Every mom is familiar with the Zombie-state.  It is brought on by lack of sleep and exhaustion.  The combination of constantly being “on” without a break, day and night is tiring enough. Pair that with a mere 4 hours of sleep collectively throughout the night for a week or more and you’ve got the Zombie-state.

It feels like moving through a fog. Looking back on previous days, you may find you are missing time, unsure of whether it is Tuesday or Wednesday. I recently forgot the pin number to my debit card for three days. I’ve put a coffee cup away in the refrigerator. Most notable, is my inability to form coherent sentences in the evening. It is as though my brain begins to shut down around 5pm, it has done all it can for the day and needs to be put to bed. My husband can always tell when I am in desperate need of sleep because I will ask him to “Please turn down the remote control.” Or, “Would you mind handing me the uhhhhh……..  what do you call it???…… that thing right there that I need…  Oven Mitt!!”  A good night’s rest cures it immediately.

Unfortunately, I don’t see that in my near future. So until then, I will just need to write everything down and try not to hold any important conversations after 5pm.

What are some unusual things you have done or said while sleep deprived?

There is a process you can go through so that she could start kindergarten right before she turns five instead of waiting until she’s almost six.  But it seems like a fairly involved process.  So my question is, dear readers, is it worth it to try and get her to start earlier versus later?

Pros to starting earlier – She’s a girl.  In my graduate school days, we learned in developmental psychology that being older and more mature is almost universally a bad thing for girls.  It’s not so much a problem when she’s in elementary school, but come middle and high school, it could be.  She’ll be eighteen almost her entire senior year of high school.  There’s no way that can be good.  Also, my birthday is in July, and so by the school calendar, Emily will be only seven weeks younger than I was.  And I never felt like the youngest kid in my class, either socially or scholastically.  Far from it – I was always one of the top students, despite being younger.  So I have a hard time believing that that seven weeks is going to make such a huge difference for Emily.

Cons to starting earlier – Going through the process.  It’s fairly long, involving a battery of tests, interviews, and support documenting that she is operating two to three years above the level of her peers.  Plus, honestly, I don’t think she’s that smart, but I do think she’ll be plenty smart to start kindergarten at barely four.  Additionally, if high school really does become that unpleasant for her, due to the block schedule currently used by the high school, she could graduate a year early and start college when she’s (almost) eighteen.  But will the high school still be on a block schedule then?  Will that still be an option fourteen years from now?

Given that she’s only three right now, and this really isn’t an issue for another year, I don’t necessarily need to make any decisions yet.  But, it does affect our decision as to whether or not to enroll her in preschool for next year, and if so, what class she goes into. Also, I’d just like to have this figured out.  So, dear readers, please help me figure this out!  I’d love to hear your input!

When do you think we should have Emily start kindergarten?  Should she wait, or should we start her early?

I’m an anal person. I fully admit that. I love to clean and organize. Having a baby makes this nearly impossible. I clean up my house just to have her follow me and take it all out again. My living room looks like a disaster area on a regular basis.

I’ve learned rather quickly that you can’t have nice things with a baby. I’ve had my furniture for 2 weeks and they are already covered in snot, milk, eggs, and cookie crumbs. All house decorations have to be up high or else she will get them. There is a huge change in my idea of a home.

Pre-baby I thought of my perfect home as lot’s of strategically placed decorations and accents, always in pristine condition, and never any dirt or  mess. Now my perfect house has books everywhere, toys in and on the furniture, random cookies in the couch and a naked baby running around waiting to pee at any moment.

A home is where a family lives. It’s where memories are shared and made. Dirt and crumbs just make a home. I walk into my house and at first cringe a little but then I smile because Abigail loves it. She always runs to her favorite toys right where she left them, in the middle of the floor.

A month or two ago, I decided it was a good time to start introducing Ben to words like “no”, “stop”, and “don’t”. I figured he had gotten old enough to where he could understand what it meant, so when he would go to pull all the DVDs out of our DVD case, he would hear the word “NO!”.

Unfortunately, every single time I say the word no to him, I get a face similar to the one in the picture. He apparently finds it hilarious. He’ll smile at first, making it incredibly hard for me to hold my stern, serious, disciplinary face. And the longer I try to stay looking serious, the funnier he apparently finds it. Within a few seconds, he’s laughing. Seriously — he is laughing at my attempt to discipline him.

