Category: Mommying

Sleep, Interrupted

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

I don’t think I can remember a night in the past couple months that I’ve laid my head down on my pillow for night-night and slept until my alarm goes off.

It started when Keith began having trouble with waking at night and getting back to sleep. Once he’s awake, my admittedly-annoying sleep noises kept him from falling back to sleep. Cue tossing, turning and the eventual descent to the couch which jostles me awake.

Then there are the mornings he gets up to go to the gym at 5:30am. He’s typically pretty good at being quiet but the Rick Flair “WOOOOO” that he uses as his alarm gets me every time.

At least SOMEONE's sleeping

On top of all that, Brooke has started waking at night for various things. Sometimes its “night dreams”, sometimes she thinks she’s had an accident (she wears overnight training pants to bed) and the one I’m most confused by…”Mommy!!! I sleep two ti-imes!!!” I have no clue what that even means. My best guess is she woke up, went back to sleep and so therefore can get up now.

Luckily, she tends to go back down quickly with a little re-tuck, kiss on the check and yet another reminder that we stay quiet until her clock turns green.

So as it always tends to work out for Mommy, everyone else’s sleep issues become her sleep issues.

Even though the organizers at our regional Sales Conference keep us very busy and we don’t get to sleep a whole lot, I’m looking forward to my upcoming trip to Arizona so that I can sleep in a big King bed with no one to wake me!!

A girl can dream, right? If only I could sleep to dream…..

Brace Yourself

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

While Brooke has been going to Physical Therapy for her torticollis, we’ve come to really trust and rely on the knowledge of her physical therapist, Miss Mike. She is the third PT we’ve seen and Brooke’s range of motion and neck strength accelerated greatly since we’ve started seeing her.

So when she voiced some concern regarding Brooke’s legs and feet, we were discouraged but knew she wouldn’t bring it up to us if it didn’t need to be addressed. She referred us to an orthotist who will be fitting Brooke with what are called AFOs. They are little bootie-looking braces that will go in her shoes.

Last week we had our appointment with the orthotist and Brooke was not too keen on being in a doctor’s office. (In a bit of poor planning on Mommy’s part, we also had her first dentist appointment that morning) The orthotist and his staff was awesome with her though and in no time, she was cooperating and may have even enjoyed herself.

I had not anticipated that they would do the casting for the AFOs at that appointment and was kinda fascinated with how it worked.
Orthotist Appt 2011.04.05

Brooke was able to pick out the pattern that the AFOs will have on them and she choose purple hearts with purple velcro. This wasn’t a shock to me as purple has become her favorite color recently.

We should have the AFOs in a couple of weeks and we’ll have to start gradually getting Brooke used to them. She is a trooper though and I’m sure she’ll amaze us with her resilience as she has so many times before!!

There’s no Bunny on the Bus

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

Brooke has been pretty reliable with her choice of bedtime song. We’ve sang Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star for as long as I can remember.

However, in an effort to slow the rate to which I was going crazy listening to the same 5 Barney songs in the car everyday, we started listening to this CD.

Still annoying nursery rhymes but at least there’s a little more variety now.

Now when I ask what we’ll sing at night I get “3 Blind Mice” or “Itsy Bitsy Spider” or “Wheels on the Bus”….You get the picture.

When we sing “Wheels on the Bus”, we do the normal Wheels go round, door opens & closes, baby cries and Mommy shushes. And Brooke would always want to do the “bunny”. I know I’m old and not as up on my nursery rhymes as I once was, but I could not remember a verse about a bunny on the bus. So I asked her what the bunny on the bus does.

“Bunny on the bus goes ching, ching, ching”

I was clearly missing something but went along with it because the last thing I want to do is frustrate her at bedtime (or admit that I’m just stupid to my 2 year old)

Until last night when a wave of clarity comes over me while we’re singing said song and I realize…

There’s no bunny on the bus.

MONEY on the bus goes ching, ching, ching!

Her hand motions make WAY more sense now too!!

If you have a toddler, do you ever wish you had a translator to help speak toddler-ease?