Fashionable Ch-Ch-Changes

So just to continue with the changes in our household, Elly got her first haircut today at my neighbour Michelle's house.  A local mum does haircuts in the home and since Michelle was getting Cooper's hair done, I jumped on the haircut train and asked if Leona could do Will and Owen at the same time.  And of course once we there, I looked at my Mullet Queen and decided it was time to clean her up. 

Michelle kindly took some photos of the grand event.  Elly looks totally unimpressed, but she was so, SO good, not a peep out of her and is quite happy with the result (which to be honest, still looks like a mullet, its just a tidier mullet).

Oh yeah, this is SO much fun! 

Doesn't she look thrilled?

Of course, I kept some of her hair in the Tinkerbell baggie that Michelle provided.

Ch-Ch-Changes

It was a pretty busy weekend here at PJ Central.  Elly's boyfriend Miles has gone and turned two years old, and as such he is in need of a big boy bed.  Luckily for him, William and Owen are in need of even bigger boy beds, so we made a trip to IKEA (where else?  Our whole house is an IKEA catalogue, it would seem), loaded up on beds, headboards and mattresses and then started on the work.

First, we had to take apart the big boy beds to be taken to Miles (and eventually to Caleb, when he tells his folks he's ready for the other one).  The boys love IKEA projects because they get to show off their allen key skills.

 

Of course, Mlle had to be involved too.  See how helpfully she's sitting in Daddy's lap so he can't actually do much?  Also see how Elly and Daddy are dressed similarly in short sleeve t-shirts over long sleeves?  Yup, Daddy was in charge of clothing today.  Too bad for all of us that he didn't decide to rock his stripey leggings to match El.

  

 Then it was time to clean up all the frightening stuff we found under the beds.

This wasn't too much of a hardship as the boys were quite excited to use the vacuum.  Weirdos.

The CN Tower needed a bit of a polish too, apparently.

Finally it was time to start assembling the bigger boy beds.  A pantless assistant = invaluable.

A pantless assistant who gets herself built into the new headboards = comedic genius.

Ah Elliot.  Anything for a laugh.  Wonder who she gets that from?

 

And voila!  Only a whole day's worth of work, but so worth it. Much bigger beds, but they look great, have lots of storage and even have secret pull out shelves....(Its the ODDA series, if you're interested)

 

Meanwhile, over in Elly's room, we decided some changes needed to be made as well.  Namely that our almost-two-year-old needed to actually sleep in her bed rather than use it as a place to store discarded clothes.  I'm not sure what tipped the scales for me, but I finally decided last night that it was time to sleep train her.  For realsies this time.  No half-hearted attempts that slumped off into nothing after the first sign of tears.  No giving up after two nights just because I couldn't be bothered getting out of bed again and gosh-darn-it at least we'll all sleep a little if she's in our bed.  Nope, last night I decided it was time to get serious, so I got out my sleep training book, skim read the chapters again and set up a plan to be implemented the following morning.

The first thing that needed to be done was to once and for all get rid of the soothers.  My sleep training book said that the first step in getting a child to sleep through the night is to get rid of any props they use to soothe themselves to sleep.  So anything like a bottle, a soother, etc.  Babies and toddlers apparently need to learn how to soothe themselves back to sleep without the assistance of other things.  Which makes sense to me.  If Elly can go to sleep at bedtime and fall back asleep in the middle of the night without me having to come in and pop a misplaced soother back in her mouth then great!  But that did mean getting rid of all the soothers today.  Sigh.  

So when we got up, I found two of her four soothers and cut holes in the top.  Some of you may recall that I did this to the boys as well when they were three.  It seemed to work well enough with them so I did it again.  Then I waited for Elly to ask for her beloved "foof".  Two minutes later she came into the kitchen requesting said "foof".  I handed it over and waited, not breathing, to see what she would do. She popped it into her mouth and sauntered to the stairs.  Elly paused at the top and slowly turned to look at me.  Uh-oh. Busted.  But she just smiled and went down the stairs to see her brothers. Really?  That's it?  Maybe I didn't cut the holes big enough?  And then she started yelling from the basement - "MAMA!  MAM! Boken!  Foof BOKEN!"  And here we go!

Having examined the soothers with her, decided they were indeed broken, we put them away on the counter.  She was okay about it, but asked for them a couple more times that morning.  Each time, we would talk about them being broken, have her try them again and then put them on the counter.  Naptime was no rougher than other days, she was a little upset without her foof, but fell asleep for an hour, so I consider that a success.  She was definitely quicker to cry all day, but it kind of showed me just how much we shushed her up with her soothers.  You're crying?  Quick, shove this in your mouth.

But the real success came after naptime when I somehow convinced her to throw her soothers out in the garbage!  I even got video footage:

And here she is watching the video over and over and over again. Not sure if she's obsessed with herself and her crazy outfit or if she just wanted one last glimpse at her soothers.

 Bedtime itself was a little longer, took us about an hour, but I think it went well too.  The big changes fro Elly, apart from not having her beloved soother, were that we moved her bed away from the wall since it was absolutely freezing when we lay her down at night and that I won't lie next to her while she falls asleep.  Instead I will now be sitting on the floor next to her, or in a chair by her bed for the first three or four nights, then move to the middle of the room for a couple more and then finally for the last two or three nights (I hope) be by the door, until finally I can just put her down to bed and leave the room with no tears from El.  Not sure what she really thinks of the new setup, she looked a little weirded out by the new bed position, asked and cried for her soother a bit, but mostly chatted at me ("what daddy do?  Owen say Daddy? Kitty-cat dere."), sang to herself and finally fell asleep.  Fingers crossed it will all be over in a week and we can all get a better night's sleep.

