Daag!

Well, we're here, we're happy. We're hoping to sleep better tonight. More to come, with photos, but that's the low down on the adventures so far.

And now, off to bed!

Off like a turd of hurtles

Well, tomorrow's the big day.

We're all packed and off on our European adventure - a 10 month-old and lots of snacks in tow. I'll be posting the occasional pictures and video here, so stay tuned for the three-ring adventures of the Govenkoop clan on the move.

Silly Bird

I forgot to tell you about my most recent creation (the most recent Little Grass at Sunrise post reminded me!). So here he is.

Introducing...Silly Bird...

And, just in case you didn't get the full effect of the hair, here's one more shot...(can you tell I'm pleased with myself?)
Amazingly, Jaya actually seems to like it too! Phew!

Letting it go

The cherry tree is blooming, Jaya is climbing, the wind is howling, the days are getting longer, and we're all sleeping better. Spring is upon us.

With only a few weeks to go before our big Europe trip (UK and Holland), we've got lots of organizing, shopping, and planning to do. We're putting a lot of faith into our various gadgets - white noise machine, hook-on high chair, baby sleeping tent, etc. etc.... - to get us through the upheaval, but I'm really not sure what to expect from a vacation with baby.

Besides the buying of new shoes, the much belated dentist appointments, the hair cuts, etc. I think what we really need to be doing in preparation is letting go. Letting go of trying to do as much as possible every day, letting go of late nights in the pub, letting go of long sightseeing drives, but most of all, and somewhat ironically, letting go of going with the flow. Well, at least any flow that isn't Jaya's. So, while we can't plan for what will be, we'll also have to be careful not to plan against it. If that makes any sense.

Anyway, here's to finding the flow and letting it go...!

Oh the sleep we would sleep!

So, we're sleep training.

Phew, that's a loaded sentence. There is so much wrapped up in this, our first intentional parenting experience. Up until now, our parenting has had everything to do with responding to the moment - changing a dirty diaper, now; feeding a hungry baby, now; putting a hat on a cold head, now; taking a hat off a hot head, now...And so far, our approach to sleep has been pretty much the same. As in, the baby is not sleeping, so what do we do now? And as it turns out, that's not actually working.

Well, let me clarify working. We are not getting sleep, any of us. We are tired, all of us. We are cranky, all of us. We need things to change.

So, we've hired a sleep consultant, Dawn Whittaker, who has made us a sleep plan and sent us out to tame the wild beast (sleep, not Jaya, although, sometimes I wonder...)

Aside from the details of the plan - which I'll spare you - I have found the process a revealing and challenging one, both personally and socially (for lack of a better word). There is such a range of opinions on the matter, and since most people don't see it as a matter of opinion, it's tricky water to tread. On the one hand, we know one couple who went with the Ferber method...which meant they let their child cry in his crib for three hours the first night, two hours the second, one the third and then that was that. When they say "it worked", I wonder what their measure of success was. On the other hand, someone else we know still sleeps in the same room as her 12 year old son. How's that for a range?

And how do we decide where we want to be? How much is the crying "natural"? How much does it mean we're breaking our child's heart? Are we teaching him a necessary skill or is the lesson really that he can't trust us to meet his needs?

No one I know has the same experience with sleep as anyone else I know. And the stories keep changing, because that's what kids do. We are the only ones I know personally who have paid someone else to help them and that's hard in itself. In a way, I feel like I've failed. And in another way, it just makes sense to use the expertise of someone who's seen it all before.

And so, here we are, night six of a 21 day plan. We're sleeping separately and out of the room we all share until we've shaken the sleeping-squished-in-one-bed habit. I do nap times, and Kelsey bears the brunt of the nights until we've shaken the nursing-all-night habit. And the strain is starting to show for Papa. Fortunately, I'm getting more sleep than I have in about a year (six - only slightly broken - hours last night!), so I can be the calm one for a change. At least until nap time...

Change a'coming

One the biggest challenges for me in this new life of mine - the one where I'm a wife and mother and how the heck did that happen? - is learning an entirely new set of coping skills.

It used to be that when the world outside got too much for me, I would shut the door, pour a glass of wine, move all my furniture around, run a bath, or settle in with a good book. Or, if the world inside got too much for me, I would open the door and head out to find a party.

Now, in this new life, which includes renovations and two separate houses to maintain, the doors that still close don't actually have frames, so there's not much point. The wine still gets drunk, but with significant restraint and a good dose of guilt. The bath, when it's had, includes a small child who may or may not have peed in the water. And the book is read in one page increments while brushing teeth. And the party? Well, I imagine it's out there, somewhere, and I bet it's fun, but it's way past my bedtime.

