a little help

i've been having a few rough mommy weeks. :(

it could be attributed to my little adelyn flirting with her inner vampire....as in biting her friends on.the.face! and biting her sister enough to draw blood. :( and in true vampire fashion - staying up for hours at night. or it could be attributed to my very whiney miss elena who has been pushing the limits of defiance. or it could be attributed to being stuck inside the house. tis the winter season.

i am happy to say we seem to be on the upswing of it....fingers crossed.

we've been trying to pull each other out of our funk and carry each other right on out of this rut. here's to it!

"No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it." ~H.E. Luccock

the five stages of grief: the loss of my sleep

let me preface this with - i do NOT like sleeping. i truly don't. if you know me at all, you'd know i'm a big night owl and i honestly think sleep is a waste of time. but....obviously i am an intelligible person and well aware that i NEED sleep to survive and thrive. blah, blahblahblahblah.

that said....with almost an entire month of coughing, stuffy noses and toddlers that are just so so at hacking up mucus and freeing their tiny noses of snot, i have not been sleeping that great, er, um, at all. throw in a few late nights out for the momma, racing thoughts of a horror story i heard on the news, your occasional child's nightmare, the need for a drink of water/trip to the bathroom/covers reassembled/etc, and of course the eversolovely overtired toddler...it's been a pretty sleepless few weeks....and i have been grieving the loss of my sleep.

stage 1 - denial. oh i'll just get her water and she'll go right back to sleep. she needs me real quick, i'll be back to bed in a snap. the sooner i go in and get her back to sleep, the sooner i can return to bed. i'll just rub her back before she full blown wakes up. it's so sweet how she needs me, i'm going to miss this one day when she's 16 yrs old and not even home yet. ::cue tear and speedy momtotherescue service:: get back to bed, look at the clock and calculate the hours of sleep i have left....psssh, as if i'm actually going to get them all! silly mommy.

stage 2 - anger. ok, seriously just go back to sleep. yea, i know - i've been in here 6 times. no, your covers are fine, your water is full, you just peed for the 3rd time and your sheets are not too slippery to sleep in. now lay down and close your eyes. yes, the night-light is on. shhh, do you want to wake your sissy and daddy? just go to bed. that's because you have to close your eyes and stop talking to sleep. grrrr. don't you dare get out of bed. go.to.sleep. now. justgotosleep. ::teeth grinding. fist clenching. quick prayer for patience.::

stage 3 - bargaining. yes, your friends are coming over tomorrow, but only if you get some sleep. well then i guess you can't have any ice cream tomorrow. did you want to sleep outside? cause i'm thinking of putting your bed on the deck. how does that sound? if you girls can sleep through the night for a month straight, we'll take you to disney world!! i will start going to bed at 8pm , just please please please fortheloveofgod, sleep! what do you want for breakfast? i'll make you whatever you want if you go to sleep. and you'll get stickers. and cotton candy. and a new bike. as long as you gotosleep. ::more empty threats. more trying to reason. followed by more empty threats and begging, pleading and more begging. pure desperation.::

stage 4 - depression (and guilt). whaaaaaa. starting to really feel the consequences of being awake during the wrong hours. want to cry. want to take back every thought in my head. feeling delirious. feeling physically sick from lack of sleep. feeling sad. for me. but mostly for my babies that can't sleep either. my poor babies. this sucks. how am i going to function tomorrow. will we ever get a full night sleep again?

stage 5 - acceptance. cuddle up and snuggle my baby so that we're all squichy and cozy until their breathing slows and becomes heavy. watch them look so peaceful. oh how i love watching sleeping babies. sneak, creep and tiptoe back to my bed. look at the clock and realize i've been defeated, but hope i can actually sleep for the hour i have left. come to the conclusion that this is probably why some species EAT their young. thankfully for them, we are not those species. ;) tomorrow's a new night.

