8 hours later and he is gone

Kristin got a call at 10:00 am on Friday that Baby N would be picked up at 6:00 pm that evening to go live with his grandparents.  We had never met his caseworker (who ended up being nice and had just had a busy week placing other babies) nor were we warned that his grandparents were interested in having him.
We miss him but I know that he is with his brother who is only a year older and his grandparents who fought to get him.  Somehow having a baby balances out having older kids and the disconnect that I sometimes feel with them.  It's hard not to feel connected to a baby when they fall asleep on you, look you in the eye you while you give them a bottle, and depend on you for everything. 
It was an easier weekend without him but I still want another one. 

1st to leave

Well, after almost 3 months and 3 great nights of sleep training, Baby N is leaving us tonight to live with his grandparents. They also have his older brother - older by exactly one year.

We've never actually had a child leave us to go home or to go with family, so it's unnerving to get that phone call.  It's like a great big, "remember this is temporary" smack in the face. At least they are giving us time to pack him up and spend a little time with him.  So, I am leaving work early to get him and start getting his stuff in order.  I am also trying to get a bunch of pictures ordered to put in a small photo album for his grandparents.  They didn't even know he existed until about 2 months ago. Heck, I am not sure if they've ever even seen him.  I am glad that he's so young & (probably) won't freak out with whole new situation & people.

I am wondering if I should write them about the sleep training so they don't go through what we went through. We are gonna miss that little guy.  And I am not looking forward to explaining it to ML & JC.  They LOVE him.

ML & Baby N - my little superheroes

Sleep training

Soooo, as we may have mentioned once or twice, Baby N is a notoriously bad sleeper.  As in he wakes up almost every 2 hours - and won't go back to sleep unless he gets a bottle (I guess he still thinks he's a newborn).  We've tried a pacifier & he just won't take it for more than 10 seconds.  I never thought I'd be trying to get a 6 month old to TAKE a pacifier.  But, he sucks on the bottle to soothe himself back to sleep & I want him to sleep, so we try the very special pacifier - given to us by his parents, who swear he uses it (and who want it back for sentimental reasons, if he doesn't use it).

Last night I started, "Let's-get-Baby-N-to-sleep-on-his-own Sleep Training Boot Camp."  He goes down fine, but usually with a bottle, so that's the first thing I changed.  Now one of us will take him upstairs and give him his bottle until he's almost ready to fall asleep, then put him in his crib.  Basic, right?  Maybe for most kids, but usually moving him after he falls asleep wakes him completely up and the screaming begins.  But, last night I tried something different.  I noticed in the car the other day that when I turned up the radio a bit he fell right to sleep (during a screaming bout).  Then, I remembered that his mom wrote in a note that he "likes loud music."  So, I thought - let's try that & brought up the world's last CD player & put in the only CD I could find - Adele's 21.  Who wouldn't want to fall asleep with with sweet, sweet sounds of Adele crooning in their ear?  I put him in his crib, gave him the pacifier (which was spit out in the noted 10 seconds) turned up Adele and left.  He fell asleep.

Ok. That worked.  But falling asleep at bedtime isn't the problem.  It's staying asleep.  We were just falling asleep when he woke up around 11:30.  I gave him his pacifier and rubbed his head and told him it was time to sleep then left.  He whined and cried (not his ear-drum shattering cry though) for about 5 minutes (although it felt like forever) then was quiet.  He fell back to sleep.  On his own.

Cut to 2 hours later.  He's up and crying. I do the same thing again.  He doesn't stop, I wait 5 minutes then figure that maybe I should not stop the bottle cold turkey and gave him some watered-down formula & we went right back to sleep.  Ok, not bad.

2 hours later, it's 4 am.  He's screaming.  Now, when I say screaming, I mean screaming.  Like he is slowly being eaten by a bear.  It's ridiculous.  I vowed that he will not win this battle - no bottle and I will not pick him up & bring him to my bed.  Every 5 or 6 minutes for an hour, I would go into him, give him the pacifier rub his head (he LOVES that) tell him he's ok and it's time to sleep then I go back to bed.  After an hour of that every 5 minutes he fell asleep until 6ish, which is when Andrea wakes up.

So, I will attempt to do this for a week and hope it makes a difference.  Fingers crossed it will because we are going to Mexico for 4 days for my sister's wedding next week and Andrea's mom & aunt are watching the kids - I would like at least SOME sleep improvement by then.  No deserves to go through this - especially if they are doing us a favor. (We locked them in back when we only had 3 kids - oops! sorry guys!)

