They are 40x40 inches (rather than the more common 30x30 or 30x40 inch ones I find most places). The 40x40 is the perfect size for a little baby, and now that Isaac's getting a little bigger a 50x50 or even 60x60 inch blanket would be nice, but you might have to make them. And they need to be thin, or they will be way too bulky once you get them all wrapped up.
So, I lay out one blanket with a corner pointing up, and fold that top corner over, then I lay the second blanket on top of the first, folding the top corner over on that one too. Then I lay the baby down with his head off the blanket at the top where it has been folded down. I take the top blanket on the left and wrap it over his left arm, then lift him up by his legs and wrap it under his back, then do this on the right too. Then I use the bottom blanket to swaddle like normal -- wrap over the left side, up over the feet, and then over the right side. I swear this technique adds an extra few hours of sleep because they can't get out and whack themselves I the face as they flail their arms about -- Isaac has only gotten out of this swaddle a handful of times, and that's usually when we are lazy and don't wrap him very snuggly. I know people who think our kids would be too old for swaddling, but why stop something that works so well? I continue to swaddle as long as I can keep them in the blankets, and once they grow out of it I have never had a problem with the baby transitioning to sleeping without being swaddled. I swaddle him to sleep every night, and off and on through the day to nap. One thing I have noticed, though, is that since I've done this type of swaddling with my last two boys, they seem not to roll over, crawl, or walk quite as early as the other two did, but not really delayed -- like Camden walked at almost 12 months as compared to Kolby walking at 10 months and Eli at 9 months, but I don't know if that's just the different kids or if it has to do with being swaddled so they don't do as much tummy time or rolling over as early on. But either way, they haven't been delayed later than the norm.
The other sleeping aid that I swear by is our swing. We were given a Fisher Price Aquarium Swing (it has a fish design on it, and fish hang from the mobile) when Kolby was born, and we use it so much that we are now on our second one with baby number 4. It is the kind of swing that goes from side to side or can be turned to swing from front to back (my kids have all preferred side to side, although sometimes it does calm them down to switch the direction of the swinging if they get fussy and change things up a bit, although Isaac has only ever swung side to side). I think the type of swing is key -- we have visited family several times and they have borrowed normal swings, and I don't like them at all (they do sleep better in those than just in a crib, but not nearly as well in a side-swinging swing). The old ones just swing front to back, they usually sit up pretty straight, so they can't lie back at all (which really doesn't work for newborns), and some old swings have to be wound up, which would not be nice to deal with. Our swing goes through batteries every couple of weeks or so, but our sleep is worth that to us. And they aren't too expensive -- I think this swing was around $99 new, but that was almost 5 years ago, and I got our second one at a garage sale for $30. I saw one that looked brand new the other day for around $60 at the Once Upon A Child store near our house, over by Kohls on 124th Street. Anyways, our kids sleep in the swing all night long, and nap in it during the day. I swaddle Isaac and then lay him in the swing (this works because the seat reclines enough so they are more laying than sitting). And I don't worry about buckling him in yet, because he never gets out of his swaddling, so he's not going anywhere. And again, I haven't had problems with our kids transitioning to sleeping in a crib later on, when they grow out of the swing/swaddling. My kids stay in the swing for months -- which also saves room because the swing takes up a lot less room than a crib. The only problem is when going for extended stays to family when they are still babies and used to sleeping in the swing, it is hard to get them to sleep as well without a swing, and can be difficult to find a side swinging swing to borrow while out of town.
Our kids also use pacifiers. Isaac mostly uses his now to fall asleep -- he doesn't keep it in his mouth well, and we hold it in while we put him to sleep, then it always falls out while he is sleeping. Sometimes, if he is in the swing, swaddled, trying to fall asleep, but I don't want to sit there holding his pacifier in, I take a flap of his swaddling blankets, a burp clothe, or another small blanket, and bunch it up behind the pacifier so it can stay in place until he falls asleep all the way. He uses a Soothie, just because that's what they gave him in the NICU. The other boys used ones from the grocery store, and Kolby never really took one at all.
