Teething sucks

Superman has taken to flailing his body about when he is in pain from teething.  He arches his back, waves his arms, pushes off of me with all of his might and screams.  If I put him down?  He screams louder and usually throws his body in such a way that he ends up hitting his head....which just makes him scream louder.  So I hold on to him with both of my arms- tight, especially if I am walking because he has even flung himself into a wall when I wasn't careful enough.  Fun times.

So I went to the doctor today to make sure that he is in fact "just" teething.  Doctor says that it is in fact his teeth and to hang in there.  We had a short discussion about orajel...one of his nurses had told me to not use it unless I really needed to because it can swell the gums and delay the teeth from breaking through.  The doctor had not heard this before and said that it sounded like we needed to throw everything at the molars at this point.   I agreed. 

We used it when we got home...that and ibuprofen and a couple Humphrey's teething tablets.  I was totally going to throw everything at it.  I guess I could have used gripe water too, but didn't think about it till now.   So all the meds are in him and we head to bed.  For the first time in 3 days he actually drinks from his bottle (only a few ounces, but I will take it).  Then he goes to bed and sleeps really well for an hour (not the 2 hours that I am used to, but I will take it).  Then I go in to get him and he doesn't scream!! In fact despite a little bit of "I'm just waking up" fussiness, he was delightful! 

I am thrilled that we have found something that helped (fingers crossed it continues to work)...I just wish I knew which of the things that we gave him did the trick or if all of it was needed.  I guess that is the down-side with throwing everything you got a problem. 

A New Kind of Uniform

 A fellow mom (of adorable twin boys) sent me the following message recently:

If you need a blog topic can you ask your readers about Mommy wear?  I've found that since I've become a mom I live in sweats and t-shirts or those soft track suits, stuff that is easy to wash and wear and hides stains well. I hardly ever wear pants that have buttons or zippers.  (My Husband) calls it my uniform. I wonder if there are other moms out there that find themselves in the boat or if I'm just weird?

My gut reaction was to give her some advice on what I do, but then I realized I am the last person that should give advice about this and frankly, could benefit from some other people's advice as well.

According to the Fly Lady we should be getting dressed and ready for the day every morning.  In fact day 2 of her BabySteps tells you:

Today I want you get up and get dressed to lace up shoes when you first get up in the morning. This means fix your hair and face too.

So when I was a new mom trying to figure out this whole "stay-at-home mom" thing I jumped at this idea.  I made a little alteration to it since the first thing I do in the morning is feed Superman and then workout.  But as soon as I am done working out, Superman goes down for a nap and I shower and get dressed.  Sounds like I am great at this right? Okay, not so much.  Let me be honest with you for a moment.

1. Up until 2 months ago, my hair went into a pony tail every.single.day.
2. I do not wear make-up.  I hardly wore any before I had a baby, I'm not going to start wearing it now.
3. Getting dressed included shorts or jeans and a solid color t-shirt every.single.day.

So you can see I need help too!  Do you have any tips on great "mom clothes" that are easy to care for, hide stains well, and are comfortable, but still look like we are somewhat put together?  I will admit that I am secretly hoping you all tell me that you all are struggling with this too.  It won't help any of us look better, but I will feel a little less like a disheveled mom and a little more like a normal mom just hanging in there. Thanks!

To sleep like a baby...

When Superman was younger I was totally confused about the saying, "sleep like a baby".  My baby was a fairly loud sleeper and he certainly wasn't sleeping for long periods of time.  Why would I want to sleep like a baby if that is what a baby sleeps like?

Well now I get it.  When I place Superman into the crib it goes one of two ways.

1. He cries for 30 seconds to 1 minute, rolls over and falls asleep.*

2. He rolls over and falls asleep.* 

Do you know what I would give to be able to fall asleep that fast?  Maybe it's because he doesn't have any worries to ponder over or plans to consider or items to complete that weren't written down so he doesn't have to consider getting up to write them down or focusing really hard on not forgetting them.   

Whatever it is, I would like some of what he has got.

*I know that he is asleep because I can see him on the monitor.  Also, although this is almost every time he falls asleep, there are the occasional times where he takes a little bit longer...but they are few and far between.

Insomnia...but not mine.

Superman is teething his top molars. I hate molars. They have managed to turn my perfectly sweet, happy almost all the time kid and turn him into a cranky, nothing will please me, let me scream and kick and flail my body about kid. Seriously, I need to take stock on my dealing with teething strategies because clearly the Tylenol/ibuprofen and here have something to chew on combo we are doing just isn't enough. But that is for me to deal with after this post. First? I need to tell you about last night.

It started out okay. My husband did the usual night time routine, I went up to nurse him and put him to bed and although he stirred for a little bit, he fell fairly quickly into a nice sleep. Then 9:45 hit and he woke up. We let him fuss for a while and just when it looked like he was going to go back to sleep, he woke up and started screaming again. My husband went in with some gripe water and tried to soothe him. After that didn't work, I got called in.

I got him to drink the gripe water and he even was quite content just cuddling in the rocking chair with me. I switched the way I was holding him so I could see his face and at that point realized that although he is quite content and calm...he is wide.freakin'.awake. Ugh!

Over the next 3 hours I try everything I know to get him to fall asleep. We laid on the floor together...he tried to play and climb all over me. We went downstairs for some milk...I realize he is hungry and he downs 2 containers of fruit puree and plays independently for about 30 minutes while I whine on Facebook. I defrost some milk and we head up stairs...he drinks the milk, goes to bed, cries for a little bit and does fall asleep, but then I get up to turn the monitor on and leave...and he wakes up again to scream his head off. I leave him in his crib to cry, but finally decide to lay down on the floor to try and get some rest.

He ended up falling asleep at around 3:00-3:30...and then woke up at 6:30. The 3 or so hours in between? Oh I was still on the floor, sleeping, for fear that he would wake up again if I stood up to turn on the monitor and leave. Yeah, I was sticking to my sleeping bag on the floor, it didn't matter if my back was screaming at me or not. It would still be better than Superman screaming.

So there you have it. My 11 month old kid had insomnia. At least that is what I am calling it because really, I have no idea if his teeth played a part in this or not. He only cried when he was in the crib and come on, you and I both know that was more about being pissed that he was in there than the teeth. Whatever caused this night from hell, I hope it is done with our family and will never been seen from again.