My day with two sick boys - In pictures (mostly)

Dropped BJ & Baby N off at school/daycare. Then I just HAD to make the apple pie I promised to make the day before - and so the day begins....

                            Apple Pie - Cat Tree (because the boys each wanted different designs)

And start the butternut squash soup for dinner tonight

AND hard boil some eggs for dinner alter this week (avocado & egg salad sandwiches)

All while drinking the best peppermint mocha ever (dropped off by my very kind sister, L.)

Then, I spent some time with the worms & let the chickens free from their yard

Sleepyheads

Lunch for me (left-over Chinese food & a special treat)

No nap for me, but this was almost as good

I got a break from running up & down these (not pictured: the bunches of laundry I did and the 2 beds I had to re-sheet!)

Then they woke up & had some lunch (oh around 3:30/4)

And played (JC is in Baby N's "roller coaster")

Then Andrea got home with Baby N & we worked on prepping yet another meal for the week (quinoa and fake chicken burritos - they are really good) 

 

While Baby N had his bottle (he is REALLY good at holding it himself)

And BJ played with his iPod touch (which he is obsessed with)

The rest of our night was pretty boring.  CC came home & then went out with her therapist & we did dinner, homework & bed time.  It was so boring I forgot to take pictures. But, I will say, this day was waaaaaay less relaxing than my sick day with JC last week.  From now on, only 1 sick kid at a time!

A normal baby?

Why can't we just get a normal baby who sleeps?  The Baby N woke up crying every hour and a half last night.  He was wide awake babbling from 12:30 am to 2:00 am.  I get so mad at him in the middle of the night and want to say to social services, "Move him!"  I don't really want him moved but he has been having some rough days and nights.  He demands to be held all of the time (which I want to be able to do because I know he needs that kind of attention, it's just hard with the other kids, working full time and trying to get home and get dinner made).

CC has been great.  We couldn't ask for much more from her.  She is pleasant, does everything we ask of her, tries hard in school and tries to incorporate herself into the adult parts of the family.  She still doesn't interact with the younger kids much but I don't know if that is a function of her age or her personality.  Both probably.  She was great last weekend when I needed her to babysit JC at BJ's football game while I worked in the snack stand.  JC was crying and wanted me but she just picked him up and took him away like I needed her too.  She really is a good kid so far. I am fully prepared for the honeymoon to end though.  I will be disappointed but I know it is a possibility.

BJ is probably going to move in with "his mom's cousin."  He has never met these people but he is "excited because they have kids my age."  That feels a little like a slap in the face. All of a sudden he is anxious to move on and is very sullen and grumpy around the house, especially if he doesn't get his way.  It's not really how I wanted to end things and I guess it is up to me to try to turn it around as much as possible and let him know that we are going to miss him. 

Sick days

Don't get me wrong, I am NEVER happy when one of my kids are sick.  Especially if they are in pain or super uncomfortable.  But, I will admit to occasionally loving a sick day when I am not the sick one.

JC threw up twice the other night.  At a very convenient time of 2 am. All over his sheets. So, both Andrea and I were up, (me, mostly for moral support because I am not good at at dealing with throw up - although I did put the sheets in the wash - without throwing up myself) Andrea cleaning the child and the bed, and me rubbing his back. Then he did it again about an hour later, but it was much more contained that time.

So, due to that and the fact that he felt pretty warm, we knew we could not send him to my sister's house - her daughter is just getting over an illness too (and they haven't seen each other in a week, so I can't blame her!).  This means I got to stay home from work! JC refused to wear clothes yesterday - only a diaper, so I had to bundle him in a blanket and bring him with me to to drop off BJ & Baby N to their schools.  JC threw up on the blanket on the way home.  So, after a bath for JC and doing some quick work-from-home- work we were both bundled on the couch watching Thomas the Tank Engine & we both fell asleep for about 2 hours.

I cannot remember the last time I had a such a glorious nap.  JC was fine the rest of the day, he didn't eat much - just had a smoothie, and even got up to play a bit for falling asleep for a 3 hour nap.  I got to read a book, straighten up a bit, make dinner and relax.  Even if I have a scheduled day off it's never this calm and relaxing because I know those days are few and far between, so I run errands and get stuff done.

I will take a non-scheduled sick day any day of the week (again, as long as no one was harmed in the making of that sick day).

