Category: life

We’ve been having a bit of a struggle with getting Gwen to bed recently. Like she’ll get into her bed no problem (after a VERY EXTENDED bedtime ritual) but she always wants more hugs and to talk about what we’re gonna do tomorrow and sometimes she also needs to get up to check for firetrucks outside (???). Some nights we need to open her curtains to show her it’s getting dark outside, or what the weather is doing. And sometimes even when we do all these things she cries and cries and cries (literally she does not stop) until we come back and give her more hugs, more talk, more firetruck checks. One night she also turned on the light, got dressed and very very quietly took out her legos to play with. VERY SNEAKY.

Also, a few weeks ago she started regularly falling asleep int he late afternoon/early evening. Like 5 or 6. She’d fall asleep on the couch (or outside, apparently) and it would wreak havoc on our entire night. She’s really difficult to wake up, except for if we would try to move her to her room. These late naps pushed back dinnertime, bathtime, and bedtime and left Gwen (and by extension, me most nights) with a super interrupted sleep schedule with multiple middle-of-the-night wake-ups. And the days I managed to keep her awake she would be SO CRABBY and unreasonable in the evenings they were a huge struggle as well.

Gwen actually decided about a year ago that she didn’t need an afternoon nap anymore, and we’ve been getting along just fine with “quiet time,” but with these recent spontaneous evening naps I figured something needed to change. I started inserting a “quiet rest time” into her regular quiet time, when she could lie in the bed with Taylor and (hopefully) falls asleep. And it worked! I had to negotiate with her about it a lot but for the last week (even on the weekend!) I’ve been able to get her to take an afternoon nap. And while she would wake up grumpy, it would pass and she would be sweet and friendly throughout the evening. Success!

Except… although they didn’t interfere with the schedule for dinner, bath and bedtime, even the earlier afternoon naps made actually getting her to go to sleep (and stay asleep) a huge struggle! I even tried starting the naps earlier, waking her from them sooner, and no dice: she was still crying after we left her room and waking up throughout the night. Yesterday I decided to skip quiet rest time in favour of regular quiet time and at bedtime she fell asleep more quickly and only woke up once, but she was super crabby and argumentative all evening.

So now I’m stuck. Without a nap she is miserable all evening but with a nap she sleeps terribly all night. I can’t really change what time she wakes up in the morning (it’s usually around 7 anyway) and we don’t really have much wiggle room with her bedtime either? Like I finish work at 5:30 and make/finish making dinner, we eat, she has a bath, we do the bedtime things and then she goes to bed. She definitely tries to drag bedtime out but most days we are able to get her settled down by around 7:30 or 8. Now we’re thinking we’ll have to get her down by 7 but that really only gives us an hour and a half with her in the evening to do everything so idk. idk! How is sleep formed, basically.

Unrelated but sort of related: this morning I was putting one of the daycare kids, a 13-month old girl, down for her morning nap (remember morning naps? siiiiiiiiigh) and Gwen wanted to help. She found the little girl’s special sleepy-time toy that had fallen under the crib, brought her a special pillow from her own room to share, and gave her a big hug. Later she ran up to me with one of her special blankets that she wanted let the little girl use as well, but I explained that she was already asleep and we mustn’t wake her up because babies need a lot of sleep. But I asked her if she was going to help me put our new baby down for naps when she/he is born and she gave me a very enthusiastic “Yeah!!” and my heart exploded with love. EXPLODED. Oh also: I asked her recently what we should name our baby and she said “Wappy.” Wappy Laramie. I like it.

Gwen came running up to me this morning chanting “Beach day! Beach day! Beach day!” so I told her to go wake up her dad and she ran into the bedroom chanting “Beach day! Beach day! Beach day! Taylor wake up, beach day!” Normally I prefer to plan a little in advance so I have like, appropriate beach snacks in the house, although now that I think about it I never do and we end up stopping at the store on the way down the hill. So we sunscreened ourselves and Gwen and she changed into her beloved purple swimsuit and loaded up the stroller with beach towels and my Mexican blanket and a pop-up tent and a big bag of beach toys. We stopped so Taylor could get a coffee and to buy some buns to eat on the way, but didn’t bother getting any fruit or chips like we normally do. It was so windy everything would have gotten full of sand anyway.

It was mid-morning when we got to the beach and as I mentioned, very windy. The waves all had whitecaps on them and the beach itself wasn’t very busy yet even though the sky was clear and the sun was hot. We set up our tent and our blanket on the leeward side of a log, but left the towels in a bag and I ended up using them as a pillow. Gwen sat in the tent with me while she finished her bun and then she and Taylor moved around to the windward side of the log to bury their feet and legs in the hot sand. I lay in the tent and read and felt the baby kicking and watched the gulls and crows and flags flying in the wind.

The tide was out and there were cargo ships moored out in the bay with dozens of tiny sailboats flitting around them, their white sails looking like the wings of small white birds. I walked down to the water’s edge to photograph a flock of geese who were patrolling the sand and to dip my feet in the water, and later Taylor carried Gwen to the shore as well but she didn’t want him to put her down. Last year she loved the ocean and walked fearlessly straight out to sea at every beach we visited but this year she declared it “too wet” and “too scare.” Maybe it was the wind and the whitecapped waves? I hope if we go again on a calmer day she’ll love the ocean again.