To his credit, he does generally stop when I tell him no, although it may take two or three times. But even though I say it firmly and with conviction, he still for whatever reason doesn’t take it seriously. Not only is it not serious for him, it’s apparently amusing. Ben’s new favorite entertainment is Mommy trying to say no. Awesome.

I am firmly against my kids ending up spoiled and I know that as they get older, I’m going to be a mean mommy sometimes. And you know, if they don’t like it, tough. They’ll thank me when they’re older. But I have to say, I’m a little concerned that my first attempts at discipline have led to laughter. I originally expected tears, from the experiences of my friends. But this? Never would have guessed it.

I can only hope that over time this will pass and he’ll take it more seriously. This is, of course, based on the hope that he still doesn’t quite understand exactly what NO means. If not… well, I guess I’m just going to have to step it up and find another way to set him straight.

When did you start introducing the words “no” and “stop” to your children?

Countering the belief that you have to be “older” to suffer from mental illness, a new report says there’s actually no lowest-age limit.

Infants and toddlers can be affected, but they often go without treatment that could prevent them from suffering long-term problems, according to the researchers.

There’s a “pervasive, but mistaken, impression that young children do not develop mental health problems and are immune to the effects of early adversity and trauma because they are inherently resilient and ‘grow out of’ behavioral problems and emotional difficulties,” they wrote in the February issue of American Psychologist. The issue includes a series of articles about mental health in children under the age of 5. Read more>

I love that about kids, they are so great at adapting to new situations. It took her about a week to where she wouldn’t cry when I left. The first time it happened my heart melted because she went straight into the arms of Ms.Rhonda, the caregiver, and didn’t even look back at me.

I’ve been going regularly for a little over a month, and now she’s at the point where she is actually excited about going! When I say “who wants to go to the gym?”, she shouts “I do!” Then she marches on down the hallway and when I drop her off she gives me a kiss and a hug and runs off to play.

It’s SO nice to have peace of mind about her during my workouts. Believe me, I need every ounce of energy for some of those fitness classes and I’m glad Saioa decided to be supportive in my weight loss efforts!

Do your children like going to childcare? How did you prepare them for it?

But that’s not really the case with Disney movies.  Not when you really think about it.

We all saw Disney movies in the theaters as kids.  I specifically remember going to see Lady and the Tramp and crying my eyes during the scene where they are dragging a pound dog to be put to sleep.  I’ve tried to block the details of the scene out, but you only saw the shadow of the dog fighting against the leash.  I also suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome from Bambi and Dumbo-easily the two saddest Disney films I remember to date.  Thankfully, I have suppressed Bambi’s mom getting shot.  Unfortunately, we bought Dumbo as Sayle loves elephants.  I avoided seeing the entire movie, but happened to walk across the room when Dumbo was being rocked by his mom’s trunk as she was locked in a cage marked “Mad Elephant.”  Baby of Mine was playing and my heart immediately broke.

As a parent, it is now my turn to bestow the “magic of Disney” upon Sayle.  This is quite a daunting task as I already know how heart-wrenching some of these movies are!  Parents, don’t act like you haven’t avoided or at least thought twice before buy Bambi for your kids.  We ALL are Disney scarred!

I started off with easy movies and built up courage as I went.  I tackled Finding Nemo pretty easily, but Lion King was a killer.  I become teary when I even think about baby Simba crying by his dad after he was killed.  In an effort to avoid another depressing Disney movie, we purchased The Fox and the Hound for Sayle as it looked like a cute little movie about friends.  For those of you who are familiar with this movie, I know you’re cringing, but I didn’t know any better at the time.  This is N-O-T a feel good movie.  In fact, it ranks right up there with Dumbo and Bambi.  The movie starts out with a hunter and dogs chasing momma fox, she puts her pup in a safe place and carries on running, only to be shot.  That’s the first five minutes of the movie and it only gets worse from there.

Hey Disney, what is your problem?   Mother figures don’t fare well in your movies.  If the mom isn’t already dead, she’s killed off in the first few minutes (think-Nemo, Bambi, Fox and Hound, Dumbo.)  If she’s already dead, her child is raised by some horrible stepmother.  If you’re a princess, you’re screwed.  You end up with a witch trying to steal your voice, throwing poison apples at you, or casting horrible spells on you until your prince comes to save the day.  And if you’re an animal it is guaranteed your mom is going to die, you’re going to the pound, abandoned in the middle of nowhere, or someone is trying to kill you.  Where is the love?  Where is the feel good in the magic of Disney?  I say it’s in the movie Song of the South, (zip-a-dee-doo-dah) but that movie is not available anymore and a whole different blog I can tackle later. Moving along.

