The Daily Hailey

Because three teeth in three weeks isn’t enough, Laela has popped yet another! Her four middle teeth have surfaced in less than four weeks 🙂 And she is a CHAMP! She got a little squawky, but was strapped into a car seat all afternoon, so she had every right. So proud of my little chomper.

A random anecdote I have to share is completely unrelated to today, but needs to be posted, as I should have posted it a couple of days back, but it slipped my mind. Just the other day, Laela was laying on the floor playing toys, and got a hold of a couple of Dekker’s prized toys – a bit truck and trailer. Dekker was very calm about it, but sneakily (or so he thought) moved the toys away from her. He didn’t take them to play with. Just moved them so she couldn’t. He sauntered on back to the table where he was playing before, and I very nonchalantly asked him “Did you just take all of Laela’s toys away.” He said he had, and I told him that wasn’t very nice. Without missing a beat, I said he needed to go say sorry to her. There’s an article floating around online about not so much telling your kids to say “sorry” but teaching them what being sorry really means. I’m 110% on board with that, having grown up with the same value. I remember once being told that saying “sorry” should be backed up with something like “I’ll try to do _____ next time so this doesn’t happen again.” Its a great lesson! However, I just said he should go apologize. Dekker approached her on one side and pushed his toy back within her reach. Then he squatted down right beside her head, got face to face with her, and said “Sorry La.” And then he went back to his toys. I couldn’t believe it! I mean, I totally can! I almost feel guilty that I’m amazed, as he is SUCH a tender heart.

Soon after that, once Laela got fed up with being on the floor, it was that time. Dekker is usually pretty upset when it comes to nap time, but as soon as he’s in his room, he is out. He never goes down crying. He is just disappointed to leave his toys. I get that. So I picked Laela up from her spot on the floor and said it was rest time. Dekker stood up from where he was playing and inquired “Detter’s rest time?” He had never asked such a question. Usually, a statement like mine would be met with a quick head shake and “Detter plays toys.” So I answered him very softly and carefully. “Yes, its your rest time too.” “Oh.” And up he went. No fussing. Climbed into his bed and waited patiently for me to help him with his glasses.

The moral of the story is that my kids are incredible and never cease to amaze me.  And they LOVE each other. Dekker wants to lay beside her and give her hugs. He is officially happier to see her in the morning than me. She smacks at him and he doesn’t get upset. She giggles simply when he enters the room. They just get each other.

Forgive my mommy brags. We’re all entitled to a bit of this, right?

I love my kids so much, but I love them even more now that they share a room, haha! On that note, kids are tucked away, and its finally time for Brady and I to eat supper. So. Hungry.

Last night was our first time putting Laela in Dekkers room for the night. I honestly think it went as well as could be expected. There are still some things to figure out, but for the most part, it was sooo nice! We had our room to ourselves and didn’t have to tiptoe around. We could watch shows on the laptop at volumes that actually made it possible to understand the words. It was great to be able to actually wind down at our own pace.

Dekker goes down at 8:00, and has for a while, so for the last several months, we’ve been putting him to bed, and then immediately afterwards, feeding Laela her bottle and putting her down. Dekker is great with us interrupting his naps, and sleeps through a lot of Laela’s daytime crying, so we figured it would be no problem to keep the same routine for now. So last night, we put him to bed, and brought Laela in after she had finished her bottle. It didn’t bother Deks at all. Totally seamless.

It was perfect until she rolled over. And over. She has a lot more space in her crib than she did in her cradle, and she figured it out pretty quick! I know a lot of people would say “Well, let her sleep on her tummy if she wants to!” Thats the thing, though. She really doesn’t want to! Even in everyday playtime, she finds herself on her tummy, and she just hates it! She can get back to her back, but often just gets so worked up and gives up, laying on her face, bawling her eyes out. Last night was no difference. A lot of people on Facebook suggested rolling up blankets and tucking them under the sheets to sort of shrink her available space. Of course, we forgot to do that and its kind of late, so hopefully we’ll remember to try that tomorrow night.

