Things That Are On My Mind

Busy Monday morning here in real life and in my brain.....

Here's a list in no particular order:

• Caroline's first day of 1st grade - it was a good drop off and she didn't seem nervous in the least.  I loved how much lower stress it was this year than last.  I think the anxiety I'm having has more to do with getting over the summer inertia and back into school mode with homework and our schedule and such.   
• Bryce starts his new Pre-K program next week - We found a nice daycare nearby that has a really great Pre-K program and he'll leave before naptime.  (Kid cannot nap or he will not sleep at night.)  He'll go 5 days a week - I'll drop him off on my way to work and one of his grandparents will pick him up by 12:45.  I'm not anxious about the place we're sending him, just the fact that it's a new setting for him with a new schedule.  I think I still have some leftover post-traumatic stress from when we had to start him at his old preschool unexpectedly 2 years ago at the age of 3 and what a hard time he had with that transition.  I think he'll do fine and the program they have is very structured - he'll even had "homework" 3 times a week.  When we took him for his first visit last week, he seemed very interested in everything, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed it works out!
• Piper's continued speech therapy - She's seen the SLP 3 times and I'm still not completely sold on the process yet.  She'll have her 4th session on Friday and I'm supposed to meet with her service coordinator this week as well.  I can tell she's made some progress but the most frustrating part is how obstinate Piper is with not wanting to talk.  I guess I'm also not sure how quickly she should be progressing.  We try to do the activities with her and just really engage her on speaking but it's a lot of work especially when she's quite good at deflecting.  
• A new job for me? Things at work are fine but I'm starting to look elsewhere for a new position since I'd like something that has more growth potential and the best time to look for a job is when you have one!  And then just last week, a job posting came open for a position that, in many ways, is my "dream job."  Well, maybe not a  true "dream" but a job that I would like to be in for a VERY long time.  One of those jobs that I am 100% qualified for and could potentially get into, grow, and really find my place in at a specific institution.  I do not aspire to the upper echelon of university administration (heck, I'd need my doctoral degree for that and that is soooooo not happening!) and way too many politics, but I do have the interest in becoming an integral part of the mid-level of university administration that deals heavily with students and in the administrative side of academia.  Of course my anxiety level has increased three fold since seeing these position announcements given all the unknowns that go along with it.  Being out of job search mode for the past 7 years is a little scary in and of itself but thankfully my resume was updated recently and it just needs to be fine tuned.  And then there's the awful task of writing a cover letter in which salary requirements are required - gulp.  Deep breaths.  One step at a time.  I need to stop putting the cart before the horse as I'm often apt to do and not worry about the possible commute, hours, etc.  But a planner like me has a very hard time doing that!
•  Commitments and Appointments - And as usual for this time of year, my calendar is booked solid with checkups, appointments, errands, and just general stuff that need to get done.  It's no wonder my mind races when I lay down to go to sleep at night.  I'm afraid I'll forget something.  We've got a pretty packed social calendar the next month or so as well. 

So if you see me in person and I seem distracted or you don't hear from me for a while, just know I'm here and just trying to keep my head above water.  Work is pretty busy right now with classes having just begun and trying to get our enrollment numbers to where they should be in time for the USM census.

More on Bryce's birthday and photos from the first day of school (and Caroline's sock choice) later.....

WHAT was that?

I'm not sure what to call what we went through last night - night terrors?  Temper tantrum?  Sleep induced fit?  But good heavens, I'm exhausted this morning.  I actually got to bed at a decent hour last night but thanks to Bryce I went to sleep much later than usual.  Jay and I had just settled down when we heard Bryce kind of whining.  Usually this means he has to go to the bathroom and when that happens one of us goes in there and helps him to the bathroom.  He is a very deep sleeper and often can't wake himself up enough to go so he'll start crying because he's so uncomfortable but once you get him to the bathroom and let him go, he'll go back to sleep without any issue.  Most mornings he doesn't even remember going.  We try to remember to make sure he pees before bed but sometimes we just forget, I mean as adults it's just something you do - not so for little kids.  After last night, we'll definitely be remembering.....

Anyway, so last night, I heard him, went in and helped him to the bathroom even though he always insists that he does NOT have to go and then he stands there and pees a river.  But last night, he also had just started on a terrible coughing fit which was surely brought on by his allergies.  (The poor kid is an absolute mess this year on all of his meds.  Apparently, a terrible terrible allergy season.  The OTC drops that worked like magic last year aren't enough this year so while we have a checkup next week, the doctor's office called in an Rx for eye drops because his eyes are so irritated.  He'll continue on his Nasonex and Singulair, but I think the Zyrtec isn't strong enough anymore and I have a feeling we'll be back to an Rx antihistamine after our visit next week.  Oh and it's not even oak pollen peak yet and he's THIS bad - oak is his nemesis but he's still pretty sensitive to other tree pollens.)    Soooo, he's standing there in the bathroom clearly not completely awake and crying and coughing.  When Bryce cries he coughs and rubs his eyes, but when he's the allergic mess he is right now, the coughing is worse and the eye rubbing makes his eyes look terrible.    But it's a cycle so the harder he cries the more irritated his eyes get and the more he coughs.