I think those are about all of our sleeping "tricks." Oh, and I guess I should mention how we actually get Isaac to sleep. If he doesn't happen to fall asleep on his own, and we know he's tired and ready to go down, we check his diaper, swaddle him nice and tight, feed him a bottle, give him his pacifier, and then if he starts to wake up a bit before we lay him down this is how I get him to fall back to sleep (and it has worked pretty well with our other boys too). I stand up and hold him almost horizontal in my arms (and since he is swaddled I don't have legs and arms moving all around), and I hold him facing me (so his pacifier stays in his mouth), and then I make little tiny jiggling movements, kind of like jello. I know that's a weird way to describe it, but that's what it makes me think of. He usually can't last too long awake when I do that. If we really starts to wake up and starts fussing, I make loud shushing noises close to his ear (I guess that's more for a little baby, but I still do it).
Also, if you haven't read The Happiest Baby on the Block, I would recommend it. Lots of the things I do are covered in that book. (Although the author gives some pretty ridiculous reasons for why he thinks his suggestions work, the suggestions do work). He suggests the 5 'S's: swing, swaddle, shush, shake (jiggle), and suck. And the more of these suggestions you use all together, the better they work. I was already doing many of these things before I read the book when I was pregnant with Camden, but it gave me a few extra suggestions I hadn't been trying.
So, does anyone have in good suggestions for potty training? (Especially for helping kids that have been potty trained successfully and then regress later on?)
10 March 2008
Sleepless in Milwaukee
So, last week Isaac woke up right as we were going to bed at night and wanted a bottle, and then he got up about an hour earlier in the morning than he normally does. That was unusual, since he has been sleeping through the night for quite a while now. (And a little inconvenient because Michael has started into his surgery sub-I this month, so he has been getting up around 4am to get ready to go to the hospital each day and then being ready for bed by around 10pm, and I have been trying to get up with the boys if needed so Michael can get some more rest). Well, the next night Isaac slept just fine, but Camden woke up in at 4am and wouldn’t go back to sleep. Michael had already gotten up and given him a drink of water before I even woke up. I got up and changed him and tried to get him to go back to sleep in his crib, but after he cried a while I finally brought him into bed with us (around the time that Michael had to get up to get ready for work), and luckily he actually slept in bed with me for a couple more hours before Kolby and Eli woke us up. Camden hasn’t had a problem with waking up for a really long time. The next night Isaac woke up around 1am and wanted a bottle. He was starting to get a little stuffy, and since his problems with his nasal airway when he was born he can breath well, but if he gets a little cold he sounds so stuffed up and he just wakes himself up a lot at night. I fed him, but he didn’t fall asleep quickly like he normally would have – he was content to stay awake for another half hour after eating before I finally just put him in his swing and went back to bed – he must have fallen to sleep on his own. The next night I was so tired, and luckily Isaac did better. Around 2:30am, though, Michael rolled over and told me that one of the boys was crying. I asked who it was, and he said it was Eli and then rolled back over and went back to sleep. I went in and was glad that all Eli wanted was for me to pick up the stuffed animals he had dropped on the floor, and then he quickly went back to sleep. (I gave Michael a hard time the next morning for waking me up on a weekend after I had stayed up with the boys earlier in the week, but he had no memory at all of waking me up or any of the kids crying the night before, and it was ok since I wasn’t up for long). Then last night Isaac had such a stuffy nose and he couldn’t even keep his pacifier in his mouth. He had woken up crying four times in the last half hour before we went to bed, and after I had to get up two more times to help him, I brought him into bed with us [that was the second time this week I had brought one of the kids into bed with us, and I have a pretty strict rule about not bringing them into our bed -- but sleep deprivation makes such "rules" not seem to matter very much]. He was snoring so loudly, and after half an hour of that I put him back in the swing and was very glad when he slept through the rest of the night (he even slept in until about 9:30am, which is much better than the 6 or 6:30am waking time he had been averaging last week). Unfortunately, one of the kids at church yesterday must have had a little bug or something, because around 2:30am this morning Michael woke me up and told me that Kolby had thrown up in bed. I found him in the bathroom, his clothes were just covered, and Michael stripped the bedding from his bunk bed while I took off his clothes, bathed him, and got him dressed again. We set him up a little ‘bed’ of blankets on our floor next to our bed and tried to get back to sleep. Fortunately, Kolby seems to be feeling better today and I am crossing my fingers that he is over it. Isaac has been sleeping pretty peacefully so far in his swing this evening, and we are just waiting for the last load of laundry to finish drying before we go to bed too. It sure makes a big difference when you are used to your kids sleeping through the night and they all decide to become nocturnal all of a sudden. Maybe tonight we will actually be able to sleep until morning.
