Babies with head colds are my nightmare.

It's preferable when the stars align and the kids come down with something on the weekend. As opposed to a Wednesday, when I'm alone at home to deal with the crying jags and I-can't-nap overtiredness that inevitably results. I don't know why, but I feel terribly guilty asking George to help out when I know he'll go to work in the morning, eyes half closed with delirium. Even when I really, really need the assist.

Thankfully, George had a flex day on Friday, which was great because Zetta was awake every 20 minutes on Thursday night, all night long, culminating in a screaming 6am wakeup. Very unlike her (and my) preferred 8am cheerful waking. Why? I couldn't tell.

After an interminable day filled with a super short nap, easy crying and frustration, probably equally from both of us, I tried to put her down at 7:30 p.m., intending to join her. She would not sleep. And even when she finally went down at 9:50, she woke every 10-15 minutes to scream. I was starting to notice a trend of asleep uprightness followed by crabby prone positioning. By 1 o'clock, I was desperate enough to pack her into the car and drive until she fell asleep. It took 2 minutes, by the way, but I kept driving until we'd gotten past the 15 minute mark. She slept 8 hours in her car seat, parked in the garage — and, don't worry, ventilated. Of course, I kept waking up to check, now unaccustomed to sleeping longer than two hours myself. She was great. Slept like a snot-doused rock, having immediately sneezed out her pacifier and wiped the boogery mess across her face and into her hair. I wouldn't be able to see that clearly until morning and realize, hey, she's sick. But, okay, she slept.

By the time Zetta's nose began draining on Saturday morning, I'd figured out what we were in for. And Wilder didn't disappoint with a short nap and naughty, crabby behavior all afternoon. He then took 90 minutes to get to sleep, followed by a screaming, coughing wakeup an hour later that rocked the house. He woke up every hour thereafter.

You can guess how much sleep we got.

Of course, George and I caught the cold by Sunday morning, having been boogered and sneezed on all the long weekend. (As of this writing, I sound like a 60-year-old man.) Still, when he went off to work this morning, Wilder and Zetta weren't what kept him awake the night before. So I don't have to feel guilty about that.

Obsession #4: Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Apparently, when I go ice cream, I go high-calorie ice cream bomb. My favorite kind waffles between some kind of peanut butter deal or a chocolate mix, always something with a little texture added. Usually. I've been known to buy orange push-ups, root beer float bars and rainbow sorbet, all in a single outing. Also bomb pops and those real-fruit bars and a gallon of chocolate-marshmallow swirl. Or those frozen Snickers bars and a set of Skinny Cow Mint Chocolate sandwiches. I think it's obvious I like my frozen treats and I am not too high-brow about it when I have a craving. (God save us in summer.) So when I say that I love peanut butter ice cream, you'll have to take me seriously. This is love, people. Love at a very high level.

I've tried everything that listed both peanut butter and chocolate on the front. From Talenti's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Gelato (eh) to Edy's Dreamery Chocolate Peanut Butter Chunk (they tried but it still doesn't taste like real peanut butter). Instead of a long list of yuckers, I have only two selections to discuss. That is, if you're in the mood for premium peanut buttery goodness. And they are....


Haagen-Dazs Peanut Butter Pie
Let me be totally honest here: I don't normally go for this brand. Their Chocolate Peanut Butter version is meh. If I hadn't been stuck doing a pre-snowstorm shopping run at the closest grocer, I'd have bought my usual Target treat and been done with it. And missed out on a completely different flavor. Instead of the occasional crunch of chocolate cookie in the mix, this little vixen has a chocolate pie crust made of mashed up cookies. It adds a bit of crunch, same flavor combination.  I miss the texture, honestly, but there's still a bit of chew so I forgive them. The ice cream itself has an ultrasmooth, peanut butter flavor, and then there are floating islands of additional PB, swirled among bits of chocolate pie crust. The very velvety, peanuty, extra PB is the best part.

Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter World
As far as I know, this is still only available at Target stores. And that cuts down on my habit, which is a good thing. It is horrifyingly bad for you in all of the usual ice cream ways with even higher calorie and fat counts. (I am "reading" — meaning: audiobooking it up — Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss and feel shamed by having fallen directly into the pit created by B&J manufacturers. Which I won't go into any more than that. Where was I?) This is by far my favorite treat. It starts with a smooth chocolate ice cream which is laced with robust peanut butter swirls and textured by crunchy chocolate cookie bits. It's a startling amount of peanut flavor for something whose components are mostly chocolate. I love the texture and flavor of this one, and I normally have to force myself to stop eating it.