Lucky for us, Laela slept all through the night 🙂 It was a beautiful thing. She did, however, wake us at exactly 7:01 am, as usual. That is where I’m stuck. And I need everyone’s advice! (I know, gutsy, right?)

Laela happily sleeps from 8:30pm-7:00am. Dekker happily sleeps from 8:00pm-8:00am at least. I do take Laela out when she’s up, and Dekker hangs out in their room longer, but he doesn’t go back to sleep. Same thing at nap time. Laela has a nice long morning nap, and then they nap together from about 3-4:30. Dekker on his own would easily sleep another hour. I feel like I’m doing everything I can to get them on the same schedule, but it appears that Dekker needs his sleep more than Laela.

I have never seen Dekker drag like he did today. Don’t get me wrong! He was completely adorable and cuddly and wonderful. We had a totally lazy movie day, filled with cuddles unlike any other! But like, aaaaall day. He was exhausted. I’m not really sure what to do 🙁

These are the things I know to be true:

Dekker needs/wants more sleep than Laela does.
I don’t want Laela to think we will come running the second she makes a noise.
I don’t want to leave Laela awake and talking in their room too long, because it will wake Dekker.
Laela is awake for a good long stretch of time before bed.
Dekker is usually awake for less than two hours before bed.
I am at a loss.

So. Anyone? How do I get Laela to sleep longer in the morning, or for Dekker to get a longer nap somehow? It would be so weird if he, as an almost three year old, went back to two naps! But honestly, thats sort of how its looking :/ What do I dooooo?

This is all going to sound silly to probably every reader, but its the truth in our home so just bear with me!

Brady has had a bit of a lull in his work the last little while, and we’ve grown very accustomed to spending days together. I had help with the kids, Brady got to see the little ones way more, and we could go out for days to the city and get stuff done at our own pace. However, this month, we have been booked every single day. His work has been busier than it has been probably since Christmas. Every. Day. And that has been kind of a huge adjustment for me. Again, I know most people work every day, but its just a change for us. Today, Brady actually made it home an hour or two early, and we determined that we neeeeed time together!

So tonight is the night we are finally moving Laela out of our room! I hope she doesn’t read this one day and think we disliked her in any way. We don’t, sweetheart! But last night, she woke up to us draining the tub, and she wept and wept until we got her, let her cool off, fed her, and put her back down. All of a sudden she is the lightest sleeper in the world, and thats not ok. We need our time to wind down at the end of the day without living in fear of her waking.

The kidlets have been napping together for a few weeks now probably, and Laela can cry and fuss and talk and Dekker miraculously sleeps through the whole thing 😀 This gives me hope, thats for sure! I’m a bit nervous about the morning, as L wakes up much earlier than D, but who knows! Maybe being out of our room will help somehow? I don’t know. We’ll see.

I was hoping to wait until a night that would lead into a day we all had together, but Brady is off again to do some awesome volunteer work at Redberry Bible Camp, and helping finish up some projects and get the camp ready to go for the year. I’m in full support, but I’d also really love to have him around a touch more.

I guess we have to be adults. Sigh.

Sleep in peace, everyone. I’m sure hoping I’ll be in dreamland as well!

I mentioned on Facebook earlier today that Laela woke up with Brady at 4:50am. In normal conditions, if she wakes in the night, she kind of whines and talks a bit before falling back to sleep. No problem. However, with it being light out so much sooner, she was wide awake in no time. Before Brady left for the day, he brought a bottle into our room so I could feed Laela. Once she had a full tummy, she chatted for probably twenty minutes before falling back to sleep. Thanks to this random wake up call, the three of us remaining at home slept until around 9:00. It isn’t the kind of morning I hope for every day, but I didn’t mind the extra hour or two.

I won’t lie. I went into today with a pretty horrible attitude. Yesterday evening was quite awful for me, and this morning, I felt like I really needed to get away from my kids. I adore my children, don’t get me wrong. Maybe some of you are judging me, and thats ok, but I’m confident that the majority of parents out there have time when they just need a break. Unfortunately, this is not the month for me to get a break. We are busy pretty much every single day and we’re either all together, or I’m home with the kids alone. With those thoughts going through my head, plus the early morning, plus all the tears and poop, I just wasn’t up for today.