06 March 2008
A Little Overwhelmed
Lately I have been thinking a lot about the sheer quantity of things that we are “supposed to do.” Of course, living and teaching our families about the gospel is the most important thing, and should come first. Aside from attending church each Sunday and other church meetings and responsibilities, we need to do things like personal scripture study, family scripture study, personal and family prayers, and other gospel activities in our everyday life. I am not questioning the importance of these things.
And then everyone knows that you should spend time doing things to let your family know you love and appreciate them. We have always set aside Monday evening as family night at our house, and recently we started setting aside one night each week for one of us to have an individual night out with one of our children. We should also be having regular date nights as a couple. And taking time to really listen to the children and have good conversations is really important too.
And then there are all the less-fun, but necessary everyday things that cannot be left for later – preparing and feeding the kids three meals a day, changing diapers and dealing with potty training, and getting the children to take naps and go to bed at night.
And we need to educate our children too. We need to read them good books, eventually teach them to write and read, and do fun art projects so that they will have a chance to be creative. And, our children will eventually need to go to school, too. School, and all the activities that go with it, take up a big chunk of time.
And we need to teach our children now so that they can become good adults someday – they need a good example in these things, so not only do we need to spend time teaching them and letting them help with things like cleaning up around the house, having good manners, physical fitness, being organized, healthy eating habits, being polite to others, money management and having good personal hygiene, but we need to do all of these things too so that our children will have positive examples to learn from. (Oh yeah, I guess bathing the kids and having them brush their teeth aught to be on the above list of “less-fun, but necessary everyday things.”) And we need to do things to keep our own minds sharp, like continually learning about new subjects and reading novels.
Plus we should have a nice place to live. I don’t mean an expensive, spotless, fancy place to live, but a good, clean home where the children can feel safe. It takes a lot of time just picking up after four kids, let alone doing any ‘deep cleaning.’ But I have tried just putting off all of the housework – leaving it for later so I can get other things done, and this just makes me feel like everything around me is dirty and disorderly. So lately I have been really good about getting everything cleaned and picked up soon after a mess is made so there won’t be a big job to do later. This makes it feel better at home, but takes up time here and there all day long. Plus we should take the time to have good music, good books, family photos, and pictures of the temple and other beautiful things displayed in our home.
And then there are things that have to be taken care of – paying rent and utilities, replacing little household things that get broken, getting clothes for the kids that are the right size and are warm/cool enough for the current season (and, if you are on a low income, it is also necessary to take the time to find the best deals possible for purchases that need to be made), checking the mail and responding to important messages, dealing with insurance, car maintenance, and other little things.
And family history. I was a genealogy major in college and love researching about my ancestors. But even though we have been blessed to live in an age when many records are made available to us at home through the internet, this research takes time. And once you get through the internet records and get to a point when you need to do some deeper research, this takes even more time (and sometimes money). And even if you are not working on researching your ancestors and extended family, you should at the very least be documenting your own life and the lives of your immediate family members. Keeping a regular journal (how I justify spending time writing our blog posts), saving and organizing family photographs, keeping a family scrapbook, and eventually finding time for bigger things like writing my life history, interviewing older family members, or collecting family stories.
And we should save some money for an emergency fund (not even taking into account the investing and retirement savings that we should be doing once we have a regular income). Our church recommends building a supply of food storage and emergency supplies, just in case we hit hard times at some point down the road (and every time I watch the news and see people somewhere in the world who have been hit by fires, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., I know what good advice this is and I think of how I need to add to our little store of food until we have enough to provide for our family in case of an emergency or even just hard times with something like a lost job in the family).
And we are viewed as stupid if we don’t regularly make back-ups of computer files – how would it be to loose all of those precious family photos, videos, journal entries, etc.? So, we need to take the time to back everything up (I went to make backups on CDs of just the most important files on our computer the other day – photos, video, family history documents, etc., not even things that could be replaced, such as music files, and I had just over 60 CDs-worth of files to backup, I still need to finish that job).
And we have fun spending time with friends (especially while we live far from family now, and our friends are our family). We should try to fellowship new people who move in and meet our neighbors. And we should keep in touch with family and old friends.
And if we would like out children to have opportunities to develop their talents, we need to start early. It seems that children who learn to play a musical instrument in their early years are more likely to continue and to play well when they are older. And art, sports, writing, crafts, outdoors activities, etc. – all of these are good things to spend time doing with your family.
