Sleep....or the lack thereof

These past two (and a half) months have been two of the hardest months of my life. Or rather, two months of the hardest nights of my life. I guess when you have kids you expect sleepless nights...at least at the beginning. I expected to be awake every 2-3 hours and eventually gain more and more sleep as they grow older. But we learned, rather quickly, from Joel that kids do not sleep through the night on a regular basis. Yes, children wake up at night...sometimes even two or three times. But what I never expected was these last two and half months.

Let me tell you about the last two and half months of our lives. We have had ear infections, crazy amounts of teething (we've gone from 2 to 8 teeth in two months), stitches, growth spurts (a minimum 3 lbs gain), never-ending colds, bad gas and the inevitable stranger anxiety stage. Oh, and that's just Micah. Which has led to months of bad sleep. I can handle waking up every 2-3 hours. But waking up every 45 minutes to hour and a half has really started to wain. Literally we have had sleep in 45 minutes increments for the last two months. And its been exhausting.

I've been told to "cherish" these moments. I have...sort of. But let's be honest. I can only cherish this time with him so much. After about a month of him waking every 45 minutes, the cherishing was OVER. I was frustrated and exhausted. I stopped praying for "sleep" and began getting a lot more specific. Two hours God. Please just two solid hours.  Literally I was done. Done with getting 45 minutes of sleep in a two hour period. I was done with his pain. I was done with the tears. I was done with the colds. I was done with him growing. One night, I literally fed him every 45 minutes. And it was a FULL feed every time. That night, I lost 1.5 pounds (probably the only upside of the whole situation).

There is only so much "understanding" one person can have. One night, when Dan and I were so exhausted that we couldn't handle it anymore, we let him cry in his crib (which is in our room). We both fell asleep, listening to his cries and woke up two hours later to Micah still crying (we were in and out of sleep so we know it was constant).

We tried Tylenol and Advil to help him with the pain. Both have adverse hyperactive effects on him and don't necessarily mean he'll sleep. It would soothe him enough that we could finally put him down (at least for a few minutes). We went through bottles of the stuff. Why they make such tiny bottles and charge an arm and a leg for them, I'll never know. Nothing seemed to soothe this little baby. He was in agony. I felt bad, I really did. But I was just too drained to care. I just needed sleep. My only saving grace is that Dan would let me sleep in from whenever the boys woke up, till about 8am. Sometimes it was the only constant hour of sleep I would get in a night. It was the only way I could still function as a "decent" mom.

Do you know how much sleep deprivation affects your daily life? Simple tasks would take hours. Composing an email with three sentence would take 45 minutes. Part of that was used to focus and the other half was used to "stay awake" and on task. One morning, Dan took a "sick" day and stayed home. We dropped the kids off at my mom's and went home to sleep. Now I know why they say that driving tired is like driving drunk. That morning, I should NOT have been driving. Literally, my peripheral vision was blurring. But those three hours were enough to get us through the next month of sleepless nights.

I have written this post every night (sometimes multiple times a night) for months. But by the time the kids are sleeping, my brain is mush and I can't remember what I've wanted to say. Sleeplessness is hard.

Its hard on your body. Its hard to be motivated to exercise when you are so tired. Its hard to eat well when cookies give you the burst of energy you need to make it through the next hour. Its hard to be motivated to cook nutritious food when you have no energy. Those cookies got me through some hard times and gave me the motivation I needed in order to cook a healthy meal for the boys.

Sleeplessness is hard on your marriage. When your brain is in a constant fog, its hard to communicate. I've found it difficult to think of words and get frustrated when Dan doesn't understand what I'm saying. Or even when I don't understand what I'm saying. It hard to love one another when you are too tired to do anything but sleep. Sleep ALWAYS wins out. (Do you know how amazing an extra hour is when you get 4 hours a night???? And that's VERY interrupted sleep. That hour is a God-send).

Sleeplessness is hard on your parenting. You have a short temper. Those little quirks that you can handle normally seem like the most annoying thing. I've yelled more than I ever have before. I've been frustrated more. I've repeated the phrase, "Why are you so annoying? Oh ya, its because you are two..." more than I care to share. We've thrown educational play out the window and concentrate on staying awake during the day.

These past months have been hard. And I can probably write that without crying only because we've been sleeping in 3 hour increments for about a week now.People would ask me how I was doing and it would take every last reserve of energy not to burst into tears out of sheer exhaustion. I don't know how we've done it. I am amazed at our strength. I am amazed that we still have two (living) children. I just hope that this chapter of our lives is done. It might just take the rest of my life to make up that sleep deficit.

Dear God, thank you for sleep. Three hours of continuous sleep feels soooo amazing.

Great Big Surprise!

This past Sunday was date night! We went to Kyo Sushi and Korean BBQ House in Vancouver and then went to the Great Big Sea Concert.

We were going to meet up with Jordan and Carlye at the concert since we all bought tickets separately months ago. Little did we know, but not only were we in the same section but our seats were right beside each other!

