Dreams

Since I was a child I have had nightmares and vivid dreams. I don’t wake up every morning remembering my dreams, but when I do they are normally very detailed. I have thought of keeping a dream journal but never got around to it. I never thought about Nate dreaming except when I watch him sleep sometimes and he is restless. I wonder if he is dreaming and what his dreams are about. Clearly a 4-year old and a 35-year old have very different dreams right?

Not so much as it turns out. Nate has been having bad dreams for a few weeks now and at first he came into my bed in the middle of the night and said he had a scary dream. Then he peddled himself into my kitchen one day while I was cooking and from his tricycle he asked quietly when his dreams would stop. It broke my heart because dreams can be a wonderful thing, an escape from reality or a trip to a faraway place. I asked if he had good dreams too and he shook his head yes. He just wants the bad dreams to go away, and in his mind dreams are not a permanent in our life. I hated telling him that dreams never stop but we can certainly deal with the bad ones.

Nate takes after me in a lot of ways (just look at the kid and you can tell he is mine) but I had hoped that he would not inherit my nightmares. I asked him what his bad dreams are about and he said ghosts and monsters. I explained that there are no ghosts or monsters in our house (except of course Cookie Monster, Grover and Elmo) and that he could wake up from a dream if he realizes it is a dream. He said he would try. He also says his room is too dark but I keep a light on for him so I know it is the dreams keeping him from falling asleep after finally making so much progress.

Yesterday he was telling me about a vampire recurring dream and he said he told the vampire to go away. I bought a blow up ghost and pumpkin for Halloween decorations so last night I blew them up and told them to keep them in his room to keep away the bad dreams. This morning he told me the pumpkin kept them away…but he had left the pumpkin in my room. I agreed that I did not have a bad dream so the pumpkin worked. I’m planning on doing a little research on toddlers and dreams and hopefully I can help my little nugget out.  In the meantime, I need a nap.

Looks like a good dream to me

Time for another bambino?

There comes a time in a woman’s life when she decides she is ready to start a family. Then she gets knocked up and goes into a panic…am I really ready for this? Of course by then it is too late to back out of the deal. Baby number one arrives and it is the hardest thing you have done in your whole life. About a week goes by and people begin to ask when you will have another one. A simple warning to people who think that it is okay to ask that question…it’s not…don’t ever ask a woman when she is going to have another kid. I have been asked that question over and over in the last 4 years and most of the time I respond as politely as possible but there are times that I want to tell people to mind their own business. It’s an especially loaded question for a woman who had trouble conceiving the first time around.

The last 3 years have been very hard for Love and I and we have put all of our energy into Nate and his happiness (perhaps spoiling him too much). A year ago I was totally delusional and I had my IUD removed thinking it was now or never for another baby. I think the fact that I was 34 and quickly approaching 35 had a lot to do with it. If I had trouble conceiving at 28 how could I possibly expect to conceive at 35 or later? I quickly went back to the doctor and I think she thought I was crazy. We are finally wondering if we should take the leap again. It’s going to be stressful but looking at Nate I also know how rewarding it will be.

Speaking of Nate…he does not want to be a big brother…ever. Any mention of mama having another baby is crushed by his jealousy. He does not want a baby in his room or any other room in our house. He does not want a baby in my belly because it is his belly. If I ask would he prefer a brother or sister he simply says none. I think he may come around once the kid arrives but we will have to really work on him.

Jealousy is not the only thing we need to work on with Nate. He has a problem with being overly aggressive when showing how much he loves you. He is rough with me and I always tell him to be more gentle and chalk it up to the fact that he is a boy. This weekend we saw my nephew and he was all over him. All I did was tell him to stay out of his face and get off of him. It’s so embarrassing because he thinks he is being nice to his little cousin but it looks like he is about to crush the poor kid. We need to practice safe distances and gentle hugs with some stuffed animals before we see them again. I will also never be able to leave him alone with a baby if he continues to act that way. We have a lot of work to do before we can commit to having another baby. Hopefully we will be lucky and we will conceive. If we don’t then maybe it is a sign that we are meant to be a family of three and that will be okay.