unfortunately, it's not going to get better for a few days (whether the girls sleep or not) and that's ok. i still have yet to appreciate sleep, and realize this may just be a part of my journey to actually value sleep. but i am confident my time is coming. :)

"People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. " ~Leo J. Burke

good girl jars

7 - the number of sticker charts up in my house. i love me a good sticker reward chart. and elena responds to them awesomely. adelyn, on the otherhand, not so much. sure, she likes her stickers! what kid doesn't? but she doesn't seem to care to fill her charts and it is um, other things that make her proud - like scaling the bathroom sink. anyhoo. i've been stealing and implementing ideas from pinterest...and one of the many...good girl jars!

or cups cause i'm cheap...and impatient and had these in the cupboard. the idea is... each cup represents a different behavior/goal. when they meet that goal they get the assigned token in their "target" jars. and the target jar has rewards to meet along the way.

so a goal of ours is meal times. they are not required to clean their plate, but simply use their manners, taste new things, take their dishes to the sink, etc. when they do, they get a heart. i picked something small cause they almost always are good at meal times.

another goal is outings. the girls get a big purple shiny pom when they are well-behaved, polite, etc when in a public place. i chose something big (these really fill the jars) cause we aren't out and about every day and because they can lose these really fast. they're definitely thinking twice about acting up at the grocery store.

another goal is our duties in the bathroom - brushing teeth, bathing and washing hands. when the girls complete these tasks promptly without whining and/or fighting they get a green jewel. i have 2 different green jewels in there (little beads and flowers). they usually get a handful of these a day, so they are on the small side.

another goal is every day consideration - trying to be kind, thoughtful and patient is part of our every day. the more they display, the more small yellow poms they get. these could be endless and are only mommy's call. i give them completely randomly. it's not one thing that gets you a yellow pom. it's a specific random act of kindness. when they make their beds without me asking, when they give their friend a turn first, when one helps the other pick up the cheerios that the other spilled, etc etc etc. they are small as i like to hand them out to my sweet girls as often as possible.

another goal is bedtime. this is simple - you go to bed without stalling, fighting, etc, you get a jingle bell. you sleep through the night, you get a jingle bell. these have really helped our little ad. she has a thing for the jingle bells.

another goal is cleaning up after yourself. for everytime they clean up their toys, they get a blueish rock. they get one per room. so if they're coloring in the kitchen and clean it up - a rock. if they've destroyed the family room and clean it up - a rock. doesn't matter the size of the mess. the rocks are kinda big cause i could use all the help i can get in this category.

basically all goals are what things we do/work on every day, but they are things that are important to me and i want them to know i appreciate their effort. they love filling their jars with different tokens and feeling the accomplishment of filling it up! the target jars...

marked for each good girl, of course...

the rewards along the way - a lollipop (no dum-dum, an actual lollipop), an ice cream (make their own sundae) and then they get to bake something with me (cookies, cake, brownies, etc). the final reward when they fill the entire jar is their choice. yes, that's scotch tape - i'm not martha stewart here.

the cups sit on a shelf in e's room, where only mommy and daddy can reach them...although the girls are suprisingly honest about what they deserve and don't deserve.

waiting to fill their jars...ad throws her tokens in...and e places them carefully by piling them all up on the side with the reward picture so it looks like she deserves an ice cream or whatever. it's hilarious.

then of course we blow into them, ya know cause it sounds cool...

they've already earned their lollipop and are super close to their ice cream...

i'm noticing it takes about a week and a half to get to each milestone. we can definitely handle that, as they we're probably getting comparable treats that often anyways. e is starting to pull ahead though, so i'm not sure how i'm going to hande that. i'd ideally like them to enjoy their rewards together.

the girls really LOVE filling their jars. i knew e would, but ad does too! and i do too. i like rewarding them with something other than stickers. these jars are fun for them. the girls learned which token is for which goal right away. thanks pinterest for changing up our sticker chart methods!!

"Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have anything to do with it." ~Haim Ginott