But as usual, I felt waaay better just shortly after I got up and got moving. I got myself a particularly strong coffee, washed my hair for the first time in who knows how long (as in I genuinely don’t know how long…), and put on a bit of makeup. Just a bit. I ate a good sized lunch and just tried to run with the day.

Laela’s whole schedule is thrown off for the day, regarding eating and sleeping times. I don’t care too much about schedules, but Dekker has us in a fairly rigid routine, haha! Plus, with the order we tend to run our day, the kids can nap together. Not today! I tried to just get over the whole thing and just rock the day as it comes. Laela won’t get the exact amount of milk she always gets, but she’ll get more probably, so who cares? She took her first nap much later than usual, so I was pretty positive the afternoon would be a stretch.

Yet I’m writing in the afternoon 🙂 Over nap time. Because somehow, they’re both napping right now! In the SAME ROOM! I”m so thrilled that its working out! I took a risk and put Laela down with Dekker, because it was definitely time for him to nap, but pretty early for her. But she talked a little, and then fell asleep. *shrugs* I’m sure not going to try and explain it, but I’m certainly thankful for it!

Again, this post sounded more complainy than I wanted. I’m just trying to be transparent in saying that I really felt that I needed to NOT be with my kids, and the day has turned around. However, with the strength of those feelings, I do think its something I’ll need to do at some point in the near future. Just taking a day away or something. But we did great this morning and afternoon!

Think of us this evening! Those are our rocky hours of the day lately, and I’d love for the day to finish better than yesterday 🙂

Stages. Right? Kids go through thousands of stages! Lots of them are actually super great, while some are just basic learning experiences, and others where I find I just need to try and keep my head above water until its over. As I’ve mentioned on here many times, my mom said to me when I was still pregnant with Dekker that I shouldn’t waste too much time trying to figure out each stage, because by the time I would make headway on that, the stage would be over. That being said, I’m learning that some of the things we’re dealing with in our house currently are not so much stages as they are life lessons.

Dekker is currently learning that he cannot have everything he wants the moment he wants it. He has been learning this very calmly since Laela has been born. He used to cry when she had one of “his” toys, as I’m sure the majority of kids do, but he’s come out of it beautifully, and even asks if he can play with a toy that Laela has put down. Its wonderful.

However, in the recent past, he’s been boycotting supper. Its been going on for a while, and we’ve been getting on him more about it now. The boy can’t live off of cereal! He just can’t!! With the ongoing boycott, evenings have been the part of the day that wears on me more than anything.

I got Dekker up from his afternoon nap, and Brady wasn’t home. I knew Deks would be hungry, but I had a tub running for Laela, so I figured that would distract him for a while. He likes to be around when Laela is getting a bath, almost to keep an eye on her and make sure she’s ok. Don’t forget! Baths are the worst thing in the world!! But upon entering his room, I was greeted with a curt request for his Life cereal. I commented that he wasn’t being very polite, and that before dinner, I needed to wash Laela. He kept saying “ya” as if he understood, but wanted to climb into his chair at the table. I told him many times that I was going to wash Laela first, but he insisted that he sit in his chair. So he did. And through the whole bath, he whined and whined, just saying “Life!” louder and louder. While I dried her off, he cried and cried. I told him he would eat soon, and that we were going to have leftover cheesy chicken and rice. Well, apparently that supper that he usually enjoys was just about as popular as bath time, so that began a HUGE meltdown. Finally, I put him in his room and said I would get him when he was done complaining.

Probably twenty minutes or more later, we brought him (still crying) into the dining room and sat him at his spot, when he continued to shake in anger and snot and tears and oh my gosh!!! Made me crazy, I’m not going to lie. We ate while he screamed, and fed him bites here and there when he was actually breathing. But not too long in, he screamed for sooo long that he began choking and choking. I wanted to lean him over the table but of course by that time he was just frantic, so I had to physically force him forward and shove my fingers into his mouth to fish out some of the chicken. Once the food was out of his mouth and I was certain he had nothing left to choke on, I put him in his room again. Partially because he was being sooo rude and loud and uncooperative, and partly because for the first time, I needed to be apart from him before I did something I’d regret. It was a truly awful feeling 🙁

Once I had calmed down, I went into his room and we had a talk and a punishment. He was then fairly reserved for the rest of the evening, and we put him down for bed about a half hour early. My gosh. I. Am. Exhausted. What an evening.