So, how do I cope now? Well, that's the thing of it. While my old strategies are long gone, the new ones are slow in developing. Where Before, I would have stayed up all night to get this disaster of a house in some kind of order, I Now turn the lights off in rooms I don't want to look at. This is not a long term plan. So today I have decided that something needs to change. I'm not entirely sure what (although I have some ideas), and I'll have to consult my husband, since he lives here too and all, and I might need a little childcare to make it happen, but something, something is going to change.

Thank you for being mine

Happy valentines to all my lovelies far and wide. May love and lust be yours.

Also, a little video I made for Kelsey can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vpq6B3RiWE

Proof

Just a short post, with video, to show off our little crawler... He's increasingly mobile - learning how to pull himself up and how to get down again. Unfortunately, this new development has not had the positive impact on sleep that I had hoped - quite the opposite, even. Nor is he eating any more, so I really don't know where he gets all his energy from. But gets it he does!

Anywhere, here's the video to see for yourself...

A spring in my step

These days it feels like spring, but there are reminders of winter still. And, I'm sure, at least a few grey days ahead yet. For now, though, some lovely sunshine against the window panes.

We've had many many nights of very little sleep and still, somehow, we're functioning. Lots of new things every day. Jaya is crawling now. He put two and two together and learned the right forward motion last week and since then has been learning what it's all good for. He now easily entertains himself beetling from one object to the next, pulling things down on top of himself and bonking his head repeatedly on the floor. We haven't had a splinter yet, but it's only a matter of time. And so, of course, a new floor is our current distraction. Ah, home ownership.

I am definitely in a springtime mood. Lots of ideas and not nearly enough time. I have yet some christmas presents to complete and send (can I still call them christmas presents?) and then on to all the other possible projects. Food, these days, is one of those. Somehow making food for Jaya feels so much more like a project than just a daily chore. Which is a good thing, I guess. It feels like a unique challenge to me to provide this child with his necessary nutrition. Today I made applesauce and rice pudding with toasted sweet brown rice, ground and boiled. And he liked it. Joy! For me, there was granola made last weekend and already almost depleted. My goal for the next couple months is to get far enough ahead of myself that I can start preparing for the return to work - freezing things, starting good meal planning habits, regular vacuuming. Dream big, I always say...

And that's the report on this January morning. Hope you're all enjoying the air out there...

Embracing Routine

I love the start of a new year, despite the weather that usually accompanies it, and I'm not ashamed to admit I love resolutions. Not the "will lose weight" kind, but the kind that make me really think about what I want for my life and the year ahead. This year, not surprisingly, I have lots to think about. It will be a year in which Jaya goes from baby blob to active toddler. A year in which we really start to discover his personality and learn ever more about ourselves as parents. It will also be a year, hopefully, of simplifying our lives...or maybe not simplifying...maybe just streamlining. It is my hope, and here I put it in writing, to be living in just one place by the end of the year. Hope, I say, not expectation, since I'm trying to let go of that one, but hope, nonetheless. But back to resolutions that are within my control...

This year, as for the last many, I resolve to Embrace Inconvenience. Every year this is a reminder to myself that the "convenience" of our wealthy western lives comes at a huge cost to the planet and our coinhabitants. So, when I'm sorting through messy recycling or stirring compost in the rain or remembering to walk or straining Jaya's pears or whatever picky little thing I'm doing and feeling crabby about, I try to remember why I'm doing it. And not only that, but Enjoy It. Because I'm also resolved not to spend much time doing stuff I don't enjoy. So, okay, I almost never stir the compost, but if and when I do, I will try to appreciate the exercise, or the smell of wet leaves, or just the pleasure of knowing that big pile of rotting yuckiness will one day feed the garden I will one day get around to growing.

And for this year, I have made a new resolution, that never, in years past, would have occurred to me: Embrace The Routine. I hate routines. I have never had them. Probably the only one I have consistently had in my life is to brush my teeth in the morning and before bed. My morning tea comes close, but it's not every day and sometimes it's coffee. But then along came Jaya. And it turns out that babies, and I'm imagining the same is true for small children, demand routines. I've tried to do without. But on days without a routine I inevitably forget at least one of Jaya's meals, I'm late getting him to a nap, I forget to pump for the reserve bottle, I'm still in my pyjamas at noon, etc, etc. While none of these are devastating once and awhile, they're pretty discouraging day after day. And so, the routine. We're still working on what it will be, and it's an ever evolving thing, but still, there's a structure there that's both foreign and reassuring to this new mum. And this year, I will embrace it. And by embrace, I mean enjoy. There's that word again.

So perhaps all of this can be summed up as : This year I will Enjoy My Life As Much As I Can, As Often As I Can. Amen.