TOOOOO early

Ugh..my days are starting way too early. I am just fine when I actually get to sleep through the night, but waking up twice and dealing with kids and than waking up at 6 is just way too early. I always try to have a good attitude in the morning, but OH so hard to do when super tired. Even sitting here I am having trouble focusing because I am tooo tired. Thankfully evenings are becoming much easier. Looks like I am going to have to start going to bed earlier if they are going to wake up this early.

sleep

Abbey went to bed last night around 7, Mark around 7:30 and Grant at about 7:45. A wonderful evening to myself. But the waking up began at about 10:30. Abbey came in my bed for a quick snuggle - which of course is fine. She so sweetly peeked out of her door and said - "momma I snuggle with you?" But since I hadn't gone to bed yet, it was just fine. She than slept from about 10:45 until 6:15. I would call that a successful night sleep! Grant slept all the way from 7:45 to 6:30. No waking up - no fussing - nothing! LOVE IT! Mark- Now he is a whole different story. Always has been my WORST sleeper. One day I hope to look back at these blogs and see stories of him sleeping! I can dream! He went to bed super easy last night which I consider to be a HUGE success!! But than woke up around midnight and again at 2:30 am to wake me up and switch beds with me. He is going through this really big Mat(Daddy) attachment and his new way of "spending time" with Mat is coming into our bed. I just go sleep in his bed, and don't mind too much because he has his own room and I usually get better sleep! SO of course 6:30 came early again today as I didn't get more than 4 hours of sleep in a row. All I need is 6 hours in a row and I wake up feeling rested and refreshed. I guess I will continue to look at it this way - my kids are only this small for such a short amount of time. Soon they will be so much bigger and sleeping through the night. I can get through this!

Its Been A Long Time

Its been a long time since I have blogged here! I think that I will start again! Especially on an extremely positive note. This past year has been a tough one. Buying a house, and adding a 3rd child all at the same time - NUTS!! But today was a huge huge success! I actually got a bit of "sharon" time today which felt awesome! 30 minutes - who knew - could really make a whole entire day. I seemed to have enough of everything today. Enough patience to deal with whining. Enough good spirit to answer (and patiently, I might add) all the thousands of questions that were asked. Enough energy to get through my day successfully. Not too many tantrums, hardly any yelling and zero spankings. Only a few time outs! Bedtime tonight was AMAZING!! 3 kids all in bed and sleeping before 8pm. WOW! Like I said - AMAZING! And all of this done with Mat at work! We are really trying to get things back to normal around here. Whatever normal really is! A good sleep/nap schedule for the kids. Some sanity time for mommy, and some good workout time for Daddy to get back in shape. Let's hope that we can continue this awesomeness tomorrow!

Tough love

My kids have had a lot of inconsistency lately which has made it tough for my kids to know what rules to follow and all of that. That changes today. No matter how sleep deprived I am I need to set rules and limits and get them back on track. We have a new time out corner. We will see how that goes. Mark just was in it for a bit of time because he was having trouble staying quiet. I am hoping that as we move forward the time outs will be successful in helping them to learn GREAT behavior. It is so much more fun to play when there is no name calling and/or hitting. I love watching them play nicely together and I know that they can do it!! It is tough being the bad guy. Funny though, give your kids a few strict rules that are always followed and they behave SO much better. I think they like the structure. Of course they are going to test them from time to time, but once they realize that I am going to stick to those few strict rules hopefully the testing will become less and less.

I am looking forward to watching my household change: less yelling, less tantrums, lots more fun and laughter!!

Hitting

Ugh - Abbey has been hitting over the last couple weeks and it just seems to be getting worse at times and not better. For obvious reasons a spanking doesn't really work - haha what would that teach her.. don't hit your brother 'spank'. I used to have to put my nose to the wall when I was little.. ugh hated doing that - but made me think about what I was doing. Hopefully I can redirect her frustration with Mark and get her to stop hitting him. Thankfully she doesn't ever hit the baby. Mark bugged her so much when she was little - so I really think she is getting him back. She is full of spunk and attitude - and thankfully is pretty verbal - but I do know that she doesn't always have the words for what she is frustrated about. Deep breath..

Overwhelmed

Man this momma is overwhelmed! Somedays I honestly think it might be easier to go to work and pay someone to watch my kids (but not really). Mark has been quite a handful lately. He is just plain not listening. Sounds to me like he listens at school.. so who knows what is not working here. I am trying to figure that out. But I need to figure it out soon, because Abbey is starting to copy behavior.. and the tantrums that Mark is throwing - ugh.. I do not want Abbey to start throwing them. I think it also depends on how much sleep I have gotten. I tend to have a lot more patience when I am well rested - but that doesn't happen often. My mom said she ordered me a couple new books - always up for learning something new - especially if it works! Baby just woke up from his nap! More later

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