32. wishing

chickpea napping in pfau

i am on my ball bouncing and the pea is asleep in our black cherry dyed violet and white pfau. (this wrap is insanely beautiful thanks to the dye job by jenn over at piece of cloth. and jenn totally rocks, she is sweet as pie and amazing to work with...but i digress as a wrap addict will now and again.) i need to get a good pic of this wrap but for the moment i think i'll pick up my camera and try to shoot a quickie of us. ok, i think that one will do for today. 

so much for not digressing.

while i am on here just bouncing my life away and also looking at other people's gorgeous blogs and doing a lot of wishing the bean is being a saint. a saint i tell you. he is playing quietly with his toys and occasionally asking me in his best whisper voice if i will help him go pick out another car or plane to play with. he has amassed quite a pile here in the living room but i could care less because, as i said, he is being a saint.

so saintly in fact, that i looked over there a few minutes ago and my eyes actually filled up with tears. tears of longing. longing for the ability to be the most perfect mama ever for him. which some part of my brain thinks i was before i had the pea and thinks i now fail at. and he is so amazing, and special, and precious. i wish i had not asked him to be quiet because the pea was rejecting the nap in crib plan. i wished i was laying on the floor driving his cars with him. i can't believe how amazing he can be. so, i had to cry a little bit. for the bean mama union that used to be. it was something special. and it is over. that is hard sometimes.

now because this is getting a little too upsetting for me for today i think i will list off my wishes for my blog that have been accumulating as i look around the web.

i want a logo.
i want a site not powered by blogger (sorry blogger - no fault of yours).
i want my pics to upload and look good not like crap because i have a nice camera and it stinks to upload my pics and have them look like i never got my nice camera.
i want my own domain name.
i want to make banners.
i might want a tag line.
i want a place that helps me to take my writing more seriously.
oh, and i don't want to lose any of my content i have already amassed.

ok universe? there is my wish list. can you make it happen?

19. the worst kind of ramblings

a gratuitous pic of me and the pea in woolie aare

the most amazing thing happened today. when little miss pea woke up from her nap after about 40 minutes and i was rocking her back to sleep, and i wasn't sure if it would work, i started to feel a little angry. and i said, hi strong fire in me. and i felt, integrated and whole and totally in the present and powerful and strong and not mad at all. i know not each moment or attempt will be that powerful but, dang! rock on universe!

i need to be working on a lot of grocery lists right now. so i am kind of feeling a little guilty about using the "down time" to blog. although, i am not sure meal planning counts as down time. this is one of those things a mama thinks about. is it indulgent to blog while my youngest sleeps and my older has a moment of "bob?" should i be making lists, doing dishes, lanolinizing the clean wool? when is it ok to say, oh yeah the house is a mess and the lunch dishes are in the sink and i still have not finished unpacking our bags from the trip south but i'll just bounce and blog anyway? how much time do you take to yourself when your job has no time boundaries and is never ending all day and all night every day and every night?

steph over at adventures in babywearing was writing in kind of a similar vein the other day and i happened to catch her post. i am always torn on this stuff. because really this is The Thing i want to be doing with my life right now. being home with my kids feels like the biggest blessing the universe divine love ever bestowed on me sometimes. i mean, i would be a million times over miserable if i was one of those amazing and dedicated work out of home mama's. but at the same time, i kind of want a lunch break. with another adult. somewhere that does not involve sitting far enough away from my food that baby pea can't grab it. wouldn't that be...amazing? and wouldn't it be kind of nice to leave work for the day? like, here i am arriving at work and then leaving work? no like each minute of each day of each week of each month of each year i am at work. but, then, since i am a stay at home mom it is ok to say about me, "oh no she doesn't work."

i don't know. right now i am sitting on the ball blogging while the pea sweats her sweet six month old sweat all over my collar bone where her chunky cheek is resting and i can feel her breath blowing in and out as she travels through her phases of sleep and i am not staring at some kind of monitor hoping to catch her before she wakes so i can try to get her back to sleep in her crib. we are in a nice simon hug, because i am breaking lovely simon in for my dear dear friend mellowmama. really there are only a few more months, maybe a year if i am lucky, when i will get to do this. i love wearing my kids in a didymos. i love feeling their slack body snoozing on me. or having my hands free to push the cart around the grocery store while they are tied tightly onto my back.