 So, yeah. Main point: Peanut butter in your ice cream is delicious.

On the Weekend

We're pouring! Currently using a few simple exercises from the How to Raise an Amazing Child: The Montessori Way to introduce Wilder to new skills. This week he loved pouring lentils from different pitchers into glass jars and cups, an upgrade from his easy, pitcher-to-pitcher start.

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On my checklist this month: Join Girlfriendcircles.com.

You may have seen its founder, my friend Shasta Nelson, interviewed — anywhere from Katie Couric to the Today show to California news programs — with excellent cause. Shasta's doing fabulous work rebuilding the importance of friendships, and particularly friendship as a healthy, life-extending habit. Her website sets up women looking for friends with women of similar values, life stages and interests and a goal of developing a small circle of close friends, wherever you live. Shasta was recently recognized as Woman Trailblazer of the Year, and I think it's a well deserved award for a timely concept and an incredibly thoughtful approach to friend-making.

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If you're a bit upset about the Dove ads, but can't exactly pinpoint why, read the breakdown by Little Drops. Jazzy describes the underlying problem perfectly. I almost shouted YES! while reading it.

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I'm one of those weirdo dorks who monitors my child's TV shows and, barring Sesame Street or Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, watches them alongside him before allowing him to view the pre-recorded show on his own. The folks at Commonsensemedia.org provide reviews of age-appropriateness that make me feel less guarded about my selections (Little Bear, Bubble Guppies, Jungle Junction) and offer reviews of movies, apps and games besides. Based on their recommendation, I've added Guess How Much I Love You to our DVR list. My 2.5yo son and I both adore it.

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Note to me: Stop being so guarded all the time. Inspiration here.

Knowing the neighbors

I'm obsessed with community building in a different way than my typical, fluctuating cares. My cozy school and college experiences inspired a lifelong community craving. A true need that makes me a better person, more healthy and balanced, less likely to extend personal boundaries.

A little history: I attended 13 schools in nine years, from age nine to eighteen, when I moved off to the college dorm and my parents boxed up their Minnesota home for Kentucky. Let's just say we moved a bit. Rather than knowing our physical neighbors, my parents offered us the flexible ties of a strong family center and a friendly church community, spread thinly over the entire midwest. 

I will admit my tendency to focus on building a friend-centered community, ignoring proximity and what's — or rather, who is — right outside my front door.

Our neighbor, Patty, is an independent old soul in her eighties who raised five children and is now widowed, living alone. Wilder and I invited her over for tea and cake during a late season snowstorm. She wandered over using a shovel as a cane/slip support and regaled us with tales of the neighborhood, things that had happened in our house, who had lived where and what their children do and anyone who moved somewhere else before our time. We've heard it all before. The refrain she repeated this particular day was that she didn't have any news. "I haven't been out in the yard, you know," she'd say, nodding her head to indicate the weather. "I never know anything if I haven't been outside."

And it's true. While it's easy to feel accosted when I walk out to grab the mail and am roped into thirty minute conversations centered mostly on weather and what projects we'll have going for the front of the house, I wanted to move to an established neighborhood like this one in order to develop a sense of literal community. Those problematic, time-sucking conversations are how it'll get started.

So... We'll keep working in the yard, just a little rose pruning here, lawn mowing there, and get to know the people who walk by, often in family-unit-sized crowds. We'll work quietly, vigilantly, until this house starts to look like a house people might live in, one somebody cares for a little, with fewer patches of dirt amid the grass, the kind of shrubs you can walk by without looking like a cat attacked you, and maybe a followable path to the front door that doesn't make you wish you wore your grubby shoes. And one day we'll realize we know these people, the ones driving by, walking by, waving. And we'll have done it.

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This post was inspired by a nice article about playing outside with your kids and how it helps grow relationships. Not only with your kids, with your neighbors.