That story got considerably longer than I was bargaining for. I’m so tired from it all that I was counting on his being a shorter post. Apparently I needed to vent rather than rest. Interesting. On a lighter note, Dekker called himself Dekker Coffee Born today, which was pretty awesome. He’s hilarious 🙂 In the morning, anyway.

I hope you all had a much quieter evening than I did!

We have had solid nights of sleep for the past couple of weeks, and its been sooo nice! Having Laela give us full nights has been such a treat, and I think I can speak for both Brady and I when I say that we feel a lot more rested.

Miss Laela has been teething her heart out the last little while, popping two teeth in May. She gets a bit fussy, but really not bad at all. Nothing an extra nap and some cuddles won’t fix. I also learned today that she is much happier to be sitting on the floor. This is a completely new discovery. Up until now, she liked to lay on the floor or be up in a jumper of some kind. But over the last couple of days, she just wants to sit. Luckily, she’s getting really really good at it.

So her fussiness has been pretty easy to cure, and other than that, she’s just napping a bit more than usual. We knows she’s teething. So when she woke up last night, we had compassion. Granted, we didn’t rush to her immediately at all. She wasn’t crying really at all, but she talked and sort of whined a little. She did this for an unreasonable amount of time before Brady and I realized that she was probably uncomfortable. As soon as we came to that, we headed right to her. She wasn’t super worked up or teary, just a bit frustrated. This being her first midnight wakeup in so long, we were refreshed and happy to see her. I changed her diaper and gave her a little shot of Tylenol while Brady made a very small bottle for her. She went back down easily and we all fell back to sleep. Brady and I both agree that the wakeup call didn’t set up back in the morning at all. It was a nice little treat, rather than the annoying sleep-suck that her nighttime feedings were starting to feel like.

And guess what. I was right!! The little Miss woke up with a brand new tooth this morning! She has popped three teeth in the last three weeks!!! All top teeth, too! So she has her bottom middle ones, her top middle ones now, and one off the side of those. I am sooo grateful for my (so far) easily teething kids!

Let’s all clap for Laela!!!

*clap clap clap clap clap*

My Jessica left here today, and I was left alone without my bestie, but with my grumpy, grumpy babies. Dekker was a bit shy of Aunty Jessy while she was out, but babbled about her all the way home. Funny boy. Both kids, however, hit the hay pretty quick upon arriving home. Dekker was spent from screaming his morning away (fun fun) and Laela is working on two new teeth and she likes to sleep things off. I spent the afternoon cuddled up in the basement watching Blackfish. Its considerably more intense than I thought it would be, but I’m glad I watched it. Crazy stuff!

I wanted to load a few pictures onto this post and it appears that I haven’t emptied my phone off in a little while, so this is the past where I catch you up in pictures!!

I think I mentioned a while ago that we got six new sets of jammies for Dekker for only $18 off of a Facebook sale page. These are them. They are a size up from what he normally wears, but they fit BEAUTIFULLY! This evening he is wearing the second pair in this line up – striped pants and a lion shirt. The tshirt has the nice little bands around the sleeves and neck, and he was so happy to be in them! He kept checking himself out in the mirror, sooo proud! They are in great shape and feel really, really soft. A great find, if I do say so myself!

This is just me and my sweetie a few days back. Yay for jammies!!

Sigh. This is me just dreaming and wishing I could justify buying a new diaper bag. Too bad our current lug bag is holding up so well :/ I LOVE this one!!!

Ok, some of you have been very clear with me in the past that you don’t care about my interest in makeup or my hair or “shallow” things like that. Feel free to buzz past. However, I’m really enjoying playing with lipstick recently! I guess you can’t see the colors especially clearly in these pictures but regardless, I’m really enjoying it! Its not as easy to wear eyeshadow or too much eye makeup at all, so this is giving me my fun color!

