Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Feeling better...

  • #3 thought it was hilarious that he burped loudly after drinking the water during the Sacrament on Sunday. It was, but don't tell him that!
  • #2 is sick now.
  • Harry Potter is finished! It only took 2 days and one hour. Surprisingly, I left the book around 11:30PM last night to sleep; then finished the last 60 pages or so this morning. J.K. Rowling is awesome! She did a fantastic job finishing the series. I loved it.
  • We have decided to start the Ferber method (but our own kind of interpretation) with sweet boy #4. Instead of slowly getting better about sleeping through the night, he is/was getting seriously worse. I was up every 2 hours to comfort the child, and I finally put my foot down. Last night, I set him down after his last evening feeding and let him wail. DH and I took turns going in to comfort him; it only took an hour or so before he was asleep. And then, miraculously, he didn't wake up until 4:32AM. YES! I was so thrilled; my body was grateful to sleep for so long. If we can keep that one feeding close to 5AM (we put him down around 8:30/9PM), then we're good to go! It's just training/teaching him that he can fall asleep on his own without being held. This method worked for our other three children (only 2-3 nights of crying each), so I'm not surprised it's working for #4.
  • Potty training has officially commenced! I'm nervous for this one, though, because he's never really had a successful potty experience. But he (#3) wanted to start today, and so I told him if we did, we're not going back. So far, so good. He's still dry, but that's because I think he's afraid to go in his nice Thomas the Train underwear. Experience has taught me not to back down, so we'll see how it goes.
  • My house is a disaster area. It really should have a sign outside warning people not to enter. I should be cleaning it right now since I'm finally feeling better, Harry Potter is read, and I have no other excuses. Laundry should be done today, too. ~sigh~ The cycle of chores is never ending. Guess that's why it's called a "cycle", eh?
  • My brother is on leave!! We get to see him Thursday night. He leaves for Iraq next week, and so these 4 days of leave are quite the blessing...

Hey, anybody got any good tips on the following?:
Chore Charts (something I can work with, won't wear out, and actually works!) and Laundry (keeping it caught up!)

8 comments:

Cristy said...

Ah, Cheryl.... sounds like no matter what, life keeps moving forward! We are ferberizing our baby right now too cause I need to sleep! But we've been doing it for a few weeks now and so I am getting less sleep than ever... hmm... this one is stubborn.

Rochelleht said...

Check out my friend, Laurie's website. She has a blog, Executive Homemaker and Tip Junky. Her link is on the side of my blog. She has lots of stuff like that and I KNOW she has chore charts.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, I don't know if my idea for a chore chart is good or not but it works for us.
I created our own chart in our art program. I put the days of the week across the top and then colorful pictures that corresponded with each chore down the left side (since my kiddos can't read yet).
I stuck it in a plastic sheet protector and taped it to the wall. They put a sticker on when they've done their chore and the stickers peel off easy when it's time to start the next week. Simple, reusable and very cheap.

As for laundry, the only way I stay on top of it is to do it all in one day and to do it immediately.
I do about 4 loads every Saturday. I immediately fold each load after it comes out so it seems less mountainous than waiting until all the loads are done.
Occasionally I have to do a load in the middle of the week, but I handle that one the same way.

Cheryl said...

Cristy-
No sleep for 2 weeks? I'm so sorry! It usually only takes us about 2-3 days. I can't imagine it being any longer then that. Have you tried other ways?

Rochelle-
Thank you!

Summershine-
I like that --I never thought about plastic sheet covers before.
I do the same with laundry sometimes, but the problem is that I always have so much to do, and so folding the laundry as it comes out tends to be harder for me then it looks. Maybe I should just buckle down and change a few habits!

Anybody have any other tips for laundry, too? Keep 'em comin'! I want them all!

flip flop mama said...

Good luck with the potty training and sleep training! We modified the ferber with Rachel and it worked wonders! Sounds like you have some experience with that already. Oh yea, Harry Potter was awesome! I loved it too!

Amber said...

Glad to hear you are feeling better! Not fun to be loosing sleep. :( I'm ready to be loosing sleep however- because I'm ready for this baby to get here. :) Good luck with the chore charts- I tried but nothing really came out of it. LOL

Anonymous said...

Pick one day a week that is laundry day. It took 3 days of hard labor to make up for my Harry Potter reading extravaganza. The kids went craft crazy and I seriously paid the price. Good luck!

Scrapbooks by Amanda said...

I find that if I do laundry every day that I tend to leave baskets of clothes everyone and leave loads in the washer. yuck. So, I do laundry two times a week and keep hangers in the laundry room so stuff can get hung up as soon as it comes out of the dryer.

For chore charts, I could use any suggestions you get! It seems like it is easier to do it myself so I tend to do that instead of teaching my kids some responsibility. A friend of mine assigns chores for the whole week which I think is a pretty good idea. Good luck!