My Cupcakes are Nation Wide

This is so cool! I always follow up on this blog called Cupcake takes the Cake. They keep the public up on every thing going on with cupcakes around the nation. The authors were on the Martha Stewart Show talking about cupcakes and their blog. I joined their flickr pool, and uploaded some of my cupcakes and they posted them on the blog! Check it out here.

One night is not a pattern :(

So, last night was not a repeat of the night before. Kaiden was up from 11-12 before I gave in and fed him at midnight. Then he was up again at 3:00am until around 4:30 when he finally fell asleep until 6:30. I pulled him into bed at that time and it was restless going from then on. Mike came upstairs around 8 and I slightly remembering asking him if Makaylee was up and he said no, so I pushed Kaiden to him and went back to sleep for another 30 minutes. People, I am not a naturally peppy soul. Despite the illusion created by being captain of the cheer squad my senior year, I do not function well without sleep. If you could see my house at this time you would understand that I needsleep. My daughter takes after me in that area. She loves her sleep. She almost always happily goes to sleep and proceeds to sleep 12 hours at night, and naps about two hours during the day. Although we have started skipping naps one or two days a week, she follows the rare non-nap days with usually 13 hours of sleep. So, my son seems to take after his father. Though I feel the need to point out that his father is the one getting sleep in the guest bedroom at this time. I have been told by Penny that both Dada and Auntie Sarah were terrible sleepers when they were young. The things we do for our kids :)

As most posts have been surrounding Kaidens sleepless nights I feel it is time to give an update on Makaylee. She is growing up. To quickly. She is a non stop talking machine. Her favorite phrases right now are "oh dear" and "oh my." No, I don't talk like that, neither does Mike so I have no idea why when she spilled the markers everywhere yesterday she said "Oh my!" Then sat down and said "oh dear, what will we do now??" She is doing great in the potty training arena. We wear panties during almost all waking time when we are at home and she is great at telling me when she needs to go. Although she has yet to poop in the potty yet, we are working on it. She is great at timing the bowel movements for nap time or after we put her to bed when she has a diaper on. Yesterday was the first time she pooped in her panties. Yuck. She has had three accidents since she figured out the whole potty training thing. Twice on Mike while the cuddle and watch TV in the AM. (HaHa!) And once when we were playing in the basement, and she was just to busy to notice. She has not pee'd out in public yet, but we will get there.

Makaylee has also started to like Disney movies. She is in love with Arial at the moment. Mostly because she was given a pair of Arial panties that she loves, and so the movie followed that. She also loves fish, so it was a natural love. We were out at the grocery store the other day and I reached for the teddy grahams and she said "No! Arial crackers!" Because there was a box of disney princess crackers right next to the teddy grahams. So, it has begun, she wants her princess food. I know that I am way overdue to upload pics and video, so I will work on that soon!

People, I got sleep!

That is right, I got one night reprieve from my two week of exhausted existence. For over two weeks I have been having a sleeping war with Kaiden. We have done pick up/ put down and moved on to cry it out. Kaiden has been successfully putting himself to sleep, but he does not stay asleep. He goes to bed between 7:30 and 8 every night and is up to eat at 11. I would feed him at 11 and we would fight from then until 4:30 or 5 because I refused to feed him. So during that time he decided he NEEDED his paci at all times. But Kaiden pretty much stinks at hand to mouth so far, so he was waking me up every 30 min to an hour to replace the binkie. That was not working. I tried to get rid of the paci, but he was screaming and then sucking on anything he could get near his mouth. So I gave him the paci and he passed out. So now I am going in after he is asleep and removing the pacifier.

So needless to say I have not slept for longer than 1-2 hours at a time for two weeks. My husband left me to sleep in the guest bedroom. Some night it is a quick get up, replace binkie and get back in bed. Some nights it is a never ending scream fest for up to two hours. I have been walking around in an exhausted coma for the past two weeks. Lets not forget that he was not sleeping longer than 3 hours at a time before that. It is a sad time when you can look back fondly at your sons days in the NICU because that is the last time in 7 months you have gotten a decent night sleep. Before the NICU stay I was pregnant, so I basically have not slept well since Makaylee's first birthday.

Anyway. last night I took half a unisom and went to bed at 10. Kaiden woke up at 11, and I gave him his paci, then he slept until 3:30! I fed him and put him back in his crib where he slept until 6:45. At that point I pulled him in bed with me and he slept on and off the boob until 8:30 when makaylee woke up. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, sleep. I will take it!

Parenthood

If you are a parent you know exactly what I am talking about. If you are not a parent, then I would try and explain it, but you would not listen. I didn't listen. People try and explain what being a parent is like, but I think the reason so many people go ahead with parenthood is because they have this dream vision of what parenthood is going to be like. Don't get me wrong, being a Mom is the best thing that I have ever done and I love it. It is also the hardest, most humbling thing I have ever done. Everyday I am faced with a new chalenge and a new decision that makes me question decisions I have already made. Every day my kids drive me so crazy I think I am going to loose it. Every day they almost bring me to tears with the amount of neverending love I feel for them and they feel for me. The moment your children are born everything changes. The moment you start wearing that Mama or Dada title everything seems to be so much larger than you thought it was before.

I will tell you one thing, being a Mom makes you respect, love and appreciate your Mom that much more. I love you Mom, and I miss you :)