Nate was a few days old here

How could I not want another one?



Sleep

Sleep has been a battle in my house for years. I was always a great sleeper. I am a night owl who could sleep the day away if left to my own devices. My first college room mate hated how much I slept and my last room mate slept as much or even more than I did. I can sleep anywhere and through anything. When I was pregnant I continued napping on weekends and went to bed early because I was up at night. When I had Nate I was up for the night time feedings but he started sleeping through the night at 10 weeks. It was a beautiful thing. I went back to work when he was 11 weeks old and really needed to sleep the whole night.

About a month before Nate’s first birthday he started waking in the middle of the night and had trouble falling asleep at first. I started bringing him to my bed for fear of falling asleep while I was holding him in the rocking chair and thus began our 3 year battle to get him out of our bed. It wasn’t uncomfortable at first having him there but you are aware of it so you don’t sleep as deeply. He would yell from his crib for one of us and we would argue over who was going to get him. Finally we got him a toddler bed and then he began just appearing in our bed. Over time of course he got bigger and it did become uncomfortable to have him there. This summer I hit my breaking point because my back pain was becoming unbearable and his little feet kicking me all night were not helping. He is all over the place at night and it was driving me crazy.

We moved his new bed into his room 4 weeks ago and he has slept in the bed EVERY night and ALL night. I was afraid that with the change at his school and Love working a new shift that all of our work would fall apart but I have kept him on a consistent schedule and it is working. I come home at 6pm and we eat dinner. We color or play for a little while and then clean up. At 7:30pm I let the dog out and we head to my bed for quiet time where we read and he watches Olivia. At 8pm he goes to his bed with my iPod and watches Mike the Knight. He’s like me and he falls asleep watching TV which is fine. I’m not buying him a TV for his room but he is allowed to borrow my iPod to fall asleep. He is usually fast asleep and snoring by 8:15-8:30pm and only wakes up to go potty and then heads right back to his room.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can keep this going. He’s had the twin mattress since Sunday and he seems more comfortable and is sleeping better and longer. Of course the new no napping policy also went into effect this summer so that is a big help. When he does nap (bad daddy!) he is a nightmare for me at bedtime. The other night I was almost passed out from exhaustion at 10pm and he came in yelling, “Look mommy!” and shoving his hands in my face. He had boogers on almost every finger. I’m all for a clean nose but really?

 His beloved Jake sheets

 Which of course match the Jake blanket

 No napping!

Someone was a little sleepy after a long day

Always Remember

Today is the 11^th anniversary of the September 11^th terrorist attacks on the United States. Living in New York for my entire life it is sometimes hard to remember that on that day there was also death and destruction outside of the Twin Towers. The entire country was affected and we have to remember those killed in Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. Everyone murdered that day was someone’s child and all of them were too young to die.

When I was a kid I remember hearing, “I’ll never forget what I was doing when I heard that _____ died.” Usually people were referring to JFK or Elvis or John Lennon. I will never forget where I was when I heard that the first plane had hit. I worked at a small non-profit and every morning I walked to the convent (yup, one with real nuns) to pick up our newspapers. That beautiful crisp morning I walked in and the switchboard operator was watching the television like she did every morning. This morning something was different. Instead of Maury or Jerry Springer she was watching the news. She told me a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers and we watched as smoke billowed out from the side of the building. I quickly headed back to my office. When I arrived back at the office we turned on the TV and watched the second plane go into the South Tower. We knew then that it was a terrorist attack.

