Back Aches and Strawberries

I hear that blog s are supposed to be a daily thing. At least some people think that. But around here, weekly is about all I can manage to do. I could probably do it daily, but my wife got me addicted to Spider Solitaire on the computer, and it's my mental wind down every night after the babies go to sleep. As soon as I win a 4 suite game (without cheating), I'll stop, I promise.

What's worse than parents not getting sleep? Babies not getting sleep. Reece went a couple of nights with long periods of being awake in the middle of the night. Yesterday was a disaster. He was grumpy from about 11:00 AM on, wouldn't nap, and by 1:00 PM we were counting the minutes to bed time. Even walking him around, letting him dance by the keyboard, activities which usually result in happy (or at least sedate) baby, didn't work. It is kind of funny to watch a screaming baby do the Salsa, but not really. Yes, he can be in temper tantrum of epic proportions, but he still dances.

So we made some changes to the bed time routine last night. Lorelai slept in our room last night in the co-sleeper. She's become a pretty good sleeper now that we've started putting her to bed on her tummy, despite all the warnings in the books. She can really raise her head up any time she wants, and will roll over from time to time anyway, so we're not worried about that anymore. She usually sleeps for 7-8 hours at a stretch.

Reece slept in the babies' room last night in the crib. The babies have been sleeping there for the last week or so, so that wasn't a big deal, but last night we decided to wake him up when Lisa went to bed to get one more feeding in, then we put him back down, with the hope that he wouldn't wake up for at least four hours. He had been getting up at 11, 1, 3, 5 and 6, with the 3 AM one lasting for an hour or so. Last night he skipped the 11, woke up for a quick feed at 1:30, skipped the 3 and was up at 4:30. That's a huge change for us, and we actually feel like we got sleep.

The next step is to get him to skip the 1:30, and to do that, we're going to walk him back to sleep instead of feeding him, and if that doesn't work, we'll have to do the dastardly deed of letting him cry it out for a few hours. I hear it takes about 3 nights to break an infant of any bad bedtime habit. I think I'll wait to do this step until my parents are here next week, sleeping in the room next to the babies, so they can enjoy the experience too.

After yesterday's hauling of Reece around all day, my back is killing me. I've had a history of problems with my sciatic nerve, but it's been a couple of years since it really flared up. Apparently lifting a 16lb baby a thousand times a day is a recipe for disaster. I've got an ice pack on now, Ibuprofen at the ready, and a hot bath available if things get desperate.

We did get to enjoy the first fruit of our garden this week. A single, nickle sized strawberry. It really wasn't that good, compared the bunch we bought the weekend before from the farmer's market. It was kinda puny and dry. But hey, we're on our way to being self-sufficient!

As to why we are home, and not in Eastern Washington this weekend? The cough and fever the twins had, morphed into a rash that covered their entire bodies, caused Lorelai's face to become puffy, and generally made them uncomfortable. It was pretty much gone by yesterday morning, but there was no way we were driving 4 hours with 2 sick kids, into 100 degree temps in Eastern Washington, and then turning around and driving back the next day. We may be insane, but we're not masochists.