The new bed position 

I kind of wondered if this was the wrong weekend to be doing all of this sleep training with Elly as we've been having some separation anxiety issues with Owen.  Since we came back from the holidays, my little guy has been pretty...anxious.  He's my constant shadow at home, asking me where I am and what I'm doing to the point where I want to scream for some alone time. He pleads with Mark and I to stay upstairs at night rather than go down to the basement to watch tv because he "wants a grown-up nearby".  Last week Owen stayed up an hour and a half past his bedtime refusing to sleep unless we came upstairs.  And the biggest issue has been that he's been sobbing his heart out every morning as I drop him off at school.  He worries I'll forget to pick him up at school (I've never done this, so I have no idea where its coming from), that we'll leave the house in the night without him, that he'll be left behind somehow.  Its gotten to the point where he asks to be taken out of the car first in case I accidentally forget to unstrap him and leave him in there.  Its very hard to watch, hard to find the words to comfort him and perhaps hardest of all to stay patient.  He went through similar issues last January, although I don't remember it being so extreme at home.  But in the end, he came out the other side and started enjoying school again.  I hope we'll get to that point again soon, and just remind myself to stay calm for his sake. 

But all of this to say that knowing I would be spending more time in Elly's room at night for the next little while, where he wasn't allowed to come in case he wakes her up, well I knew that could prove to be a problem.  And it was to a certain extent tonight - Owie did come in after I had told him not to, he did wake Elly up just as she was dropping off to sleep, and I did get angry.  But then I calmed down, went into his room and we had a little chat.  He was clearly anxious, didn't want to go to sleep unless we were in the room with him, he said, and worried that we would "break a window and leave the house".  Huh?!  I convinced him we had no intention of doing any such thing and then I wracked my brains to think of how to get him to relax and fall asleep.  I stretched the truth a little and told him that my yoga instructor gave me some breathing exercises to try at night when I needed to relax and that she told me that firefighters use these exercises to help themselves relax and go to sleep...I guess these were the magic words, because I got him to inhale deeply through his nose and then breathe out slowly through his mouth saying the words "munya, munya, munya".  Try it, its quite relaxing.  My mum used to get me to do the same thing when I was a kid and was stressing over things (yes, yes, he gets it from me, the epitome of a worry wart, I know this).  I went back to Elly to finish getting her to bed and I guess my firefighter breathing did the trick because we didn't hear a peep out of him after that.  

Poor lambie.  I must try to be more patient with him.

Here he is working hard on a paint by numbers that his Auntie Karen and Uncle Dwayne gave him for Christmas.  It was a huge hit with the boys today - I couldn't believe how hard they worked on the paintings, and I think we'll do some more this week.  Talk about quiet concentration!  He looks so much like Mark here.  

See the bracelet on his wrist?  That's another one of my attempts to keep him from getting worked up about school.  I made both him and William friendship bracelets in their favorite colours and then made myself two more to match.  These are their "Mummy Love" bracelets as Owen calls them, and if they feel sad at school, they can look at their wrists and know that I made them with love, that I have them on my wrist too (and I told Owen I will see them and it will be yet another reminder not to forget to pick them up from school).  I think they look pretty cool too, so bonus points there I think.

Here's Will working away.  He hasn't been in the least bit bothered about going back to school, but is my ally in calming Owen down (except on the days when he looses patience with the whole thing and sighs in disgust - "Mum, Owen's crying.  Again.").  Sometimes I can hear them at night when I'm putting Elly to bed and Will is telling him not to be sad, to remember that I'm just in the other room and "do you want my teddy to keep you company?" 

The arteests. Great gift KJ and Dwayne!

Anyway, this has now become the world's longest, most rambling post, but I thought you might like to have a proper update.  I'll try to write more this week about how the sleep training is going, as well as all that fireman breathing.  In the meantime, deep breath in, hold it and...munya, munya, munya.

To Quote Owen

Just some stuff Owen shared with me over the past 48 hours...

"Hey mum? How come you don't get to go to work?"

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"Oh look, mum...Hollow Kitty."

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"MOM! MO-OM! Elly put the pink toothpaste in her hair. And she has a poopy bum."

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"hey mum, I just saw Elly put the whole toilet roll into the toilet. And she did it before I could flush away my poop."

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"Can I have some vegetables in my wrap please, mummy?"

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"Mum? Mum? Mum? Mummy? Mum? Muuuuum! MOM! Well, when will you be off the phone?!"

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"I don't know why she's crying. I didn't do anything to her. Well okay, I tried to jump over her but it didn't work. I guess that could be it."

Skiers!

Gran and Grandpa gave the boys a wonderful gift for Christmas - ski lessons at the cottage's local ski hill.  They went to the hill (about 20mins away) every day for 5 days and had lessons for 2 hours with the wonderful Caroline, a 16 year old full of energy and fun.  Just what the boy needed.  I went over one day with Mark (who took them everyday, thank you Spark!) and managed to video them on their last run of the morning.  I should add that it was a bone-chilling -22 C, but with the wind it felt more like -27.  It was so cold out there!  And my brave little guys gamely went up and down the hill.  So impressed!  The video below is a little shakey because it was so cold and my bare hands could hardly hold the camera (my mitts were too big to film with), so I kept changing hands and putting one in my pocket to warm up.