april happenings...

nona, stephanie, katie, me and mom at katie's family wedding shower...

ad worte all her birthday thank you's by herself! ;)

change in weather....

means change in pj's....(yes, that is a sticker on her butt)

but not in sleeping positions....

and a few from gymnastics...ad in her kickover with the famous coach tony....

and e in her bridgewalk...

"It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!" ~Mark Twain

kid sleep meets the molly momma

there seriously might not be anything that i love more than to watch my babes sleep.  i go in their room every night, multiple times, and take a moment - or twelve - to admire their innocence, reflect on our day, feel my heart swell with love and pride, pray for their sweet souls.....

 

AND RE-TUCK THEM IN NICELY!!!!

 

SERIOUSLY.

 

part of it is so dang cute...they flip the wrong way...

 

strip themselves of their nice warm covers...

 

have their arms propped up as though they might need to pop out of bed any instant...

 

have their knees up like their lounging on a couch....

get twisted like a burrito in their blankets....

sprawl out as though they are flying squirrels....

and are sometimes sporting compromising positions like the chinese splits!

ugh!  you're doing it wrong girls!!!!

my momma brain cannot possibly walk back out of the room without flipping them back, untwisting them, fixing their blankets, de-propping their limbs, and making sure they LOOK all cozy cuddled and are under blankets....

 

and whisper "good night, i love you." as i re-tuck them in....

 

if i had a dime for every time i re-tucked them in we would be sleeping on gold matresses!

 

now my momma heart AND BRAIN can rest easy....until next time my sweet sweet girls - in a few hours when i check again!

"If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep." ~Dale Carnegie

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

new beds!!!

they finally arrived and while we were away having our girls day....daddy was putting them together! they are bunk beds, but we decided not to bunk them quite yet.....so they're taking up the whole room. but that's ok. right now they enjoy sleeping together....emphasis on right now.

thee best thing about the new beds is that elena has stopped sucking her thumb and spitting (yep, she would gather her spit as she sucked her thumb and spit it out onto her matress - not fun)!! here's a flashback to remind you....

spitty magee from Molly Leone on Vimeo.

but it is NO more! for almost 2 months now! woohoo!!

the other great thing (or not great thing depending how you look at it) is that we can lay with them when needed.

that is....if there's room. ad's become quite the hoarder. she's slept with stickers, blocks, you name it!

our lullabies have remained the same and i wanted to share miss adelyn singing with us....

adde's lullabies from Molly Leone on Vimeo.

while the new beds are awesome, sleep for the girls has still been less than awesome. :( there has been a slight improvement and i'm hoping it continues. ::fingers crossed::

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

sleep...or lack there of

what's it called again?! ahhh, yes....sleep. i'm sure most of you have read the book circulating the web, "Go The F#@k To Sleep." well i'm pretty sure i could have written it myself. also pretty sure i'm going to have to go with the i'll-sleep-when-i'm-dead theory. and i'm getting okay with it.

little ad's been in and out of a horrible sleep phase for months and months. i really don't know how or why it went wrong, but she is proving to not be a good sleeper and it makes me very sad for her. i've struggled with sleep for as long as i can remember and it is NOT fun!

my little persistent punk...it gets to the point where you just do whatever you can for her to sleep, so ad's had more nights in our bed than we'd care for.

and she's sooo dang cute....

but she is NOT fun to sleep with. she HAS to touch you...and by touching i mean rubbing, pinching and grabbing. and she loves to be close....like forehead to forehead. which again, sweet, but not to sleep.

it wasn't every night. not even every other night. she'd go in spurts. but she'd still sleep all cozy in her crib. well.

but then in may she started showing signs that she was probably coordinated and brave enough to climb in and out of her crib... :(

then you know we had "the night." where she climbed out. a.lot. and she wound up having an improptu sister lovin' sleep over that neither of them expected.

it surprisingly went great! like really great. i mean sure ad had to be pulled out from under the dresser - twice. and woke up on the floor. but hey, she slept.

it went so well, that she hasn't returned to her room. it is sister sleep overs every night.

we tried e on the floor next to her, but ad wouldn't stop touching her so she was up back in her bed. and poor ad has trouble staying on that little matress without all those crib bars keeping her in!

so.....we did what any awesome parents would do and gave our daughter the air matress!

so that she'd stay off the floor when she slept all crazy...

but.she.slept.

and of course they played. i mean it's hard not to with air matresses, right?!

they sometimes stay up after we kiss them goodnight and i hear them whispering and quietly giggling. it always ends with elena yelling at adelyn to "go to sleep." ;)

she eventually does...

they use ad's toddler bed in her room for playing now...

and of course mommy and daddy's bed is the place to be still!

but we keep her sleeping on that air matress....well her body at least....her head might have been on the floor sometimes. we can only ask for so much, ya know?!

so we finally ordered new beds - for both! the matresses came first....and uh, they were excited.

new beds from Molly Leone on Vimeo.

and they're doing great in them! even though they're all ghetto on the floor...

with no true bedding...

but of course, my little punk.....you knew it was just a matter of time before she pulled something else out from under her sleeve...

so one day i had had enough and she had to sleep in HER room by herself...and i noticed some white socks under the door...

yep - little bugger's just used to sleeping on the floor apparently... :(

she got to go back in lanie's room...and i can't tell you how much i LOVE going in and watching them sleep. kinda creepy? yea, i know. i really do love sleeping babies. they are just such miracles....and i love to see them so peaceful and reflect on our day and think about our tomorrow...

plus, they're so sweet how close together they sleep... everyone now...awwwww!

so yea, we're kinda ghetto with our matresses on the floor. and at first it really bothered me and needed to order their beds asap. but i'm over it and who really cares. beds are ordered and we're waiting on them...

they'll both have rails....

which are needed...

i love that they're sleeping in the same room. and until just recently i was thrilled that miss ad was actually sleeping. sigh. i guess i'll also be going with the all-good-things-come-to-an-end theory.

but right now i'm going to go the f#@k to sleep. and HOPE that my little punk stays sleeping. night night.

"Sleep... Oh! how I loathe those little slices of death." ~Author unknown