My only thoughts were of my brother. He lived (and still lives) in Brooklyn but he had planned on going into Manhattan to look for a job. I knew it was a long shot that he was even near the Twin Towers but I knew it was probably chaos in the city no matter where he was. I tried calling his cell phone and all I kept getting was a busy signal. I was listening to Howard Stern (who was still on terrestrial radio) and they said that all cell phones were knocked out because the cell tower was on top of one of the Towers. My mother and aunt both called me in a panic and I told them not to worry that Erik would call when he got to a regular phone. He eventually did call and then he watched from his roof as the first tower fell. He was lucky enough to get on a train out of the city before they shut them down and he stayed with us for a few days.

That day was such a shock to me and I only knew 2 people who were there and both got out alive. My second cousin’s husband worked for Xerox and was in the building during the bombing of 1993 and again on 9/11. He survived both but after walking home to Queens that day he vowed to never work in a high rise again. I can’t say that I blame him.

The days and weeks that followed were heart wrenching. I cried every single day and didn’t know if it would ever get better. The fires still burning for days, video of the planes hitting each building, people leaping to their deaths, hoards of people fleeing the buildings as they collapsed, people covered in that white dust, the sound of the firemen’s alarms, photos of the “missing” plastered everywhere, the families crying and pleading for help, the funerals for those whose bodies had been found. The sorrow people must have felt when they finally grasped that their loved ones were not “missing” but among the rubble of those 2 magnificent buildings. I still cannot imagine how those people were able to pull it together and get out of bed. I think I would have lost it.

It is hard to believe that 11 years has passed. My life is completely different than it was then. I moved out of my parents house, got married, lost 35 pounds, bought a house, struggled with infertility, adopted a beagle, gained 40 pounds, gave birth to a healthy baby boy…my life will continue to change and this day will always remain the same. I will always think of the ball in the pit of my stomach and feeling so sad for all of the victims…that feeling is less now but I will never forget.

New Schedule

This week I have felt really off because our schedules have all changed. We had a long weekend for Labor Day and took advantage of Love actually being off and headed Upstate. We came home Sunday night and Tuesday Nate started Pre-K and he did great! His teacher told me he is very smart and she told me yesterday that he is the only kid that pays attention during story time. He’s been a little off lately since he was diagnosed with Fifth Disease so I was really worried about him going back to school. He does well with a schedule so I think he needed to be back. I was off Tuesday and Love began his regular shift at work from 6pm to 2am. I could not fall asleep being in the bed all by myself and with no one watching TV in the living room either. It was a weird feeling but I’m hoping I will adjust sooner rather than later.

Back to the weekend…we went Upstate to visit my in-laws and it was relaxing. I took a nap on Saturday and Sunday and it felt so good. My back was bothering me from the car ride so it was the perfect excuse for a little R&R. On Sunday we went to a local carnival and I think I had more fun than Nate. I REALLY wanted to go on the rides but no one would go on with me and I felt bad leaving everyone. Love made me play a carnie game and I won 2 goldfish! Of course I then realized that I now have to take care of 2 goldfish. We are now outnumbered 2:1, pet to human in my house with a dog, 3 frogs and 2 fish. Did I mention that we named them Hulk & Wolverine? Yeah, no wussie names for our fish.

Wednesday was a little rough going back to work but I am so glad that the cidiots are gone. What’s a cidiot you ask? From Urban Dictionary:

Cidiot

A term that residents of The Hamptons on Long Island have for ill-behaved Manhattanites who visit their town during the summer.

Hamptonites gripe about having to deal with "cidiots" every summer.

I swear it was like the ground opened up and swallowed all of them. Last week I couldn’t go out at lunch because there were cars and people everywhere. This week there is no one around. It is a beautiful thing when the kids go back to school and the East End is somewhat normal again. Here’s to a quiet weekend and a wonderful September!

Beautiful view of the Hudson River and the Vip Van Winkle Bridge

Blue loves Pop Pop's Lazy Boy

So does Nate

Soda Can Scarecrow

I Love This Hat!

Hulk and Wolverine love their new home

Nate had to draw a picture of himself for his first day of school

First Day of Pre-K!

He was excited to see me when I picked him up!

The boys enjoying a quiet rainy afternoon