What We're Reading: May

1. I may be years and years behind in my reading, but reading Little Children while I had little children drew on my sympathies in ways it might not have otherwise done. The main story story centers on a SAHM with a 3 year old trying to find a mom-friendly playground, and the small boredoms and repetitions that make up child care, but other characters carry the story into different areas and build depth. Parts of it are quite uncomfortable — sex offender in your neighborhood? summer fling with a playground dad? There are so many side stories and small cultural discussions in this book, I'm certain parts will speak to everyone who reads it.
2. She's only three titles in, but Lauren Groff is one of my favorite authors. Her latest, Arcadia, sparkles. The writing: gorgeous, unpretentious, voluptous. The plot: at turns sweet and inventive, surprising. Groff's central story follows Bit, in the beginning a 5-year-old boy, through the upstate New York commune, dubbed Arcadia, that his parents are partners in founding.
3. A friend recommended Rules of Civility as a well-written novel, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Partly because I'd recently finished Arcadia and didn't think the next read would fare well in comparison. But. Midway through, I've found the narrative inviting and entertaining.
4. Adding to Wilder's craving for construction vehicle stories, Tip Tip Dig Dig uses every one of his favorite trucks to build a park.
5. Have you seen this? Mindful magazine offers a different perspective on the usual round-up of topics: business, home, play, travel. The best section, in my opinion, is the people they feature who are putting the mindful lifestyle into practice. Unlike Real Simple, where they've strayed so far from their original intent, there's no shopping section. I'm going to subscribe.
6. What Little Boys are Made Of will enrapture any toddler, but especially boys. In this book, a small boy sets elaborate scenes with his toys and then enters the scene with his imagination, accompanied by rhymed couplets. My 2.5yo stared at each spread by himself, pointing out different animals and explaining what was happening. Great book for a little "reader" who likes to peruse on his own.
7. In Dogs, we were drawn to Gravett's amusing drawings and the simple plot about what kind of dogs the narrator, who turns out to be a cat, really best out of all the available options.
8. I am craving spring! If there's something your children do outside in nice weather, there's probably a funny poem about it in A Stick is an Excellent Thing. My kiddos both loved the different cadences, though Wilder paid more attention to content and what the children in the pictures were doing. This book has beautiful images. I love reading it as much as the kids enjoy listening.

Froyo

A big chair outside in 70º weather with a big spoon/scoop.

Sometimes the only reward of a morning spent sleuthing garage sales is the treat afterwards.

Co-sleepingThe happiness and hardship of sharing a bed

Time to be honest, folks, about the conundrums and the sweet pleasures of sleeping in a family bed. The problem is that when I desperately search for respite from issues we're having, all I find are the good things about sleeping together. We must be the only ones who occasionally find this way of sleeping a complete trial, the only ones eking by on two hours of sleep.

I cannot find true life examples of how anyone does bedtime when I'm looking for ways to stagger bedtimes without one waking the other. (Is there a way?) Or how long it might take before the older child can sleep through the newbie's crying (six weeks, in our case), and vice versa when a cold comes along to throw off your hard-won "schedule" (an interminable length of time when stuffy noses enter the picture). When I'm looking for a naptime solution when neither child will sleep well elsewhere, I don't care about how you transitioned your toddler to his own room and I'm not sorry.

We're continuing to sleep this way, all four of us cuddled up on a giant bed.

The fact is that your baby will sometimes be unable to settle herself. At all for any reason. If she sleeps poorly, it won't matter where she sleeps. You will be awake every 15 minutes, either nursing or rocking, sleeping through both of those things yourself and crossing your fingers that her squeals won't wake her brother. That's just babies. 

This topic makes me crazy. If cosleeping is something that people promote in books and online, how come there isn't more practical, day-to-day information available? In case you, like me, are looking for some answers, here's the story of how we decided to co-sleep.

How we started co-sleeping

Wilder didn't spend a single night in his crib. Which is a lovely crib, by the way. We never researched co-sleeping or even considered where the baby slept as a choice to be made. The crib was set up in a sweet nursery setting in the spare bedroom with the most sunlight. And when I came home from the hospital and looked at how tiny he was in there, I put him to sleep in our bed. End of story. Oh, okay, then I researched it and proved it safe enough for my husband to sign off officially. And then I proceeded to wake up every 10 minutes to make sure he was breathing anyway. But I didn't have to walk.

My husband George was slower to adjust to a baby in the bed. He had an innate fear of crushing Wilder, and so he slept poorly for at least a week while he got used to the reality of a small body nearby.

Originally, since we hadn't planned to do this, I set Wilder on a folded blanket between our pillows and then formed the Boppy pillow, the one we'd purchased for nursing, around his legs like a shield. This made both my husband and I feel better about the baby's safety, all 7 pounds of him safely cushioned behind a barrier away from his greatest danger: us. And it was handy to have the pillow there when he woke. The problem was how much space that u-shaped pillow beast took up in our queen bed. We slept curled around it. And, full disclosure, our French bulldog slept between a pair of legs. Usually George's.

