Mr. Sandman Bring Me a Dream

Oh, babies.  So wonderful.  So adorable.  So lovable.  What angels they are.

When they are sleeping...

So peaceful.

So quiet.

Angels.

But getting them to sleep.  Oh oh oh oh oh...  That's when the wings come off and the golden halos get tossed into the trash.  They can be downright monsters when it comes to bedtime (or even naptime).  

In this household, we've had our fair share of struggles with bedtime.  I'm sure every parent living and deceased has had trouble at some point with getting their sweet little angel to just close their eyes and go the *bleep* to sleep.  Our troubles with bedtime seem to come and go.  

Annie is our little angel when it comes to sleep.  It took well over a year to get to where she is now.  I did the bad thing of nursing her to get her to sleep.  And we did the co-sleeping thing for way too long.  Finally we wised up and made the transition to having her sleep in her crib.  Now, when it's bedtime, you merely lay her down on her pillow, make sure she has her blankie, cover her with a nice fuzzy blanket, place a few of her "friends" around her, then turn out the light and shut the door.  Easy as pie.  For now...

Orry has gone through many a phase.  He co-slept as well, but not for nearly as long.  He transitioned to his own bed pretty early on.  While the bed was okay for a while, he regressed.  Then there was a time where he preferred his crib.  That didn't last that long.  Then there was sleeping with his brother, which went well for a while.  Isaac also has gone through different sleeping phases.  Co-sleeping with Mommy and Daddy.  Co-sleeping with Brother.  No crib sleeping, though, since there aren't many cribs in Korea.  Isaac's phases are better defined by how he's put to sleep.  There were times where you could just put him in bed and say goodnight and he would stay and go to sleep.  Then there were those times where he wanted to rub your eyebrows until he fell asleep (or until you had no more eyebrows, whichever came first).

Currently, the boys are having a hard time falling asleep on their own.  They want the stories.  So we read the stories.  Then they want a last sip of water.  So they get their last sip of water.  You turn the lights out and leave.  Isaac comes out of the room about 5, 6, 7, 10 times before you finally just go in there and lie down with him.  When they finally get you in there, lying down with them, they ask for a story.  No story?  How about a song?  Maybe There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly?  Or Puff the Magic Dragon?  Now tickle our backs.  Please.  Scratch our backs.  Please.  And before you know it, we are all sleeping.  

I don't know about you, but when I'm dead tired and I fall asleep back there around 9pm, I don't feel like getting back up to finish cleaning the kitchen or cleaning the living room.  Finish the laundry?  Psh, yeah right.  My night is over.  But it's starting to get out of hand.  I'm really far behind on my laundry.  I'm even further behind on talking to my husband.  Things have to change.

So tonight we put our feet down.  Stories?  Yes.  Prayers?  Double yes.  Songs?  Okay, yes, but I'm sitting up to sing them to you and then I'm outta here.  There was pleading and lots of tears, but we had a talk.  I told them that I had to do my work, but that more importantly, I had to spend time with Daddy.  They tried to  negotiate, but I held my ground.  It was a better night than most, I have to say.  Do we have a long way to go?  Quite possibly.

Hopefully we'll get this under control. Then we can work on getting them, and by them I mean Isaac, to stay in their beds all night long.  Here's to hoping.  

Megamind (title courtesy of Orry)

I'm pretty worn out this week.  I've felt like I had a million things to do.

Monday was lab work (blood and stool) day.

Tuesday was Open House night for Orry.  In case you are wondering, he's smart and delightful.  That's a very brief summary.

Wednesday was the day I was scheduled to bring snacks in for Isaac's class.  We decided to go with rice krispie treats cut with cookie cutters.  We also had children's choir practice that night.

Thursday was spent with a great friend and her beautiful baby!

Friday I pulled Orry out of school early in order to take him to the doctor.