This was a decently popular picture off of my Facebook today 🙂 I couldn’t resist posting it here too. This little girl just cracks me up. Her face is just begging to be a meme!

The cutest picture of all of us that I could get all day! Look look! Dekker isn’t crying!!! Laela isn’t thrilled but she is clearly tipping over. I wouldn’t be happy about that either.  She’s still cute. Oh, and this is my favorite shirt on her, and it is officially too small. *sniff* Goodbye soft peachy striped shirt.

I hope the last quick dose of my children sends you off with sweet dreams! Works for me, anyway 🙂

Yikes! Another late post! Take it as a good sign.

Jessica and I so rarely get to spend any time in person together that we fill our few times together with tons of visiting. I can’t remember the last time I talked this much in one day! We talked about life in general, struggles and personal stuff, shallow stuff, budding interests and goals, and future plans. While we only get one FULL day together, I feel like we filled it well. My throat hurts, so that tells you something.

Brady waited on she and I hand and foot today. He brought us snacks downstairs, put the kids to bed, ran around the house and fetched us things, and all kinds of things I’m not remembering, I’m sure. You were incredible today, my love. Thank you for recognizing we needed some time to just sit and talk. You have such a servant heart.

We will be driving to the airport in less than twelve hours, so I must get myself to bed in order to be able to take on the day! Sleep well, all!

My bestie, Jessica, is out for the weekend! We met at the airport early this morning. Its been months since I’ve seen her, so it was about time! I asked if I could quickly drag her through Costco before taking her to our house, and so began our four hour trip home. But first, coffee from the airport.

Not only did we hit up Costco for an enormous shop including diapers, groceries, and a few cute zipper hoodies, but we backtracked to Walmart for a few other things, spent way too much time in the makeup area, lost my wallet, found my wallet, and eventually got out of there around lunch time.

We picked up some Wendys for a quick lunch, and then went back through Tims for tea. Back to Costco to fill the gas tank. Fun fact: I put 68.5 litres into our 67 litre tank. It would appear I cut it a bit close this time around!!

Finally we arrived home to the hubs, my adorable little boy, and a sleeping baby girl. We settled in and put everything away before cuddling up and playing toys in the basement. We cheated and ordered supper in, so food was easy, and as soon as the kids went down, we watched a movie. The day has felt super full to me, but I am comfortably tired, which is always nice 🙂 Hopefully this bodes well for a sound sleep! If only Laela would sleep past 7:00 :/ Still working on that. I’m not sure she’s convinced she wants a full twelve hours just yet…

In all the cuteness of yesterdays post, I forgot to tell you a super cute story! I occasionally make notes if I have a super loaded day and want to remember certain details, but clearly, I didn’t yesterday. However, lucky for me, we had a repeat event!

Nap time. I’m trying to put the kids down together, and have had a nice number of successes in a row. They go down together at 2:30 or 3:00 in the afternoon. The last two days, Laela has slept for two hours solidly before bursting into tears. I keep hoping she’ll fall back to sleep, but she doesn’t. I’m hesitant to go in to get her, because I can tell on our monitor that Dekker is still tired.

So today (and yesterday, but I’m going with today) I gave in and ducked into their room around 5:10 to fetch Laela. Dekker sat up and said in his usual polite voice “Hello mummy.” “Hello, Dekker” I replied quietly. I walked over to the beds and asked if Laela was sad. “Ya…” said my glazed boy who was laying backwards in his bed. I picked her up, and he seemed to be watching like a hawk. Yet, he didn’t try to get up. Finally, I asked him “Would you like to sleep a little more?”

“Ummm…ya.”

Dekker squirmed back to his original spot and flopped his head back on his pillow. “Bu-bye.”

Isn’t that awesome?! Two days in a row!!! He doesn’t immediately try to get out of bed, or get all revved up about me taking Laela and not him. He knows himself and what he needs. I love that boy.

Thats all I cute I have for you today. I’m sure more will be coming this weekend! My best friend, Jessica… Bestica. Yup. My Bestica is coming out tomorrow so I’ll have lots to talk about 🙂 On that note, early to bed! Ok, ok, early to bath…