After all of my research, probably a month in, we finally allowed Wilder to fall asleep nursing rather than waiting until he was soundly asleep and moving him, which meant he slept alongside me now. We used a small, rolled blanket wedged behind him as a barricade against either Daddy moving too close in his sleep (never happened) or Wilder falling off the bed (also never happened). It did serve as a doggy shield, though.

We moved our mattress onto the floor, sans frame, and got rid of the top sheet, opting instead for a single, lighter weight comforter and a thermostat increase. When Wilder slept alone, he was well wrapped and didn't use extra blankets. When I slept with him, I wore long sleeves to match his outfit and we blanketed about waist height for me, which covered his ribs and back. I'm not going to say that we did things the safest way, but I was hyper aware of the baby at all times. I found myself waking when he'd shift in his sleep, and so, in time, I grew confident that if there was a problem I'd probably be awake for it. I was awake all of the time anyway. And so was my baby.

At 8 weeks, we finally put Wilder on reflux medication and started to catch up on sleep. I did nap with him, and I cannot recommend that enough. Even though you feel as if the house will disintegrate under piles of dust, it is worth it, because, with enough sleep, you have the energy to ignore the dust.
Our child is a terrible example of the pleasing idea you get of cosleeping when you read about it in, say, Dr. Sear's book(s). And yet when I'd finally get him to sleep and cuddle up next to him, one fine downy hair tickling my chin, there was no better feeling. Until morning.

Still, kids go through intense phases of sleep where it's erratic at best, nonexistent at worst, and in between they'll have one killer night whose 12 hours of sleep you hope will magically replicate and instead it's a one-off. Every time we survived one phase, like waking at 3 o'clock to play for 90 minutes, there was a temporary lull and then something else began, like teething. Again. It really does not get better; just different.

At around 9 months, I considered throwing in the co-sleeping towel. My parents, and my husband's, were more baffled than unsupportive about our choice. But no one we knew was sleeping this way, and we didn't have any way to understand that any sleep issues that came up definitely were or were not related to cosleeping. Wilder woke 8-10 times per night, though half of the time he was soothed by nursing to sleep, and back to 20-minute naps after it took 45 minutes to get him down. Grr. I'd had a lovely spot of personal space from 7:30-10pm that I could work during, or George and I could enjoy alone and catch up on our overloaded DVR, but now that died as I returned to my early bedtime with Wilder in order to get enough sleep that I wasn't an angry zombie person who forgot to brush her teeth or shower. I read and reread No-Cry Sleep Solutions and The Baby Sleep Book. I was so tired that I sincerely hoped to find something I was doing wrong, something fixable. Was he waking because of the proximity to boob? Should he sleep next to George? He'd grown, so did we need to increase his reflux meds? But the behavior seemed random. Two weeks into any schedule and he would suddenly sleep a 6-hour stretch, then you'd' wonder if you "fixed" it and wrack your brain to remember what you did. The answer: nothing. It was him.

I got pregnant when Wilder was 10 months old, against all reason. Obviously I was too sleep deprived to make good decisions. So we moved our full mattress into the bedroom, set it up next to the queen and started putting Wilder to bed over there. I'd roll over to nurse him, and then move back next to George. Wilder slept pretty well that way until the teething would start again. It's always square one with that boy and his teeth.

Then at 20 months, when he's finally sleeping one 5-6 hour stretch and then another 2-3 hour one, we added a sibling to the mix. Horror of horrors. Wilder's sleep reverted right back to that 8-10 month old span where I pulled my hair out every day. Daddy started sleeping next to him, trying to offset the plaintive crying that would start as he'd see both of his parents huddled around a newborn. The only saving grace was that baby Rosetta, took the world's longest naps. We had an hour at least twice in the morning + 4-5 hours each afternoon all to ourselves, and so Wilder adjusted rather quickly. Within a month, he'd wake up at Zetta's insistent crying, sit up in bed and look at her, then lay back down and go to sleep. He didn't even ask for me when he could see me next to her. Bittersweet.

And this is more or less where we are now.