Today is Saturday.  I would like to say that we slept in late and just hung around all day, napping and reading books, eating and watching football.  And we did do those things.  I'm so happy.  I stayed in bed until about 8:30.  Heaven.  I took a nap by 11.  Heaven.  I read Isaac some books and made a second breakfast.  Oh how wonderful.  Then in typical Becker fashion, we flew by the seat of our pants and packed the remaining  daylight hours with as much as we could.  We took our month's worth of recyclables to the recycle center (yes, we finally found it).  We visited the dinosaur museum, rolled down the big hill in Memorial Hermann Park and played at our neighborhood park.  We also managed to squeeze in a couple of new adventures.

Firstly, we visited the Beer Can House.

Yes.  Someone covered their house with various parts of beer cans and considers it art...  And secondly we ate tacos from a food truck that was parked in the grocery store parking lot.  They were surprisingly delicious and all the kids loved them!

One weekend we will rest.  It may not be next weekend or the next, but one of these weekends it will happen.  And maybe one week, in the far off distance future, we will have time to stop and catch our breath.  Right now I have time to catch up and transcribe the story of Orry's "black eye".   Now this is in his own words.  And I've gone back to add in that he read it over my shoulder and had me change things while I was writing.  Gotta love that kid.

"One day, when me and Nathan were at recess, I was walking and Nathan was running.  Nathan hit my cheek under my eye.  And I cried and I got to be the line leader.  We went inside and got a drink.  And the pattern is restroom, sanitize, drink.  When we were reading, a boy hit my head and I got an ice pack.  The ice pack is at the nurse.  Mrs. Taylor wrote my mom a note.  Then I left.  And you need to get your binder and your backpack.  And I am route 144.  The end."

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to visit our blog!    

TMI

You've been warned.

Poop talk is common in our house.  I guess that's what I can say about our journey thus far with ulcerative colitis. Orry is quite familiar with the Bristol Stool Chart.  Every once in a while I'll hear a little voice shout out "2!" or "3!" from the bathroom.

At the zoo before our doctor's appointment

There are other things to say about our journey thus far, like how high and how low you can get.  Seeing solid, bloodless poops can make you feel pretty good, especially if you haven't seen them for a long while.  Seeing loose, bloody poops can make you feel really lousy, especially if you just saw them a few months ago and really thought that this time you got it right and that things were on the up and up.

Isaac is in flare mode again.  He's breaking for the bathroom a couple of times a day (not too bad) and having long bouts of diarrhea.  Unfortunately, we are coming to the end of the list of things we can try.  At the beginning of this journey we had what seemed like a long list of options and medications that we could try.  Maybe it seemed long because we were so hopeful that we would never reach the bottom of that list.

Chicken running around the house at 6am...

What's in store for Isaac?  Currently we have increased his meds since he has gained weight.  No new meds. Not yet.  No steroids because clearly they don't do what they are supposed to do.  We are trying a high-potency probiotic called VSL 3.  We are reading up on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and trying to pump ourselves up for such a drastic change.  And we have another colonoscopy scheduled for September 27th.  We are hoping to get a better diagnosis which will help us more effectively treat his disease.  We will also see if the flare is throughout his colon or if, fingers crossed, it is just in his lower colon, in which case we could try a medicated enema.

Don't feel too bad for Isaac, though.  He feels "great" and still has plenty of energy and is quite playful.

Now let's lighten the mood and talk a little bit about dinosaur poop.  The boys had a fun time reading, and re-reading, the book, Jurassic Poop: What Dinosaurs (and Others) Left Behind by Jacob Berkowitz.  We learned about coprolites and pretty much all things dino doo doo.  It's a really fun and informative read with some hilarious illustrations by Steve Mack.  I recommend checking it out from your local library.  It makes excellent bathroom reading.

Please keep Isaac in your thoughts and prayers as we get closer to the scope date.  Especially think about us on Monday, as we struggle with a 24 hour clear liquid diet.  No fun.  No fun at all.  We'll keep you posted!

Storytellers

This week Annie and I tried something that we have never tried before.  Story time at the local public library.

Scrunch face!

We arrived a little late but didn't miss out on the fun.  There were plenty of parents there and lots of toddlers.  They were reading stories about dogs.  Dancing and singing seemed to be on the docket more than actual stories and the kids were encouraged to get up and move their bodies.  Get out their wiggles, if you will.