Gwen now has multiple excuses she uses for when she doesn’t want to do/try/eat something: “too hard,” “too scare,” and “too yuck.” I have been feeling too yuck myself recently, as over the weekend my pregnancy nausea stepped up its game to the point that EVEN THOUGH I am taking Diclectin (anti-nausea medication) yesterday I puked SO HARD I burst all the blood vessels in my face YET AGAIN and I also peed my pants. And not a little bit. A lotta bit. Sorry if that is Too Much Information but I think it’s important to share the realities of life and pregnancy on this blog, and not just a shiny sugar-coated version. The puke- and pee-coated version is what you’ll find here.

Thankfully yesterday was also the day of my monthly appointment with the doctor who very sympathetically wrote me yet another prescription for a second medication to aid digestion, with the theory being if I digest my food faster it won’t be in my stomach to get thrown up. I don’t know if it will help BUT I did take one last night that absolutely knocked me out so I guess maybe if I am sleeping I’m not puking?

Of course sleeping all day isn’t exactly conducive to eating enough (or working at my full-time job…) and I’ve lost two pounds since my last appointment when I should have gained four pounds which actually means a net loss of six pounds. The baby’s growth is still good (based on how my uterus is measuring), but if I don’t start gaining again that would not be cool. If I don’t I will have to get another ultrasound to check that everything is still developing normally, IN FACT my doctor (who I really like, have I mentioned I really like her?) offered to order me a not-really-medically-necessary ultrasound now, on account of we weren’t able to find out the baby’s sex from the last one. I declined because I’d rather not use up resources that other people might REALLY need and also it’s really hard to fit them into my full-time job work schedule, but talk to me again in four weeks and we’ll see.

Feeling so sick all weekend seriously cramped up my plans to celebrate Father’s Day with Taylor, mostly because I spent most of it in bed and had to ask him to clean the whole house, which seems pretty unfair to him. We did do a couple of fun things: on Saturday we booked a zipcar (because it was so rainy, normally we take the train) and took Gwen to the Lego store. We got her one of the new Duplo construction vehicle sets and as predicted SHE LOVES IT. Sunday we went out for brunch and Taylor got gifts: an electric griddle for making brunch at home, and a cool manly apron so he doesn’t have to wear my frilly polka dot one while griddling things. Hopefully these helped to make up for the rest of his weekend of cleaning, haha.

Taylor took these pictures a few weeks ago, when we took Gwen to the playground at the school and then to lunch and both got sunburned. Since then the weather has vacillated between super hot & sunny and super cold & rainy (a little while ago it was hailing and just as I was about to hit “publish” on this post a thunderstorm started!), often both in the same day so it’s almost impossible to make plans or dress yourself appropriately.

I haven’t been taking weekly pics this pregnancy like I did with Gwen, which I sometimes feel a little bad about but it kind makes the whole thing go more quickly. Like I’m 23 1/2 weeks pregnant already! Amazing! I did ask Taylor to take a few pics that day BUT unfortunately they are all obsolete now because I got bangs again. I KNOW I KNOW, I know what everyone is going to say: “Tanie you hate having bangs, why did you do this again, you are a fool, a FOOL!” But really I don’t hate having bangs, and the last time I had them my hair was too short (anything above my shoulders is reprehensible on me) so I hated all my hair, not just my bangs. And I grew them out! I grew them all out successfully so it’s really nbd.

I took Gwen to the salon with me so she could get a proper bang trim herself instead of one of my Lloyd Christmas butchering jobs, and brought Sym along to help wrangle Gwen during my cut. While we were there Sym spontaneously decided to get bangs as well, for the first time. So now we are all Twinsies, which is cool, it’s cool to match with your old mom, right? She’s never had bangs before and it took a little getting used to for all of us. She looks more mature with them somehow, like a really teen instead of a little kid. Weird how they make her look older and me look younger!

Lest you think the only thing going on around here is bangs, this weekend I was on the news. It was for a story they are doing about a motion being voted on by city council, to like… see if they want to consider possibly making my block a Heritage Conservation Area or something. Basically stop any terrible redevelopment in the block that doesn’t mesh well with the existing look of the heritage houses. I also stood out in the rain at the farmer’s market collecting signatures in support of the motion, which is being voted on today. Fingers crossed!

I didn’t actually watch the news story for which I was interviewed because Oh My God how embarrassing is it to watch yourself on video? I literally wanted to die the entire time I was making my stupid kickstarter video and I feel like this would be even worse because I had NO CONTROL. I did read the article and there is one quote from the city councillor who put forward the motion, one quote from the executive director of the organization that manages the block and TWO FROM ME. And OF COURSE the interview was outside on a drizzly day when my hair was in a frizz, this was actually the same day I had my hair done but the interview was in the morning and my hair appointment was in the afternoon! Oh well, at least if I had to look dumb hopefully I didn’t sound dumb.

All photos in this post by Taylor Laramie.