How it works for us

Because Wilder thrives on a schedule, we fitted Rosetta's sleep around his bedtime. (It doesn't always work.) The kiddos lay in bed with us to read stories around 7:45 each night, and the lights are out by 8 p.m. Then it's wrestling time, a sleep process that anyone with a toddler to sleep will recognize. Daddy handles getting Wilder to sleep, and I feed Rosetta and then rock her down (except for during the night, she doesn't nurse to sleep). Once asleep, Wilder sleeps extremely soundly for the first 4-5 hours, often waking after midnight just to make sure everyone's there (especially his sleep mate, Daddy). Rosetta is often loud when she goes off to sleep, humming to herself in a tuneless, baby way, and then screeching randomly if she finds herself unable to nod off. So bedtime is funny, in more a head-shaking than a laugh-out-loud way. Although, inconveniently, I do find myself laughing aloud on occasion and causing a sleepytime setback. When/if they're both asleep, George and I can catch up on The Walking Dead (yes, STILL, don't tell us!) on the DVR. If they don't fall asleep rather quickly (30-45 minutes), it's likely that one or the other of us will also be asleep next to them when they do. Don't judge. It's cozy and dark in there, and we get up oh so early. Wilder's still an early riser and springs awake by 5:30 like he's been wound.

Now that Zetta's in the middle of the worst sleep regression (10+ wake ups per night), I spend 2-3 hours/day (at least) in our super comfy rocking chair, most of them at night. (I've slept in that thing countless times.) I cycle through podcasts and fall asleep mid-rock, then wake up with a big jerk on the downslope, feeling guilty — I don't know why because no one's asleep but me. Even when she doesn't wake as often, she's up snacking or just sucking herself to sleep a little here and there, and generally thrashing around. But since we've always had the morning be her time to sleep alone (George gets ready for work at 6:15), she's primed to sleep then. Unless she's in the throes of something terrible, and it's definitely happened, she'll sleep until 8 on her own and wake up talking to herself happily.

Every once in a while, I'll get so little sleep that I will let Rosetta cry. Not even long, mind you, and not by herself. The last time, she laid right next to me on the bed and cried for 10 minutes while I tried to sleep. I was too tired to pick her up for the fifteenth time, too tired to rock her anymore. But she's one of those babies who winds up when she cries, and so not only did she refuse to sleep afterwards, she wanted to play for an hour. Like she knows how to punish me. I've done this a handful of times, and it has never, ever worked, no matter how often my pediatrician recommends it and no matter how bone-tired or gastrointestinal-flu-sick I am when I try.

But normally, if Rosetta goes to bed around 8:30 p.m. and wakes up three times per night to nurse and gets up for the day at 8 a.m., I am absolutely okay with that amount of wake/sleep. For myself and for her.

Naptime is a different issue. They currently sleep on separate beds in the same room, one of them pretty consistently waking the other. Which is really annoying, considering how hard I work to get them both to sleep at the same time. Rosetta has no issues with sleeping on the guest bed, but she's getting heavy enough that I'd prefer to rock her, and guess where our chair is located? Yup. So now we're in talks about buying a mattress for the kids' room where Wilder could take naps. Or, who knows, in a few months, her naps will dwindle to one, so they'll overlap perfectly. Maybe we'll just wait.

And the sweetness

 When babies get enough sleep and they wake up next to you, they're delighted. They squeal and pat your face. Then they grow a little and they want to be cuddled. They crawl over you and entangle themselves between whoever they find in the bed, parents, grandparents, dogs. When they're even older, they kiss you and cuddle you, petting your hair, trying to be tickled. They bring you books to read, so you can snuggle. They smell of sleep and baby and warm, damp child breath, and you can breath it all in without braving the cold outside your comforter.

I'm thrilled we chose to cosleep. I wouldn't have gotten any sleep otherwise. None. My children are terrible sleepers, or at least until well beyond age two.

Currently 

Since his molars erupted, Wilder's sleep has improved marginally. He doesn't nap eagerly or for long — thank the gods we have a killer sound machine. Wilder rises, now with Daddy in tow, between 5 and 5:30 without fail, and he thrashes, awaking infrequently but for no apparent reason. George is completely on board with co-sleeping. At least until illness or major sleep regression hits, and then we both waver because we are so dead tired, we can barely remember what we were discussing. As long as we don't go into the story where Wilder caught the flu and we found out in the family bed at midnight, co-sleeping comes up carnations.

One major problem is that George and I miss sleeping together. Alone. Feet touching and all of that, the convenience and carelessness of being married and together, with all of the thoughts and opportunities that brings. So we're a little bit sucking it up in that regard, but we're lucky to have a guest bedroom all the way downstairs and plenty of other rooms besides. We know this part of our lives is temporary, and thankfully we both find it equally sweet to nestle with warm, sleepy kiddos.

But, really, co-sleeping works best for our family because, if they're going to be awake anyway, I'd prefer it be in our room where I don't have to walk. Call me lazy.