Ironically, we continue to watch and purchase these movies, but I’m not sure why?  Is it because they’re Disney movies?  Is it because they’re considered classics?  Is it because it is just a never ending cycle of showing our favorite depressing movies to the next generation?  I have no idea, yet I’m just as guilty as the rest of us…but I am NOT buying Bambi!

What Disney movies scarred you?  What Disney movies are you NOT buying for your kids?   What do you think the saddest Disney movies are? 

Anyway, we decided to go explore one of the parks the area has to offer.  We headed to the Northeast Creek Park, located on Corbin Drive in Jacksonville.  We’ve been to the playground side before (very underwhelming, some older equipment, and not fenced in), and this time we decided to check out the nature trail along the water.

I’m a sucker for anything along the water.  Being near the water, be it a creek, lake, or the ocean, just makes me happy.  The kids were also excited to go hiking in the woods.  So, a nature trail along the water sounded like a perfect way to spend a morning.

The trail did not disappoint.  A significant length of it runs along boardwalks built either adjacent to or occasionally over the water.  The kids all loved observing the birds, looking for fish, and just watching the water.  There were even a few lookout areas along the way with benches for an impromptu snack break.

The woods portion of the trail was fun too.  The trail was wide and well-maintained, making it easy to push Joshua in the jogging stroller and for Nathan and Emily to keep up with us.  Some of the larger trees even had identifying plaques at their bases.  We found a little pond hidden in the woods too.

Nathan and Emily gave the park two thumbs up, and Joshua was only disappointed he couldn’t walk too.  My only recommendation would be to go soon before the mosquitos come out – there was a lot of marshy terrain perfect for mosquitos.  Other than that, it was a successful adventure.  We love the park!

Have you found any great parks recently?  Where are they?

Lily spent her first week on this earth in the NICU at Pitt Memorial Hospital.  She was born at Carteret General, so you can imagine how shocked we were to learn that they were going to put her in a helicopter and fly her away from me when she was a mere 24 hours old.  It turns out she was having difficulty remembering to breath.  The doctors told us that this happens to some babies, the respiratory center of her brain was still a little immature.  After running what seemed like a million tests for what felt like eons, they ruled out anything serious and sent us home with an apnea monitor that would alarm should she stop breathing.  She is just fine now, off of the monitor and her doctor has assured us not to worry, “Babies are tremendously resilient.”

Unfortunately, that does not help us forget those many instances when her sweet little face turned blue for lack of oxygen.  Ever since we brought her home, we have been waiting for her to meet each and every milestone.  We tend to hold little mini-celebrations, a call to all her grandparents, aunts and uncles, even perform the occasional end-zone dance.

Learning to crawl is a huge milestone for any baby, met with the same amount of announcements, facebook status updates and bragging rights for parents and grandparent alike.  For us, though, a collective sigh of relief is what followed the end-zone dance in our bathroom.

Do you ever worry about your baby meeting his/her milestones? 

Teasing the dog

I’m not so proud to say that my daughter is a trouble maker and she’s just shy of a year old. How do I know? Well there are a couple signs.

1. She has an evil laugh. I’m talking like, if she could form the sounds it would be an erie MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

2. She purposely defies when she knows she shouldn’t be doing something. For example, she likes to play in our dogs food and water dishes. I tell her no and remove her from the situation. She immediately speed crawls back to them but purposefully stops half way, looks back, gives her evil laugh as if she’s saying “Try and stop me!” and then proceeds to the dishes. She thinks that she is hilarious.

3. She bites. I’m not talking a little nibble. She will grab any part of my body she can and just clamp down with her tiny daggers. She has chomped on my toes, my boob (not breastfeeding either), my thigh, my arm, and mostly my fingers.

4. She climbs on everything. We have end tables that she likes to slide around to position perfectly in front of whatever it is she has decided she wants to be on. Usually the couches.

So I fully admit it, my daughter is a trouble maker. I know that she is only 11 months old so I have full faith in her changing her ways. I can see that she will clearly be her father’s daughter though. He is always out for a good laugh and she is too. Whenever she is doing anything, good or bad, she makes sure someone is watching so she can have an audience.

Oh well. All I can do is stay on top of that mischievous munchkin and steer her in the right direction. It will help with her daddy home so I can have my partner back.

Anyone else have a little trouble maker in the house?