** Plus a bonus milestone story!

Welcome back to our little series on Rowan and his sleep struggles! I’ll be honest and tell you I didn’t know if I’d still have things to talk about a month in, but I dooooo! We officially started this process on month ago, on December 11th, and there has been immense change. Immense! He is still himself, completely, but he is reasonable. Rational. He feels all of his feelings differently. We can talk to him, and he can comprehend SO much clearer. Its been amazing. 

This last week, however, Rowan has begun sleepwalking. 

Earlier this year, Rowan walked in his sleep twice over the course of a couple weeks. That was it. It kind of came out nowhere. I couldn’t figure out what triggered it, really, but I believe I blogged about it. I was encouraged that, as long as he was being safe, that we just roll with it and help him back to bed. But it only happened twice. 

Now, this last week, it happened three times. On the 4th, 5th, and 7th. Each time at 9:30-10:30pm. Every time he gets up, he comes to find us. He has a higher voice, and he’s a liiiiittle bit distressed. Kind of crying, but not actually. He doesn’t really answer when you speak to him, but those eyes are WIDE open, and SO dark, which is not his usual look. Its kind of upsetting, to be honest. But we’ve learned what it looks/sounds like when he’s sleepwalking, and we tucked him back in without issue every time. 

Still. This has been an unsettling week. 

I don’t know what’s normal and what is odd, but I imagine I’ll reach out to his doctor for a call at some point, just to make sure he doesn’t need anything different. 

For the record, he never goes anywhere he shouldn’t. Our doors are all bolted, and you have to kind of lean into them to pop the lock open. He struggles with it on a normal day, so I’m confident he couldn’t do it while asleep. But he doesn’t try. He just comes for Brady and I. 

Its strange. Still TOTALLY worth the result, which is Rowan having a WAY easier time in his daily life. I did anticipate some adjustment, but I thought that would be the first week or so. Weird weird weird. 

Entering month two!! Hopefully we’ll get some kids magnesium supplements soon and see if those are a good fit for Rowan! Wish us luck!! 

***

Unrelated completely, but an important story to share TODAY!

Rowan lost his first tooth!!!

As soon as I started moving around the dining room in the morning, he came out of his room and said “I think I lost a tooth.” He opened his mouth to show me, and they were all definitely still there. But the one was pointing in completely the wrong direction. It was just floppy. I believe my exact words were “Don’t scream at me, ok?” and I popped it out. He just stared at me in disbelief, and was immediately SO excited!!

He insisted on helping me get everyone else up for breakfast so he could show everyone! This is what happened when he offered to go get Laela.

It was adorable. And everyone was SO happy for him.

Sleep has been weird, but this morning feels victorious in a different way, and I’m happy it fell on a day where I’m already talking about him!

Congratulations on losing your FIRST tooth!!!! You’re officially growing up!

Around this time last year, we had our first ever broken bone! It should’ve been our tip off that the year was going to be full of unexpected things.

It was during this stretch that I was in bananas-level pain. It was a ROUGH start to 2020, and when we were finally in the clear, I felt like we could finally breathe. It was going to be the BEST year!

Unfortunately, you probably noticed, there was a pandemic. But fortunately, we did end up having a pretty great year in many ways. NO regrets.

This year is starting in its own rocky way, with Brady’s pain continuing and his condition deteriorating. I’ll update you on him on Tuesday. But my goodness, we are OVER it. I won’t get too ranty just yet, but know we have reached a point of feeling somewhat hopeless. There are moments of “Its going to be ok, this is temporary” but there are a few more frustrated, discouraged moments than I care to admit.

Once this is behind us, will we breathe? Or will we keep our jaws clenched, and grin and bear it? Will we rest, or will we overcome? Can a person do both?

Last year I talked about glory-strength. Maybe I need to focus on that again.

Brace yourselves.

Cher and I have begun Christmas shopping.

Cher is almost done!! I have a few items and a lot of other ideas to go on.

Yesterday evening, we went into Saskatoon to look for a couple of things, and while we didn’t get everything we were looking for, we did have some moderate success! Besides some Christmas stuff, I remembered that Brady could use some more work shirts. His poor old tshirts have SO many holes where they’ve worn out around his waist from rubbing against his jeans. The challenge used to be to find the funniest shirts and see if he’d wear them, which he always did. But now, the goal is a beefy shirt that is cheap. And funny, if I could make it happen. So I found five $3 shirts that were the right size, and nice and thick still. They weren’t anything too crazy, though one was a family reunion shirt for someone else’s family, which was funny. I also managed to find him a really nice button down and another tshirt for regular wear. All nice and cheap. Win!

