The Times They Are A-Changin'

So, now that I'm in a nice, quiet place where I probably won't be disturbed for awhile (work), I'll get around to doing that "kind of big news" update I was talking about earlier.

Rather quietly, our lives have changed significantly over this past month. Many of the things that I've been pissing and moaning about for the past six months or so just sort of went away. More or less. And with no fanfare. In fact, the transition was so nearly seamless that I almost failed to notice it entirely. It would have just been one of those things that stopped happening that we didn't notice wasn't happening anymore until much later when we thought to ourselves, "Remember when . . . ." and then we finally remembered when.

This happened the other day with Gabe. Someone asked him his name. He said, "I'm Gabe. I'm four!" Everyone he talks to these days finds out that he's four. It's kind of his thing right now. But that was it, and a little while later I was thinking about it and remembered that his response USED TO BE "I'm Gabe Albers from Big Boy," which we loved and thought was adorable. And it just sort of stopped happening without us noticing.

I imagine that's what will keep happening from now until all the kids do is yell and throw things at us and nothing very pleasant happens anymore.

Well, that's a very jaded notion, isn't it. My children will not be monsters when they are teenagers. They will be loving children who respect me, listen closely to my opinions, always maintain their composure, and love me more than anything else in the world. Like the kids on Family Ties or Growing Pains. Right.

Anyway, the Big Boy thing was cute and a good thing and I was sad to see it go. These things with Norah, not so much.

While Libby was in the hospital for her surgery, my folks took the kids. I think I commented on that at the time--about how wonderful it was and how exhilarating the breath of freedom was.

I've since adjusted back to the chains of parenthood again, in case anyone is wondering. I barely even think about how little I can get out and do anything that I'd like to again. Which is good, because if I thought about that regularly I'd probably go batty.

While the kids were at my folks' place, Norah went through an interesting metamorphosis. Apparently, all she needed to break her of her waking up three times in the middle of the night and needing a bottle cycle was to have the reset button pushed on her. She spent five nights at my folks, and while she was there, she never once demanded a bottle in the middle of the night when she woke up. Granted, she was sharing a big bed with Nana who just calmed and soothed her back to sleep instead of getting up and giving her a bottle (and, yes, we've tried this before, rather Libby has, with zero success).

Then, when she got home, we had pulled the side off her crib so we could transition her into a big girl bed, and that combine with her short-term habit of sleeping through the night at my folks' house apparently reset her. Now, if she wakes up in the middle of the night, she mostly just calms herself down and goes back to sleep. She's woken up a couple times and needed some soothing, and once demanded a bottle, but she seems to have mostly moved on.

And it is so wonderful. If you've never had a child who wakes up multiple times a night for two years straight you really have no idea. But even I can't complain that much because I didn't wake up EVERY night. Sometimes I slept through it because I could. Libby, however, couldn't. So maybe she'll start to get some decent sleep again. Finally.

The next big thing happened the next weekend after we put her in her big girl crib. We separated Gabe's bunk beds, girlied one of them up, and moved Norah into his room. We were a little nervous about all of it--Would they go to sleep with each other there as a distraction? Would they wake one another up all night with their noise? Would Norah pee through her diaper every night and make her real, kind of expensive mattress a stinky disaster in a week? It was all rather up in the air, but we wanted to try it anyway, figuring Norah was making big changes quickly with her sleeping and we might as well ride the wave.

And it worked swimmingly. They can't nap together because they DO keep each other up all afternoon, but they sit in there and chat and play for a few minutes at night (if they aren't so tired they fall right to sleep) then go to sleep. When one of them wakes up, for the most part, the other one sleeps through it (really, it's amazing how much Gabe can sleep through--the kid is like a stone once he's gone down and if it's not after 5:00 in the morning). In addition, now that Norah isn't needing bottles all through the night, she's not really peeing through her diapers anymore (much, just a little damp from time to time, which only makes her and her sheets stink--and she's been stinky for so long that nobody probably notices anymore).

So, in the course of a month, we've been able to start sleeping through the night (we don't, of course, because we haven't been for nearly four years and it's not easy to break a habit like that), we've got our spare room back, our child doesn't stink like a pisspot every morning, and the kids are actually starting to enjoy having each other in the room with them while they sleep (Norah gets pissed when Gabe isn't in there when she's supposed to be sleeping--but this isn't a HUGE deal because Norah gets pissed about most things most of the time these days, she's at that age).

AND she's showing signs of getting ready to potty train. I know! We might be diaper free in a few months! God that would be glorious. GLORIOUS!