 

Surprise!!!!! Look who I found!

 

 This was my view during the concert. Yep, I had dancing couple blocking my view. No biggie. Except swaying lady was a few seats in front of them. And then big man in orange shirt didn't sit down for pretty much the whole time...not even when they were talking. Hello???? Where is your concert etiquette? This pretty much blocked my view for most of the night. Bummer.

Especially since I come to the concert to see this man. Swoon! Alan Doyle you make my night worth while. He's pretty funny to watch, especially when he's interacting other band members.

Overall it was a fantastic show! No warm up band (thank goodness) but two full sets of great music.

 

The second half was fantastic. They usually are. Probably because they have a beer or two in between. 

  

 
The best part of the show was when they sang the song, "Good People." They asked fans a week previous to send in photos of themselves to use during the show. And guess whose picture was up first???

The McCrimmons!!! We also had another picture show up a bit later in the song. Yep! Twice on the big screen.

The boys jamming away.

Enjoying the show...

...with two really cool people!

Best Line EVER

While watching the Big Bang Theory this past week, I heard the best line ever. I literally laughed on and off all night (and the following day). Please let me quote them...but not word for word. I ain't got that kinda memory. But I do have the internet. So, I will copy and paste instead.

Howard: “Not to mention she has mammary glands that could nurse a family of 30 and have enough milk left over to open a Baskin Robbins.”

I laughed because that's how I feel sometimes. Baskin Robbins here I come! Breastmilk Ice Cream anyone?

Joel's Got Talent

And where does he get that talent???

His Mom!

The Finger: Warning Yucky Images

Caution: The following images may be disturbing to some viewers.

Bandaging the finger. Its a delicate task.

Micah's finger: the first day after he got his stitches. The other junk is the glue which came off pretty quick (in the sock!)

A few hours before he got his stitches out. One week after the injury.

Almost two weeks after the injury. We no longer bandage him (unless we go to play group or an extremely germy place or where there are lots of people). The socks are no longer used for feeding or sleeping. We consider him "back to normal." We just use polysporin every day (okay 3 times a day). We've stopped the amoxocillin that was used to prevent infection. We are hoping that Micah will be back to normal soon. Its a miracle that his finger healed so fast.

Coping with Stitches

Its been an interesting two weeks around the McCrimmon household. Poor Micah has had to adapt to having stitches. When he eats, he wears a sock to help keep his finger dry and clean.

We've had to be inventive about bathing Micah. Since he can't get his stitches wet, we've been bathing him in the sink, while holding his hand in the air.

We put socks on Micah at night instead of bandages to let his finger "air out." But then we had to put one on the other hand to prevent him from pulling the other sock off. (Epic fail by the way. He uses his teeth to get them off).

Sleeping with the sock.

Bandaging his hand (it really should be considered an Olympic sport). He's a squirmy wormy!

Nostalgia

This is the mixer my mom got for her wedding. Its still going. And I LOVE using it. It holds my bread recipe nicely and still (barely) goes round and round. Yep, the same bread recipe my mom made growing up, is still made in her mixer. I've made a few alterations to her recipe (yah whole wheat) but the essence is still there.

Why do I use this old dilapidated mixer instead of my new shiny Kitchen Aid? Simply put: it fits my recipe. Kitchen Aid can't handle 10 cups of flour and all the other goodies we add. This mixer CAN! So I use it every time we make bread! Thanks mommy! 

Hippie Convenience Foods

I was dumping frozen packages of food into the crock pot to make soup.
Ham broth, zucchini, ham, frozen celery....when Dan comes into the kitchen and says,
"So, is this what they call packaged food?"
I nearly died. Yes Dan. Its our personal hippie convenience food.
 

He's at it again

Joel....can't you wait for a SLICE of bread? Please stop ruining my loaves by chewing randomly on them.

Did you have something against my little owl bun that I made you? The whole purpose of the Owl was that you eat it and save the loaves for another day.

Dinner with the Barkmans

Last night we had dinner with the Barkmans.

"What?!! (you ask) You had dinner with the Barkmans? How can that be? Aren't they in the Philippines?"

 Some may suppose that we flew them out for a special meal.(since its ONLY $1500 a person...hahaha) Or that we Fed-Exed a meal to them.

But alas, that was not to be. You see, with the power of technology, we were able to skype a meal with our dear friends. From half way around the world, we shared pitas and ice cream. We had a great chat during which Darnell broke a mug, Dan made falafels, Amanda baked bagels and Christina produced delicious snacks. It was great to share time with our friends, much like we would do if they still lived one street over. We enjoyed listening to Cody's stories and watching Makai stand and take a few steps. It was great to hear about their time with their parents, Peace Church and Coffee for Peace. We were blessed and encouraged as they affirmed our giving spirits. It was precious to us to be able to thank God for our food as we "broke our pitas together." We loved and enjoyed every minute we spent communing together, sharing pitas and ice cream over a computer.

Now that's hospitality!!!