I have the goal every year to be DONE Christmas presents before December. Because November, even. With two very poor financial years, I haven’t had the resources to do what feels like “recreational” shopping, so I’ve never reached that goal. I still carry the same desire for this upcoming year. Conveniently, another desire I’ve had is doing a homemade/second hand Christmas. So this year, I’m aiming for that. I make no promises, to you or myself, that I will succeed, but I am hopeful and optimistic. I have three thrifted items already on the books, and I have some AWESOME ideas for the other kids!

And if you know me, you may be getting homemade gifts for Christmas this coming year! This is something that makes me both self conscious but also accomplished and happy. So leave snide remarks elsewhere and celebrate with me!! If I succeed at this, I will feel SO accomplished, giving people things I truly worked on and put effort into, while saving a couple bucks in the meantime.

Anyone want to join me in the challenge of Thriftmas?? I’m SUPER excited!!!

I know many of you have watched/read from a distance for a long time, and know a lot about our kids, even if you’ve never met them. This morning, I was reminded how fortunate I am to know them! Specifically Rowan, who todays small story centres around.

As I got Rowan up this morning, I asked him how he had slept. I always inquire about his sleep, for obvious reasons. I ask each kid how they slept, but I dig deeper with Rowan, as I’m watching his sleeping patterns so closely.

Rowan dreams more these days. I don’t know if he’s just getting a little older and he remembers more, or he’s actually dreaming more, but when he told me about todays dream, I knew I wanted to put it on the blog, both to share with you, friends, and to have record of for when he is older.

He told me he had a dream about himself when he was an adult. He told me he owned a ton of businesses. Lots of trucks. And that he had LOTS of animals. He told me he was watching a video of a robot dog on a phone, and in his dream, he knew he had built the robot. He said it walked around his businesses and offered to help customers. And he said it taught people about Jesus. He was very proud of his robot, and very proud of his businesses.

Thats all I know. That all came from him, no push from me. I love to speculate what Rowan will do when he grows up because he is SO caring and SUCH a deep thinker! This morning, when he told me about his dream, I saw his AMBITION! I was so exciting to me, to think that, at age five, he is picturing himself overseeing his many businesses, building new inventions, and telling people about God.

I am SO grateful to know Rowan. I am very very excited to see what he does when he grows up!!

Do you ever cut into bell peppers and find little dudes on the inside? We find them from time to time, and the kids always want to eat them. Solly is the biggest fan of them. We call them baby peppers.

The other day, I was scouring the fridges and freezers to make sure our Costco grocery list was up to date, and I found a bag of peppers that clearly hadn’t fit upstairs, made its way to the basement fridge, and was forgotten. They were all still good, but needing to be eaten sooner than later. So I grabbed all six peppers and began chopping them up.

And immediately, Solly was at the island, asking for baby peppers. Rowan and Wavy were close to follow, needing to get their share of whatever Solly was asking for, as siblings will do. I told them I’d let them know if I found any, and everyone would get a taste.

I found one teeeeeny tiny one at one point, but it hardly even counted. I snuck it to Rowan, because he was closest, and he kept the secret to himself, thankfully.

And then, I hit the motherload.

And guys, the motherload had balls.

😳Can’t miss those things! I’ll admit I was a little disappointed that I shaved the one side off a little, but it was still a pretty hilarious! I laughed a lot harder than I should’ve.

And then I pulled the balls off.

And then guess what I found.

A butt. And a tail.

And then I cackled like an immature idiot. But seriously, no regrets. Because sometimes you have to laugh at something super meaningless and light.

In a really really heavy world, can we all just laugh at my peppers nut sack? Whether you join in or not, I’m gonna.

Oh and yes, the kids ate the balls. No regrets.

With all the pre-planned, pre-written posts that come around Christmas, I missed sharing a couple of cute events! For instance, painting!!! The kids LOVE when my mom brings painting stuff! They dove right in, and it made for cute pictures 🎨 as always.

Dekker is ALWAYS making signs these days.