And people, especially children, need frequent visits to the doctor (even when they are healthy). Plus, you should make ourselves aware of the warning signs and symptoms of health problems. And, if a child does become sick and contagious, life gets put on hold and you have even less time to get everything done.
And, of course, someone needs to provide for the family, and a good, stable job takes education, which takes time and money, and then after the education it will take time to pay off the debt from school, and then the good, stable job will continue to take time for a long, long time.
I’m sure there are a million other things that could be added to this list that I’m not thinking of right now. And I have really tried to include here just things that we should be doing, not making a list of all the extra things that people could possibly add to their daily schedule. I have to admit that I have been feeling a little overwhelmed lately at the sheer quantity of things that we “should” be doing, and the fact that there is no way to fit everything into the hours of each day that we need to if we want to accomplish just these things, excluding any other fun activities, hobbies, or time to just relax. I mentioned this topic to Michael and his answer was “prioritize,” which I understand and agree with. But if we prioritize and accomplish the necessities of life (food, changing diapers, sleep), and then prioritize and accomplish the most important things (the gospel, teaching our children, and making sure they know that you love them and you love your spouse), then you are still left with a lot of things undone that are expected of you – I don’t really feel like I can just prioritize and exclude things like reading to my kids, taking family photos, doing family history, paying bills, or taking the kids to school when they are old enough.
Often in the morning I will make a list of things to do that day. Today this was my list:
To Do Today:
• Type and print food storage list [I got some new things for our food storage last night and wanted to add them to the inventory list so we can keep track of all the expiration dates and not waste food]
• Put new food storage items away
• Breakfast, feed Isaac [yes, I do need to put these things on the list so that I have something to cross off after spending my morning doing these things]
• Clean boys’ room
• Let the boys watch ‘Super Y’ [they get to watch their favorite PBS show as their reward for helping pick up the house and clean their room]
• Clean bathroom
• Print hand-outs for enrichment activity [I was asked to host an activity for the women’s group at our church, and that will be at our house tonight]
• Empty the trash cans and diaper pail
• Get myself dressed, do my hair, and put on make-up
So, I’ve crossed everything off this list so far except taking out the trash. How many really important things were included on that list?
So, I guess I will continue to prioritize the most important things (and the necessary things), and just do a little bit of each of the other things that we “should” be doing, but never feel like I am completely accomplishing any of those other tasks. I guess. All we can do is what we can do.
And then everyone knows that you should spend time doing things to let your family know you love and appreciate them. We have always set aside Monday evening as family night at our house, and recently we started setting aside one night each week for one of us to have an individual night out with one of our children. We should also be having regular date nights as a couple. And taking time to really listen to the children and have good conversations is really important too.
And then there are all the less-fun, but necessary everyday things that cannot be left for later – preparing and feeding the kids three meals a day, changing diapers and dealing with potty training, and getting the children to take naps and go to bed at night.
And we need to educate our children too. We need to read them good books, eventually teach them to write and read, and do fun art projects so that they will have a chance to be creative. And, our children will eventually need to go to school, too. School, and all the activities that go with it, take up a big chunk of time.
And we need to teach our children now so that they can become good adults someday – they need a good example in these things, so not only do we need to spend time teaching them and letting them help with things like cleaning up around the house, having good manners, physical fitness, being organized, healthy eating habits, being polite to others, money management and having good personal hygiene, but we need to do all of these things too so that our children will have positive examples to learn from. (Oh yeah, I guess bathing the kids and having them brush their teeth aught to be on the above list of “less-fun, but necessary everyday things.”) And we need to do things to keep our own minds sharp, like continually learning about new subjects and reading novels.
Plus we should have a nice place to live. I don’t mean an expensive, spotless, fancy place to live, but a good, clean home where the children can feel safe. It takes a lot of time just picking up after four kids, let alone doing any ‘deep cleaning.’ But I have tried just putting off all of the housework – leaving it for later so I can get other things done, and this just makes me feel like everything around me is dirty and disorderly. So lately I have been really good about getting everything cleaned and picked up soon after a mess is made so there won’t be a big job to do later. This makes it feel better at home, but takes up time here and there all day long. Plus we should take the time to have good music, good books, family photos, and pictures of the temple and other beautiful things displayed in our home.