Luckily, that giant bowl was never used

Why is it always the worst possible scenario?

So the worst possible scenario is happening to us in BJ's case.  He was supposed to move to his aunt sometime before Thanksgiving with the assumption that she was basically going to adopt him and be a parent figure/resource for him for the rest of his life.  Perfect foster care outcome really because she is stable and seems to have the resources to support him.  Well she backed out.  She said that she and her husband, "agreed not to have children."

So now his goal will change to adoption.  He is not the right fit for our family and we don't want to adopt him.  I feel so guilty saying that we don't want to adopt him.  I always thought that if a child needed a home I would be able to provide that home.  Not true.  BJ is a good kid, he does pretty well in school, everyone loves him.  However, he is not a good fit for our family, there is just something missing.  He lacks empathy and he is too out for himself.  There is just something about him that irks us.  Again, I feel so guilty saying that about a child.

Although we don't want to adopt him we have committed to him until he can find a permanent home (at least I have.  I couldn't send him away to random strangers, especially after what every social worker and therapist has told me about most of the other foster homes in our area).  BUT THAT COULD BE A YEAR AND A HALF!  We feel so stuck because he creates a weird tension in our home but we also signed up for this and can't just ask him to move on.  All summer we thought, "Just hold on until Thanksgiving" and that is what kept us going but now that is lost. 

6 months

Someone just celebrated his half birthday! Happy 6 months Baby N!

Why is that cupcake on fire?

Sleep

Andrea and I are good sleepers.  Our children are not.  We know it's our fault - we know we created bad sleepers of our 2 bio kids.  But, as luck would have it (or not) Baby N is also a bad sleeper.

With ML, well, he was our first, so, in theory he was going to sleep in a bassinet next to the bed and I would get up at night to nurse him.  I swore he wouldn't sleep in our bed.  Swore.  Well, guess what, once I discovered the ease of nursing at night - basically falling back to sleep as soon as he latched on, I was hooked.  He napped in his own bed, yup, bed (well, mattress on the floor, Montessori-style), we didn't have cribs, we are hippies.  Then, especially once I went back to work, we took turns putting him to bed at night - and staying with him until he fell asleep.  I know.  I know - DANGER.  But, it was our time with him, we loved it - reading lots of stories, singing, making up stories, etc.  It was great.  But it also created a sleep issue.  Now, at 4, we still have a longish bedtime ritual, but ML no longer wakes up in the middle of the night to come to our room.  It only took 4 years!

ML snoozing the day away

And of course, we did the same thing with JC because we did not learn from the past, and thus were doomed to repeat it. JC was a demon at night.  He did not like to stay asleep - and it was so much easier to have him sleep with us and when he woke up at night we would be right there to get him back to sleep.  for the most part.  JC is now 2 and he wakes up once a night and one of us (we take turns) heads into his room and sleeps with him.  I know, again, that's bad.  And really, we could just lay with him until he falls asleep then leave,  but he is so warm and snugly it's hard to leave.  We figure that he will stop waking up by the age of 4 as well.  Just two more years! Woohoo!

He's peaceful now, but just wait...(JC)

Now for Baby N.  I guess we just hoped that if we got a baby he'd be a good sleeper because lots of babies are decent sleepers and maybe someone (God or whoever) would cut us a break.  Nope. When he first came to our house he couldn't sleep AT ALL without being held.  As Andrea says, "he needs at least 3 points of human contact at all times."  He would fall asleep in our arms and the minute we put him down he screams.  No,  not cries, we goes right from silence to screaming.  It's a treat.  Luckily, since he's been going to daycare he's gotten a bit better - he naps for an hour at a time each day in a crib and he will fall asleep in bed on his own at home.  But he will not stay asleep.  At the most he will stay asleep for 3 hours, then it's screaming.  We don't need a monitor to hear him even though he is 3 floors away from us.

Then, two nights ago, he had a cold and was really snotty and I think he slept about 3 hours total - and not in a row.  Andrea dealt with him that night and sent me into another room so that she knew she would get a full nights sleep the next night.  The hardest part for me is that I did not create this sleep monster - at least with ML & JC I couldn't get too mad because I did it to myself. But, with Baby N, oooohhhh boy, the thoughts I have about his parents when he is screaming at 4:00 in the morning are not nice.  Funny how that works.  He is feeling better now and slept ok last night, fingers crossed tonight is even better - I am tired of being tired.

Baby N - the first time he ever fell asleep on his own - it wasn't even bed time!