I was curious about Laelas black sunshines but turns out, she was making a tractor for Rowan.

Because Rowan is into trucks right now, as you can see.

Solly like painting the same spot until the paper breaks, haha!

And Wavy did better than anticipated! She painted little swirls, and mixed all the colors.

Painting is always fun for the kids, but I think more so, my mom does such an amazing job with them. She is patient and loving in a way I strive to mirror. If I can have an inch of the patience my mom exhibits, I’m doing ok.

Thank you, Lord, for happy kids who appreciate a morning of painting, and for my mom, who willingly, happily sets it all up and helps it along. We are SO fortunate.

Oh boy. Guys, once upon a time, we got pumpkins 😆

I had to look way back to find out when we got pumpkins. I thought October, but nope. September. The 15th, to be exact.

So, three and a half months later, its next year, and three of these pumpkins are still sitting in my house, on the piano, amidst some Christmas decorations. They didn’t have any mould or suspicious spots, but I was starting to feel urgent about getting rid of them. I was a day or two away from finally gathering them off my piano and hucking them in my compost bin when Cher suggested we hack them up, do some of the compost work ourselves, and save it for the garden this Spring.

Upon cutting them open, it was clear they were drying out, but that was about the worst of it.

The coolest part was finding pumpkin sprouts in there!!

You’d better believe we kept them and put them in some good soil, just in case. Cool, hey??

We hijacked my moms big food processor and went to work cutting pumpkin up!

We started pureeing the pumpkin, along with some coffee grounds, egg shells, and some banana peels and apple cores from lunch that day.

I believe it will be good for the soil.

I also believe it looked like vomit.

The banana-heavy batches are SO much grosser!

Many hands make light work, and we were done in no time. That food processor was warm by the end of it!

These gross bags of sludge are now waiting outside for the spring thaw, their goal to enrich our soil and make a better haul of veggies for the upcoming fall. Be prepared, guys. We’re very likely going to become the people who get a large load of poop hauled in as well.

#stinkyfolks #whowantstosharemanurewithus #notevenkidding

This post will be good and bad. Be warned. Haha! Not in an actual bad way, but in the way that I have a lot less info this week. Because I’ve been shirking my note taking duties on Rowan’s progress. Because the days have been so much smoother. See how I mean its good and bad?

We have not had a big ugly tantrum this week. Not one. He still gets upset about the same things, but he is SO much easier to reason with. I didn’t understand the level of irrationality until he was rational. Its just been such a big change.

To celebrate this third part of Rowan’s series, I’m going to tell you a success story from the week. If you remember the story I told you about him giving up his milk straw for his siblings, todays story actually happened on the same day. The first time I wrote “GREAT DAY” in his record book.

I was out during bedtime. When I came home, Brady mentioned that Rowan had requested I come give him a goodnight hug if I was home in time. It was around 7:30, which is usually when we check on Rowan, and he’s often asleep. So I decided I’d go check on him and give him his hug. He was awake, but very dozey. I snuggled him for a minute and then left.

Supper began for us adults downstairs, and we started a movie. And suddenly, Rowan was at the top of the stairs, like he always used to be, making up excuses to be up. We asked him to go back to his bed, and he pushed back, insisting he had to go to the bathroom. Now, don’t get me wrong, our kids are allowed to pee. There’s a bit more to it than I’m explaining here, and you’ll have to trust me when I say we knew he didn’t need another bathroom break. He argued and got upset and started to get loud. Brady went to him, and tried to reason. It wasn’t happening. I spoke to him, and pointed out that we were trying to eat our supper, and enjoy our evening, and he was taking that away just because he didn’t want to obey. He stayed angry, slumped on the stairs for a few seconds, and then he reached for Brady for a hug. On his own, he offered up “I’m sorry for yelling at you, daddy.” Brady asked him if he actually had to pee, and he immediately admitted he didn’t. From the couch, Cher and I praised him up big for being so honest. He asked to hug me too, so I gave him a hug, and then he went back upstairs and tucked into bed. We didn’t see him again that night.

Rowan has always had an amazing softness to his heart, where he thinks of other people and cares deeply for people. I truly believe that he will end up in some type of career where he cares for people. Perhaps the coolest male nurse the world will ever see! But when he was struggling SO hard, he was just trying to stay afloat. Now, he can breathe, and reason, and think SO much more clearer.

