catching up and falling behind

It's been a long time since I posted but things have been hectic lately. Over the last couple weeks, I've managed to catch up on some household chores that have been neglected for a while. I have a huge list of things I still want to accomplish, but I'm having to go slowly on what I do because I tire out quickly and am having issues with my back and joints. I definitely need to start going through Mattie Leigh's baby clothes and other things and separate out things my brother could use for his daughter (who will make her arrival any day now) and just sort through by size and season and whether or not we will need them. I need to do that with toys too. I also want to do some rearranging around the house to make things more inviting for company and to make sure we are ready for Allie Grace's arrival. Along with rearranging, we need to do some clearing out. Hopefully, a lot of this can be done over Christmas break.

The falling behind part of the title of this post is a reference to the lack of sleep I've been getting. On top of me waking up a lot in the night trying to find a comfortable sleeping position or to go potty, we've had more sleep issues with Mattie Leigh. NOTHING seems to work to get her to sleep and to get her to stay asleep through the night. I'll try to give a detailed post of what's going on soon. The basics are that she will only go to sleep if I either rock her or lay down beside her and she will wake up multiple times to make sure I'm still right there. We've tried letting her cry it out on her own...all that's gotten us is less sleep and a mess to clean up. Mattie Leigh gets so worked up that she makes herself sick and it takes hours to calm her back down. I don't really know what to do with her at this point...I just know that I'm exhausted and really frustrated with where things stand now. If you have any tips or tricks that work, let me know.

big change

I just wanted to let everyone know that we took Mattie Leigh off the Prevacid, and since then, she has been sleeping much better. I don't know if it really was making her hyper and causing her to not sleep well. I just know that she has been much less hyper since she's been off of it.

medicine induced nightmares/night terrors/insomnia?

I was telling my mom about how Mattie Leigh has been having trouble sleeping. She talked to her pharmicist today and he told her that some medicines (named one specifically) have been found to cause nightmares in kids. After hearing that, I decided to look up all the side effects for Prevacid Solu-tabs (Mattie Leigh has been taking these since she was diagnosed with gastritis). Three of the side effects are abnormal sleep, insomnia, and sleep disorder. Her bad sleep patterns definitely got worse after she was prescribed the Prevacid, so I'm wondering if maybe we've found the reason why it has gotten worse. She has to take the Prevacid until this month's solu-tabs are gone (a little less than 20 days) and then we can take her off of it and see how her stomach does. I have to call the doctor and report on how she is doing one week after she's stopped taking it. I'm hoping this is our answer and I can get a better sleeper in the next month or so.

Peanut and Night Terrors

I've been so tired and busy lately that I just haven't had a chance to post on here. I went to the doctor on Thursday; everything looks great and Peanut should arrive on or before March 26. I'm finally getting over the horrible nausea that I've had and I'm finally able to eat more than just a few bites at a time. I asked Mattie Leigh the other day if she wanted Peanut to be a boy or a girl...she said "boy! no girl!" so I'm not sure if she means she wants a boy and not a girl or if she said boy and then changed her mind.

In other news, we've been up a lot with Mattie Leigh at night again. She cries out in the middle of the night but she is never fully awake when she does it. I'm beginning to think that she may be having night terrors. I can give her a cup of milk or water and touch her and she usually calms back down within a few minutes and goes back into a deep sleep. We've also had problems with her bed-wetting. I make sure I put her down for bed with a dry nighttime pull-up and I put a diaper liner in with it...she isn't drinking any more than normal so I can't figure out why she's suddenly going so much in the middle of the night.

so tired

If you are wondering why I haven't posted lately, it's because I've had absolutely no energy. The funny thing is, when I want to sleep (and should be sleeping) I can't go to sleep. It's even worse today because I was gone from 9 until 7. I'm hoping to feel up to posting a good blog soon...I have lots to talk about.

so busy

The Walker family has been on the move lately. We've been trying to improve the look of the church (because it needs it and because we want it to look nicer for visitors). So far we've painted the room we use for kids' church and gotten some new stuff to go in there. We've also moved the location of the nursery, painted it, and gotten new furniture and toys. This weekend was spent getting ready for Bible School this week. I'll be teaching the preschool class and am still trying to figure out exactly what activities to do with the kids.

Mattie Leigh has chosen this time to decide to test her limits. She's definitely in the autonomy vs. shame and doubt stage and is really testing us to see just how much she can get away with. Today, she got a marker and colored on a table and chair and some VBS decorations before Kevin could get to her. (I was in the room I'll be teaching in trying to get some decorations up.) I'm trying to keep in mind that she's just trying to become a little more independent while still setting appropriate boundaries for that independence.

how would you handle this situation?

I was working with a child a while back, and he needed to go to the restroom. I assumed that he could be trusted to go and get his parent and have them take him to the restroom. (This is something that I have kids do all the time.) Maybe it was too much responsibility to give to a 4 1/2 year old? Instead of going to his parent, he went to play in the water. Now when I work with him, his parent gives me a 5 minute lecture on not leaving him alone or letting him out of the room under any circumstances. This even went on so far as the parent saying that 4 year olds can't do simple things like that on their own and that they need constant adult supervision. I don't know about you, but I know that plenty of 4 year olds that have been able to handle simple tasks like that. How do I explain to the parent that many 4 year olds can handle simple responsibilities and that they are 1) either babying their child too much or 2) their child has some special needs that need to be checked into? I had to hold my tongue the last time this happened so that I didn't say something ugly to her that could hurt my reputation since a lot of people were nearby. I was (and still am) very frustrated by this.