Annie wasn't too keen on letting her guard down in front of all those people.  She eventually moved off of my lap and onto the floor, but no singing or clapping happened.  She's a shy girl.

After reading our stories about dogs and singing songs about smashed bananas, we checked out our own books.  Of course we got the necessary non-fiction books about dinosaurs, but we also found some good ones about monsters, dogs, cats, and airplanes.

I love reading stories to my kids, but I'm no storyteller.  To me, a storyteller is someone who can tell you a story without a book and with so much emotion and detail that you feel as if you were there in the story all along.  I can't even remember how the Three Billy Goats Gruff ends.  Heck, I can't even get the punchlines to jokes right...

But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't try.  And it doesn't mean that I shouldn't encourage my kids to do their best to tell their own stories.

So that is what I will work on for next time (or just some time in the future).  I'll try to have Orry tell you the story about his "black eye".

I doubt Annie is going to be telling too many stories just yet, but maybe I can challenge Orry to tell this story from Annie's point of view.

And Isaac...well...

Maybe we'll just have to settle for stories from Orry...

Additions and Subtractions

If you have ever taken a math course then I am sure you are familiar with the idea that math is used in our everyday life.  Raise your hand if you find this to be true.  Troy, put your hand down.  You don't count.

Ah, but you do, my dear Troy.  You count very much.  You are the constant in the equation of my life.  My day has many different variables.  But you are someone I can always count on.

And so we can use math (or at least math terms) to explain our lives.  Is it incredibly useful.  No, I wouldn't say so.  Does it fill a void that only nerdiness can fill?  Yes, exponentially.

Here are some of the latest going-ons in the Becker household, explained with math terms of course.

Last week Isaac started preschool.  He has been subtracted from our daily equation every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  He is having fun although he does have trouble differentiating school time from nursery time since he is attending the school at church.

Last week my best friend Laura added a new baby to her family!  Welcome to the world, Miles!  I was the only one who got to meet him since all the kids are a little snotty right now.  But the kids are really excited to meet him.  At least I think they are.  I know for sure that they are missing Mrs. Laura.

In case you can't tell, this is a chimp's bottom...

Isaac has started to flare up again.  Side note about calories:  He has gained a pound!!  We took him into the doctor's office to get some labs done.  They extracted some blood and asked to return with a stool sample...  We made the most of our time downtown and visited the zoo.  Isaac really loves the rhinos.  Annie really loves Isaac.  So we went through the African Forest to see the chimps, rhinos, giraffes, and ostriches.  While observing the chimps we thought that we might catch some multiplication.  We didn't, but we also didn't stick around long enough to make sure that no monkey business went down.  Speaking of multiplication, Annie's love for Isaac has really multiplied.  Being forced to spend so much time with together has really brought them closer.  

Yesterday we did some subtraction.  A sweet kitty cat was hanging around our house.  It probably had more to do with the fact that I was feeding the poor thing and less to do with the fact that the kids loved to pet and play with it.  In a few short weeks, we had gotten use to being greeted by the kitty in the morning and every time we went outside, for that matter.  We all liked the kitty, named "Cat".  Even Troy was caught giving it food and affection.  But we currently don't have the time or the resources to spend on a pet.  So a decision was made and Cat was taken to a no-kill shelter with the hopes that he would find a wonderful forever home. It is really sad not to see him in the morning anymore, but we take comfort in the fact that he will find a loving home that will feed him, take him to the vet, let him inside, and love him for a lifetime.

I hope that your life is filled with the wonderful joys of multiplication and that many happy additions are in store for you.  I hope that you never have to suffer through divisions or painful subtractions.

Maybe you still aren't feeling like there's enough math in your life.  If that's the case, I'm sure that Troy can help you out with that.

A Labor of Love

I hope you all thanked your mothers today for laboring on your behalf.  Your lives would be considerably less exciting if they hadn't done that...

Seriously.

I hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend.  We had a delightful time this weekend despite it having flown by so fast.  I guess that's what happens when you are really busy having fun.