I am SO impressed with Rowan’s beautiful progress!

I’m not going to make todays post long, as its been a really lovely, but busy, day, and it continues to buzz around me. I want to be part of it. 💜

The morning began with early coffee before the kids got up.

Later that morning, a short, slow motion walk. Unfortunately, Brady’s legs are quite miserable today and while a walk is usually a more positive push, today, it seemed to set him back. Booooo.

The kids ate lunch. Meanwhile, we hacked up some old pumpkins and pureed them, along with some bad bananas, apple cores, and egg shells. Hopefully they come together into some really rich compost for the garden in spring!

Then lunch for the adults! Leftover pizza.

And Skipbo. I did not win.

Naps are over, and the dishes are done.

Brady is stretching.

Rowan is crying downstairs.

Wavy is stomping to a made up song about lavender.

Supper is going to be a gigantic salad with chicken in it, and some garlic toast on the side.

Maybe an episode of a show or two, and early to bed! Because everything starts again tomorrow! Brady off to work (though he worked some during the holiday) and the kids off to school!

Full disclosure. I’m not wishing time away, but I am SO looking forward to watching some true crime over naps with Cher! 💜

One of the biggest changes in Rowan since starting Melatonin is that he’s been able to sort his emotions out SO much clearer. I said it on the first Melatonin Monday, that any “negative” emotion looked like anger. Since we started helping him with his sleep, his anger, sadness, disappointment, fatigue, hunger, and physical pain all look different! Its been a HUGE relief, for everyone, to be able to see the difference. Rowan still gets upset about all the same stuff, but he rallies SO much easier. You can actually talk with him, and reason with him now. Since we’ve come through some of this struggle, I can see more clearly how irrational he was. Nothing made sense to him either! Anyway, I should save more of this for the next Melatonin update. To todays story. A story of victory.

I think we can agree that selflessness is hard. For adults, and for kids. Its hard to exercise, and its hard to teach. But I bet we can also agree that its very, very important.

This morning, the kids asked for milk straws at breakfast. Maybe you know about these things. They’re out of Costco, and they have little flavored sprinkles (?) in them, so when you drink your milk, it tastes like the sprinkles. Does that make sense? Anyway, we’ve been pretty poor recently, living that income-free life, but they’ve been gifted to us a couple of times, and the kids really like them!! We’ve been using up the end of a box this Christmas, and this morning, there were only three left. In case you missed the memo, we have five people who really like them, and who tend to really like to fight over stuff.

So we kind of left them to it. They could have the three straws if there were two people who volunteered not to have them. We didn’t make a big deal out of it. It was just stated, and it made logical sense. We kept moving about the kitchen, getting breakfast set out.

Laela was the first to volunteer. I think Laela is a bit like me, where food isn’t so important to her. She and I both eat on the smaller side, and aren’t too worried if food is our favorite. We eat to live, because its a necessity, but thats kind of it. She is always the first to opt for the more boring option is there isn’t enough of something “better” for everyone. Stuff like that. So she right away offered up “I don’t need a milk straw!” Thank you, sweet Laela!

No one was pressing about the straws at that point. It honestly had already slipped my mind! But suddenly, I heard Rowan say super quietly “I don’t need a milk straw either…” And then he burst out crying.

I celebrated and hugged him as he cried. I praised him way up and explained sacrifice and selflessness to him. He wiped his tears, and told me he really wanted one. And I told him I completely understood that, but because he decided not to have one, three other kids could. And he got that.

Maybe it seems small, but this is HUGELY victorious!! A month ago, he would’ve fought to the death for HIS milk straw! Because he just fought and fought and fought. And anything that would’ve been even mildly upsetting or seemed at all unfair would’ve sent him into a tailspin. Honestly, probably a month ago, we would’ve thrown away those last three straws just to avoid a big raging fight with Rowan.

And now we’re here.

He’s learning. Not only did he think of others before himself, but he made a sacrifice so his siblings could have something special. He knew he would be disappointed, and he still chose itt. He acknowledged his feelings, wiped his tears, and kept on trucking. Because sometimes making a sacrifice does make us cry. Its not easy to be selfless, even as an adult, much less a five year old. And today, he did it.

I am SO proud of you, Rowan!!! I know I’m not the only one!