And then there are things that have to be taken care of – paying rent and utilities, replacing little household things that get broken, getting clothes for the kids that are the right size and are warm/cool enough for the current season (and, if you are on a low income, it is also necessary to take the time to find the best deals possible for purchases that need to be made), checking the mail and responding to important messages, dealing with insurance, car maintenance, and other little things.
And family history. I was a genealogy major in college and love researching about my ancestors. But even though we have been blessed to live in an age when many records are made available to us at home through the internet, this research takes time. And once you get through the internet records and get to a point when you need to do some deeper research, this takes even more time (and sometimes money). And even if you are not working on researching your ancestors and extended family, you should at the very least be documenting your own life and the lives of your immediate family members. Keeping a regular journal (how I justify spending time writing our blog posts), saving and organizing family photographs, keeping a family scrapbook, and eventually finding time for bigger things like writing my life history, interviewing older family members, or collecting family stories.
And we should save some money for an emergency fund (not even taking into account the investing and retirement savings that we should be doing once we have a regular income). Our church recommends building a supply of food storage and emergency supplies, just in case we hit hard times at some point down the road (and every time I watch the news and see people somewhere in the world who have been hit by fires, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., I know what good advice this is and I think of how I need to add to our little store of food until we have enough to provide for our family in case of an emergency or even just hard times with something like a lost job in the family).
And we are viewed as stupid if we don’t regularly make back-ups of computer files – how would it be to loose all of those precious family photos, videos, journal entries, etc.? So, we need to take the time to back everything up (I went to make backups on CDs of just the most important files on our computer the other day – photos, video, family history documents, etc., not even things that could be replaced, such as music files, and I had just over 60 CDs-worth of files to backup, I still need to finish that job).
And we have fun spending time with friends (especially while we live far from family now, and our friends are our family). We should try to fellowship new people who move in and meet our neighbors. And we should keep in touch with family and old friends.
And if we would like out children to have opportunities to develop their talents, we need to start early. It seems that children who learn to play a musical instrument in their early years are more likely to continue and to play well when they are older. And art, sports, writing, crafts, outdoors activities, etc. – all of these are good things to spend time doing with your family.
And people, especially children, need frequent visits to the doctor (even when they are healthy). Plus, you should make ourselves aware of the warning signs and symptoms of health problems. And, if a child does become sick and contagious, life gets put on hold and you have even less time to get everything done.
And, of course, someone needs to provide for the family, and a good, stable job takes education, which takes time and money, and then after the education it will take time to pay off the debt from school, and then the good, stable job will continue to take time for a long, long time.
I’m sure there are a million other things that could be added to this list that I’m not thinking of right now. And I have really tried to include here just things that we should be doing, not making a list of all the extra things that people could possibly add to their daily schedule. I have to admit that I have been feeling a little overwhelmed lately at the sheer quantity of things that we “should” be doing, and the fact that there is no way to fit everything into the hours of each day that we need to if we want to accomplish just these things, excluding any other fun activities, hobbies, or time to just relax. I mentioned this topic to Michael and his answer was “prioritize,” which I understand and agree with. But if we prioritize and accomplish the necessities of life (food, changing diapers, sleep), and then prioritize and accomplish the most important things (the gospel, teaching our children, and making sure they know that you love them and you love your spouse), then you are still left with a lot of things undone that are expected of you – I don’t really feel like I can just prioritize and exclude things like reading to my kids, taking family photos, doing family history, paying bills, or taking the kids to school when they are old enough.
Often in the morning I will make a list of things to do that day. Today this was my list:
To Do Today:
• Type and print food storage list [I got some new things for our food storage last night and wanted to add them to the inventory list so we can keep track of all the expiration dates and not waste food]
• Put new food storage items away
• Breakfast, feed Isaac [yes, I do need to put these things on the list so that I have something to cross off after spending my morning doing these things]
• Clean boys’ room
• Let the boys watch ‘Super Y’ [they get to watch their favorite PBS show as their reward for helping pick up the house and clean their room]
• Clean bathroom
• Print hand-outs for enrichment activity [I was asked to host an activity for the women’s group at our church, and that will be at our house tonight]
• Empty the trash cans and diaper pail
• Get myself dressed, do my hair, and put on make-up
So, I’ve crossed everything off this list so far except taking out the trash. How many really important things were included on that list?
