Yaaawwn...

I feel like I'm stumbling through my days at the moment. Sooo tired. Edward is actually sleeping relatively well at night. It's the days that are killing me.

Edward is having more gas trouble and we have to fight for every minute of sleep he gets during the day. He has trouble staying down for more than 30min at a stretch and I spend many hours a day walking in circles to keep him from screaming. (Don't ask me why he can still sleep for longer stretches at night. I have no idea, but I'm grateful for it.)

And then there's Ethan. He's getting really tired of not being the center of attention, so he spends his days hitting, yelling, throwing things at me, and intentionally waking up Edward. (We know it's intentional b/c he'll ask us if it worked.)

My days are spent comforting one and disciplining the other. Both of which create the need to do more for the other one. I've been clenching my teeth so much that my jaw is killing me. If the boys don't ease up soon, I'll crack a tooth.

So, that's the update on the boys. Neither one is very happy right now. And it's exhausting.

Goodbye President Hinckley

Although the passing of President Gordon B. Hinckley was a little bit of a shock, I'm having a hard time feeling sad. For myself as a disciple, for the church as a whole, or even for his family.

Myself, I have lived grateful for his teachings for many years, and thankful that his media savvy has helped make it more "acceptable" to be Mormon. I have felt hugely blessed to have been alive during his tenure as prophet. But I can say that about each of the men who have served as prophet during my lifetime. I still remember going to see Spencer W. Kimball speak at the Hill Cumorah when I was 6 years old and feeling the warmth and love he radiated. During the years when I was reading the Book of Mormon for the first time, and then starting to understand how to apply it to myself, Ezra Taft Benson's teachings were exactly what I needed. And although his time as prophet was short, Howard W. Hunter's counsel on being temple-worthy while I was struggling through the social minefield of high school was particularly timely. So I can only look forward to what I will have the opportunity to learn from the next prophet.

The church will mourn, obviously, but then will get back up and move forward. It's one of the amazing things about how we are organized. Because we experience leadership changes on smaller levels relatively frequently (stake leaders, bishops, auxiliary presidencies, etc.), we understand that the church and it's teachings are the same, no matter who is leading us. Ultimately, Jesus Christ is the head of the church, and he is unchanging.

President Hinckley's family is the group that maybe I should feel sorry for. They have lost their patriarch. But not only do they know that they will be with him again, I'm sure that none of them begrudge him the chance to rejoin his wife. It makes me smile to think of how their reunion must have been.

I guess that is the ultimate reason I just can't be sad. I am so happy for our dear prophet. He finally has the opportunity to rest. He has earned his reward. And he is back in the arms of his love.

Goodbye President Hinckley. Thank you.

2008 Resolutions

I'm exhausted. And I know I promised pictures. They'll make it up eventually. (I'm excited to show you 'Underpants Man' with his very unique superpower!) But you'll have to wait b/c they haven't made it from camera to computer yet. (Come on photos! You can do it!)

Anyway. I lied about not making resolutions. I think this is prompted more by the huge life-changes another baby creates than the new year, but thats ok. I've been thinking a lot about who I am and who I want to be. I have so many ways that I'd like to improve and they can all be summed up in one word.

Strengthen

I'm applying this physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I feel like I'm already on the right path in most areas, but need to keep progressing forward. And in the few things that need major adjustments, strengthening elsewhere will help me to make those course corrections.

I'm not going to give you any more detail than that. But I am going to spend this coming Sunday (tomorrow) focused on actually writing each of the things down and committing to the first steps on this journey.

Wish me luck! Or better yet, strength.

(Editor's note: I totally screwed up the font while typing this and a glitch in blogger wouldn't let me fix it with their pull-down options, So I bravely dove into the HTML and, as you can see, fixed it myself!! I know that several of you are rolling your eyes, but hey, this is a big deal to me.)

Two at once

I'll jump back in with our visit to the dr yesterday for checkups. Wow, it takes a long time to do both kids! Between the weighing and measuring, the physical exams, and the discussions about development, I think we were in that room for over an hour!