mellowmama also loves wrapping her kidlets but she does not like breaking in new wraps. and since she is my bff and i would do almost anything for her i am honored to be the totally spoiled person who gets to play with her brand new didy and make it soft and snuggly enough for her taste. mellowmama and i met through the internet which is kind of insane and i would think only a crazy person would find a best friend on the internet. but, it happened to me. she has two boys about a year apart in age, she is an "attachment parenting" mama (that sound so silly), and she is the queen of patience and go with the flow. when i feel like i am going to make my brain explode because i want things different and i want it now and i need everything to be Just So i can call her and say, "how do i make my kids like your kids?" because her kids sleep, and don't have hour long tantrums, and let her go places. and she will talk me down and remind me how to follow their lead and that they are kids, babies, and they need time and they need their parents to be calm not stressing out. mellowmama. godblessher, she has talked me off several cliffs. oh, and into several large diaper purchases. but, that is all a part of the package. and i like the package.

i can't even imagine what the title of this should be since i am pretty much just blathering on. and i ought to say a sincere "i am sorry" to my six (six!!!!!!) followers who are probably bored to tears by now. because following my brain on it journey around the last twenty minutes has been pretty full of words without a lot of content. so to speak. although if you clicked the link you got to see a picture of a really pretty wrap. that kind of thing always makes me feel good so maybe just that was worth your time. isn't it funny how no matter how much i do not want to care about things they still cheer me up immensely. like, a wrap can make me go from storming around the house to holding both kids and doing the hokey pokey. just because it is a wrap and i like it so so so so so much. never mind a cute girly fitted tush or a sbish soaker. i love some stuff here.

but to my credit, i loved the moment this morning more. the powerful me being right here moment. so, i guess i am not all bad.

16. sleep balancing

chickpea asleep in jorinde while i cook

some kids are born as sleepers. these kids shock and amaze me. i was reading a note written by a non-sleep training friend of mine that said that her 7 month old daughter falls asleep laying down holding her husbands hand each night. my eyes practically fell out of my head. what?!?

my kids seem to require sleep gymnastics. they are sleep fighters and they tend to wake at the end of each cycle. i wish i had the other kind often and i am really green with envy. but i do not. with the bean i killed myself obsessing about his sleep. he fought sleep, he woke every hour or two at night, and i bounced, held, wore, nursed him through all his naps trying to eek out five more minutes of sleep. because i was so worried about him being underslept.

when flash and i agreed to have a second child we said, "this one will be a sleeper" so many times it was like a prayer/obsession. guess what. she is not. i mean, she is a little but less sensitive to every little thing then my first was and she will sleep on her own for a few hours at the beginning of the night. but, she still usually requires sucking and movement to fall asleep, will really only go to sleep for mama, and does not nap more then 20 minutes or so if i put her down. i can't control the situation like i could with ds because i have him in the house with us. often i wear her for her naps and eventually his exuberance wakes her and she has, once again, napped for less then an hour.

with the bean i read the sears sleep book, the no cry sleep solution for babies and toddlers, and posted on several attachment parenting boards seeking advice. with the chick pea i am determined not to get obsessive about because that only leads to The Big Sleep Wars, which i still have with the bean. i want to just follow her lead and assume that if she is tired she will sleep. but, i also know she is not a "natural" sleeper and she needs some help to get enough sleep to be healthy and happy. so, i am seeking balance.

my dream, i rock and nurse her to sleep then put her down and she takes a two hour nap while i get stuff done around the house and play with the bean one on one. my reality...so far from that. i am thinking of trying the no cry nap solution. i also feel like i have a lot of ideas already from reading her other books but i am not sure if i am dependable enough to implement them.

there are benefits to her being able to sleep on me. i am mobile, i do not have to be home for naps, we are bonding, i LOVE babywearing.

there would be benefits to her napping on her own. i wouldn't worry that she is woken by her brother and that is unfair. i could get more done during the day.

i mostly feel lost and confused and unsure how to deal with things. there are so many sleep things i would like to be different i do not know where to begin and i also don't have the energy at that time of night to work on any of them.

bean: i wish he would do bedtime with someone besides me. like, his dad. that would be nice. i wish he would accept comfort from flash in the middle of the night. then i wouldn't be nighttime parenting two kids.

chickpea: i wish she would go to sleep for her dad too. i would like her to be a little more flexible in who comforts her eventually when she does not need to nurse for nourishment. i would like her to nap better.

which kid to focus on? how hard to work on it? how much to trust in time? how to focus without getting to the point of obsession and anger/frustration?

if any of you out there have this all figured out i'd love for you to come up with my plan.