So, I guess I will continue to prioritize the most important things (and the necessary things), and just do a little bit of each of the other things that we “should” be doing, but never feel like I am completely accomplishing any of those other tasks. I guess. All we can do is what we can do.
17 November 2007
6 Things People Might Not Know About Me
I have been tagged by Karissa Kam and Amy Hymas. (Sorry I didn’t notice earlier – haven’t been looking at anyone’s blogs for a while). The logical thing right now would be for me to go to sleep, since it is nearing 1am and I have a sleeping baby in my arms as I am typing this, but I keep thinking that if I try to get a little sleep before he wakes up and wants to eat he will just wake up as soon as I go to bed and then I will be grumpy. So, I’ll sit at the computer into the wee hours of the night instead.
1. My favorite color is blue. I especially like most shades of light blue. I do not, however, like aqua or turquoise. Often I will see something that I like, such as a piece of clothing or a car, that is turquoise, and I will think that it looks very nice except for the color and wonder why anyone would choose to make something that color.
2. I don’t save my kids’ art work. The idea of keeping a cardboard box in the closet with a bunch of odd-sized pieces of wrinkled construction paper that shed glitter, stickers, and pieces of bottle cleaners every time you pick them up does not appeal to me at all. Instead I scan or photograph the more notable pieces of art work that are brought home from school, church, and playgroups and print these pages and put them in plastic page protectors in a special art work binder for each child. Then I give the originals back to the kids to play with until they get torn or a little brother eats part of them and they get thrown away (or, if the kids aren’t looking and I am trying to clean up the clutter of papers that always grows on our computer desk, I might just slip them into the trashcan underneath something else so they won’t see – what a mean mom I am, but at least I keep copies in their art books, so it’s not too bad to get rid of the originals, right?)
3. Michael knows that one of my pet peeves is having the closet door left open when we go to bed, and he will often close it just for me. As I am writing this, I am realizing that I like the closet door closed because if you can’t see the clutter inside the closet, it makes the bedroom appear more clean. I guess that’s why I always close the cupboards when I am in the kitchen, I got an armoire for a computer desk so it could be closed when we’re not using the computer, and I always close the medicine cabinet and the shower curtain each time I am in the bathroom. Huh, never thought about that before.
4. I have four little boys who are each about a year apart, and I don’t like to dress them in matching clothes. What I do like to do is have each of them wear the same style of clothing at the same time, or even matching clothes – as long as they are in different colors. Ideally, for instance, my boys would all be dressed in really cute overalls with a layered, long sleeved shirt, and matching brown leather shoes. When the boys were younger, it used to really bug me when Michael would get Kolby and Eli dressed and one would be wearing jeans with a button-up shirt and the other would have on overall shorts with a t-shirt. Now that we have more kids and it gets harder to buy coordinating clothes for all of them, and my kids get a little older so I rely on them more to choose their own clothes, I have become less picky about their clothes all being the same style.
5. I’m a little obsessive about photographs. (Ok, you could probably tell from the blog that I like to take lots of family photos, but that’s not all). I have several folders on my computer that I organize all my photos in – every photo I own is either a digital photo or is scanned so that I have it on my computer. And my family members know that I have spent quite a few hours scanning old photos of ancestors and pictures of family when visiting relatives’ houses. I use Photoshop to “tag” each photo with the name of each person pictured, so later on I can click on any name and it will automatically show every photo on the computer with that person in it. I have been working on tagging all the photos on my computer, and I currently have 11,040 photos tagged. I am rather proud of my diligence in being so organized, but I do realize it does seem a little OCD-ish. Oh well.
6. The first time Michael and I had a fight was about Christmas lights. Well, it wasn’t really a fight – more of a disagreement. We were at Temple Square in Salt Lake at Thanksgiving time about a year after we got married, and we were looking at all the beautiful Christmas lights on all the trees around the temple. At the end of the night, I made some comment about how I loved white Christmas lights, and I thought the brightly colored lights looked kind of tacky. Michael was pretty offended by this comment, since he had grown up with colored lights and loved how they looked. I told him that he could put up whatever color of lights he wanted on the outside of our house someday (although I would prefer white), and I would decorate our tree with little white lights. It wasn’t long before we were laughing about how silly it was to argue about the color of Christmas lights. [Right now, I am enjoying the glow of the white lights on our Christmas tree.]