Saturday we spent the morning at the beach.  It was a really windy day thanks to T.S. Lee.  The waves were pretty rough and sand was blown all over, but we still managed to build a small sandcastle and do other fun beachy things...

Another masterpiece

On Sunday we went to church.  After church we had a shopping errand to run and as we drove to the store we passed the dollar theater.  We saw that Kung Fu Panda 2 was playing and we made plans to go back in a couple of hours and watch it.  We have never taken our kids to the movies.  So this was really testing the waters.  I'm glad I had Troy with me.  He sure came in handy, putting Annie to sleep while the boys and I wiggled all around the row of seats, laughing at that fat panda.  Later that day we played outside since the weather has gotten down below the 100's recently.  

Oh, the joy of bubbles

And what did we do with our Labor Day?  We spent the morning at the zoo!  Again, since the weather was so "cool" we hit the road early to avoid the inevitable crowds and spent the morning watching elephants getting a bath and bats getting some brunch.  We went home for lunch and to get ready for our busy week coming up.  

Tomorrow, Isaac will start going to pre-preschool.  I'll have to pack his lunch and a few sets of clean clothes to change into.  He will also start following a routine.  This means a scheduled "rest" time and that means that he needed a nap mat.  So I made him one.

So I guess you can say that I labored on Labor Day.  But it was a small labor of love.  I'm sending my baby boy out into the world (kind of) and he needs something to remember me by.  Hopefully he'll look at the nap mat and remember me saying that the dots are "dinosaur green".  And if he doesn't remember me then, maybe he'll think of me when he eats his snacks and his lunch.  And if not then, then maybe when he puts on that dry pair of underwear and pants that I so lovingly packed him...

Like I said earlier, I hope you all thanked your mothers today...

"Stick"ing to the Schedule

Today concluded the second week of the newest chapter in our lives.  The "having a child who attends school" chapter.  It's crazy how you turn the page and enter the new chapter and there is no going back.  Our lives are so different now than they were just 2 short weeks ago.  The kids and I have gotten into a morning rhythm.  It very loosely involves all of us being awake by 6am, eating breakfast, getting dressed, and watching Martha Speaks on PBS.  I am reminded of the morning ritual I was accustom to growing up and I'm so glad that Barney isn't on so early in the morning...

This week we picked up some extracurricular activities to add to our schedule (as if it wasn't hectic enough).  The kids are starting to participate in the children's choir at church while the grown-ups are taking part in a self discovery class.  Also this week was Isaac's orientation/meet the teacher at his new preschool.  We are pretty excited to have him in such a great school.  I'm not so excited about how much extra work it will put on me, but I will rise to the challenge.  Hopefully.

I'm glad that we are on the topics of schedules and rhythms.  It's a nice segue for what I'm really excited to blog about.  And that is our after-school snack routine.

A couple of weeks ago, in a state of missing Orry, I decided that I would make him a special snack for when he got home from his first day of school.  I made some soft pretzels and he loved them.  I think he really liked being thought of while he was away and coming home to something special.  So I continued on, making muffins and ice cream until we finally arrived at Friday.  On that day I didn't make anything.  I figured that it would be fine just eating all the usual snacks like apple slices with chocolate peanut butter or cheese crackers.  Oh, was I wrong.  Orry was pretty bummed about not having anything special and didn't want to eat the ordinary snacks.  My, how easily they get spoiled.

So this week I made a "new" snack everyday.  We certainly had the repeats, like the pretzels, but we tried some new snacks too.  And here is what I learned.  If you put food on a stick, kids will eat it up!  Do you want your kids to eat more fresh fruit?  Just give them a sharp stick (adult supervision is required (no, really)) and let them stick whatever fruits they like on there.  And I found a great recipe for making "cake pops".  Cake on a stick.  It was awesome.
I've got other things planned like homemade granola bars on a stick and cinnamon rolls on a stick.  But I'm really liking the challenge of coming up with new snack ideas and I really like eating the snacks as well...  And pretty soon I'll have two kids to welcome home with special snacks.

I'm sure I'll find the natural rhythm of my hectic day-to-day schedule.  And if I run into a rough patch, I know where there are plenty of sharp sticks to help me get through it!