I took him back to bed and tried calming him down but that didn't work because he didn't want anything.  So I just sat there while he laid there whining with his eyes closed. I don't even think he knew I was there.  He kept crying and saying things that weren't exactly coherent but I was pretty sure he was semi-awake.  But then he said something that made me realize he might not have been truly awake at all:

sob sob, cough, choke "But where's Woof?????"  cry cry cry

Who's Woof? Well, Woof is Waldo's dog from the famed Where's Waldo? books that Bryce loves so much and had been looking at intently with my mom that evening.  And from there, it just got worse.  Jason came in and tried laying down with him since that has worked in the past, but not last night.  He kept coughing the nastiest cough and rubbing his eyes.  His face was so swollen and red from all the crying and his eyes looked worse than I've ever seen them.  He said he couldn't open the, but I think he just wasn't awake enough to do it.  In this weird sleep cycle he said a bunch more things that let us know he was dreaming and clearly processing things from the day:

"Where's Caroline?  Caroline, GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"  (She had been in his room right before he went to sleep and they had a little argument about it.  Caroline slept through all of this!)

"I will not eat that.  I don't like that. I don't like chicken!!"  (He had a big fit after dinner about not wanting to eat one bite of chicken on his plate and we made him eat it if he wanted anything else.) 

He yelled about Caroline several times, actually.  And the chicken tantrum came up once or twice too.  Finally, after he laid there for the better part of an hour and we left and then each went back separately to try to calm him, Jason went back one last time and took him a cool washcloth for his face.  I don't know if that snapped him out of it or it just happened to be the end of the cycle, but all of a sudden I heard Bryce's non-crying, nice voice say "See you in the afternoon, daddy" and that was that.  Jason said he even hugged him.  Instantly quiet. 

This morning, Bryce did remember crying and you could certainly see how an hour of hard crying had affected his eyes, but he didn't remember all the things he said.  In fact, as I expected, he thought it was hilarious the things he had said.  So is this a night terror?  (Katie, I know you have dealt with things like this with E and L.)  I guess I always thought a night terror was involving some kind of scary dream or something but clearly, in Bryce's case, it has to do with things he dealt with that day that were upsetting to him.  I also believe that Bryce's high allergy state right now is making him more sensitive than usual and he crumbles into crying about every 30 minutes so his sleeping is clearly disrupted too.  I told my mom today to try and get him to lay down for a little bit since I think he needs a nap more than ever.  I know I sure as heck could use one today.

Bad Bad Night

Here's my night in bullet form:

• Went upstairs a little after 10pm with Piper asleep in my arms.
• Piper woke up and wanted to eat again, so I nursed her until sometime after 10:30.
• Put her in co-sleeper.
• Became clear she wasn't about to settle down.
• Lots of fussing, a swaddle, and some screaming later, I got her to sleep sometime before midnight.
• She woke up screaming at 2am.
• Nursed her and put her back to bed without any issues.
• At 4:15 am, Caroline comes in complaining of an itchy mosquito bite (did I mention how much I HATE mosquitos right now?) - Jason was in the shower at this point.
• 4:20 am, hearing Caroline, Bryce walks into my room asking where Caroline is.
• Jason still in shower.
• I put an overly large blob of hydrocortisone on Caroline's leg, rub it in, and point her back to bed.
• I put Bryce back in bed and cover him up.
• I get back into bed.
• Bryce doesn't like the way I covered him up.
• Bryce starts crying/yelling to cover him back up.
• I ignore him. Jason is still in the shower.
• Bryce starts crying/yelling he's thirsty - in fact, he says he's "parched."
• I get up, get him, take him to his bathroom and give him a drink.
• Point him back to bed and get back into mine.
• Bryce starts screaming again about there being monsters in his room.
• Continues screaming and is coming out of his room saying he wants to go into Caroline's bed.
• He comes back into my room and is crying. I tell him to go into the bathroom and wait for daddy to get out of the shower.
• Piper wakes up to eat, of course.
• I nurse Piper and she again goes down without problems - it's about 5:15am.
• Jason puts Bryce back to bed.
• 5:45am, Bryce comes back into my room for no apparent reason. (I ignore him since OMG, I need sleep and he's not making a peep.)
• 6am - Jason comes up to finish getting ready and finds Bryce in our room and that he's pooped.
• He changes him and puts Bryce back to bed.
• 7:05am, Bryce comes into my room and starts to climb up into my bed and falls and hits his head.
• I jump out of bed to pick him up and find out he's pooped again.
• Change diaper and might as well get him dressed for the day since I'm up.

And you wonder why I'm tired today. I think I need a nap now.