Ethan first. (Because he insisted on going first yesterday.) His last weigh in was Halloween and he was up to a whopping 32.5lbs. Now, he is the exact same height and only 30lbs. This boy has gained (and kept on) only 10lbs since he was 5 months old!! Because his BMI is good and we've already proven that he can gain weight, we're going to leave it alone for now and just weigh him at Edward's checkups to make sure he doesn't lose more.

Otherwise, our boy is just fabulous. Gross motor skills are great as evidenced by his riding a big-kid scooter. Fine-motor are way above average as evidenced by his learning to write letters. (That one has also shown us that he learns by doing. Ethan had no real interest in learning his ABCs until he realized that he could make them. Now we introduce a new letter every few days.) Language skills are great. Social skills are great.

We were most proud of the dr's comments about Ethan's social skills. He said that you could tell our boy comes from a good home with good parents who don't fight b/c of the way he interacts with others. This seemed to stem particularly from the way Ethan would express his dislike of something, but then sit and listen while the dr explained what he was going to do, followed by agreement that it needed to be done. If only he'd do that at home!

The one suggestion that the dr had for us was to push him more. He's at an age where there are almost no limits to the amount he can learn. Our dr is chinese and is all about doing what you can to increase IQ and give your kid their best chance at success. He wants us to make sure he is exposed to lot of music, particularly making it. And he wants us to introduce new sports, like skiing, ice-skating, biking (on a two-wheeler!), gymnastics, etc. I think we're going to start with a tumbling class and maybe get some roller-skates in the spring. A bike can wait until we move.

On to Edward. He's up to 10lbs 15ozs and it shows. Not quite the porker his brother was, but the rolls of fat are coming along nicely. So nicely in fact that he's gained more than twice what they expect in the last two weeks. And we've had to move to size 2 diapers!

Last time we talked about the types of stimulation we should use to increase his IQ, so our only real discussion at this appt was about sleep. Now I know that most of you will want to hurt me when I say that he sleeps probably 17-18hrs a day. BUT, it's they way he does it thats the problem. Lately, he sleeps in short bursts, typically not longer than 2 hrs. Then when he's awake, he eats really often. And cries b/c he's tired and can't fall back to sleep.

The dr said his first instinct when he hears about sleeping like this is that the baby is hungry. But obviously Edward is getting plenty to eat. So we think that the real problem is gas bubbles formed by air swallowed when he cries. (I may have started the problem by eating a bunch of raw broccoli a while ago. Those painful bubbles caused the first bought of wails, resulting in more bubbles.) So it's possible that if we can get him through a day or so without much crying, the sleeping will get better. Plus we're only two weeks away from that magic 6 week mark where night sleeping improves. Can't wait for that.

So that's the general recap of Ethan at 3yrs old and Edward at 1 month old. Pictures to come tonight or tomorrow.

Sorry...

I can see that you've all been checking, so I'm sorry that I haven't posted. But I have an excuse. We can't use the laptop b/c the battery is dead and the power cord finally frayed where it bends. I promise a real update and photos at the beginning of next week when the replacements get here.

Fever

Edward had his 2 week checkup today. Of course, he's perfect in every way. He's even started smiling already!

Because Ethan has had a fever of 103 for the last 4 days, I took him with us to get checked out. I've been completely unable to identify anything wrong with him besides the fever (and the completely non-specific lethargy, loss of appetite, and pastey complexion.) After a through check, the dr found NOTHING! We even ran some blood work to see if he was fighting something bacterial and... it was normal. Meaning whatever Ethan has is viral. So we keep doing what we've been doing. Fluids, rest, and meds to keep the fever down.

We're hoping and praying that this resolves itself without becoming worse and especially that Edward doesn't catch it!

Reflections on 2007

I'm not one to make new years resolutions. I find it too depressing when I can't (or just don't) keep them. John and I have made some new goals, but we tend to do this every few months and revisit the old ones to see if they're working or if we need to adjust them.

So, I don't have a list of resolutions for you. But after reading Tisha's post a few days ago, I've been thinking a lot about what I've learned this last year. These are the big ones:

1 - I am much stronger than I thought I was.
2 - I am a good mother.
3 - When I want to, I can accomplish an amazing amount in one day.
4 - It's OK to ask for help.

There are so many more, but none as important as these. Here's to more personal growth in 2008!