Well, it’s now 1:45 am and besides writing this list, I have changed and swaddled Isaac and he is now sitting on my lap drinking his bottle. Cross your fingers that he will go to sleep easily for me after he eats so I can go to sleep too.
Oh yeah, I guess I should tag some other people too. Let’s see, how about Mel Mealey, Faith Kearl, Amy Rahm, Kim Morrison, Amberlynn Whiting, and Becky Wall.
1. My favorite color is blue. I especially like most shades of light blue. I do not, however, like aqua or turquoise. Often I will see something that I like, such as a piece of clothing or a car, that is turquoise, and I will think that it looks very nice except for the color and wonder why anyone would choose to make something that color.
2. I don’t save my kids’ art work. The idea of keeping a cardboard box in the closet with a bunch of odd-sized pieces of wrinkled construction paper that shed glitter, stickers, and pieces of bottle cleaners every time you pick them up does not appeal to me at all. Instead I scan or photograph the more notable pieces of art work that are brought home from school, church, and playgroups and print these pages and put them in plastic page protectors in a special art work binder for each child. Then I give the originals back to the kids to play with until they get torn or a little brother eats part of them and they get thrown away (or, if the kids aren’t looking and I am trying to clean up the clutter of papers that always grows on our computer desk, I might just slip them into the trashcan underneath something else so they won’t see – what a mean mom I am, but at least I keep copies in their art books, so it’s not too bad to get rid of the originals, right?)
3. Michael knows that one of my pet peeves is having the closet door left open when we go to bed, and he will often close it just for me. As I am writing this, I am realizing that I like the closet door closed because if you can’t see the clutter inside the closet, it makes the bedroom appear more clean. I guess that’s why I always close the cupboards when I am in the kitchen, I got an armoire for a computer desk so it could be closed when we’re not using the computer, and I always close the medicine cabinet and the shower curtain each time I am in the bathroom. Huh, never thought about that before.
4. I have four little boys who are each about a year apart, and I don’t like to dress them in matching clothes. What I do like to do is have each of them wear the same style of clothing at the same time, or even matching clothes – as long as they are in different colors. Ideally, for instance, my boys would all be dressed in really cute overalls with a layered, long sleeved shirt, and matching brown leather shoes. When the boys were younger, it used to really bug me when Michael would get Kolby and Eli dressed and one would be wearing jeans with a button-up shirt and the other would have on overall shorts with a t-shirt. Now that we have more kids and it gets harder to buy coordinating clothes for all of them, and my kids get a little older so I rely on them more to choose their own clothes, I have become less picky about their clothes all being the same style.
5. I’m a little obsessive about photographs. (Ok, you could probably tell from the blog that I like to take lots of family photos, but that’s not all). I have several folders on my computer that I organize all my photos in – every photo I own is either a digital photo or is scanned so that I have it on my computer. And my family members know that I have spent quite a few hours scanning old photos of ancestors and pictures of family when visiting relatives’ houses. I use Photoshop to “tag” each photo with the name of each person pictured, so later on I can click on any name and it will automatically show every photo on the computer with that person in it. I have been working on tagging all the photos on my computer, and I currently have 11,040 photos tagged. I am rather proud of my diligence in being so organized, but I do realize it does seem a little OCD-ish. Oh well.
6. The first time Michael and I had a fight was about Christmas lights. Well, it wasn’t really a fight – more of a disagreement. We were at Temple Square in Salt Lake at Thanksgiving time about a year after we got married, and we were looking at all the beautiful Christmas lights on all the trees around the temple. At the end of the night, I made some comment about how I loved white Christmas lights, and I thought the brightly colored lights looked kind of tacky. Michael was pretty offended by this comment, since he had grown up with colored lights and loved how they looked. I told him that he could put up whatever color of lights he wanted on the outside of our house someday (although I would prefer white), and I would decorate our tree with little white lights. It wasn’t long before we were laughing about how silly it was to argue about the color of Christmas lights. [Right now, I am enjoying the glow of the white lights on our Christmas tree.]
Well, it’s now 1:45 am and besides writing this list, I have changed and swaddled Isaac and he is now sitting on my lap drinking his bottle. Cross your fingers that he will go to sleep easily for me after he eats so I can go to sleep too.
Oh yeah, I guess I should tag some other people too. Let’s see, how about Mel Mealey, Faith Kearl, Amy Rahm, Kim Morrison, Amberlynn Whiting, and Becky Wall.
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