Mom’s Day 2008 was simple, delicious, and all-around lovely.

We hosted a Mother’s Brunch (attendees: my parents and Neil’s granny) chock full of cinnamon swirl french toast, asparagus frittata, bacon, fruit salad, bloody marys, and strong, strong coffee. We all ate a lot, talked a lot, and just enjoyed the sunny Sunday morning.

Dash wandered off after brunch and played by himself for a while (something he doesn’t do for more than, say, 10 minutes usually). I sat back and listened to him talking to himself and to his toys and was reminded of how much I adore him and how lucky I am to have him in my life.

When he was done playing, he helped Neil and my dad assemble an Ikea shelf that has been sitting around since our big trip there a month or so ago. Showing some true skill, he put one dowel after another in the holes. Kind of amazing to see.

While the men put the shelves up, we ladies and Dash took a walk down the street. Walks with Granny are done at a slower pace, and I figured it would be a short one. There are bad knees and general old age to contend with after all. And maybe it was the french toast, who can say, but she decided to make it all the way down our street and up the big hill. Probably just under a mile in total. I was so proud of her for pushing past what would have been her normal stopping point, and so pleased to be holding her hand the whole way. My maternal and paternal grands all passed away years ago, so to have a grandmother in my life again has been such a blessing. I love to hear her stories of momhood (when she had her babies, a nurse from the hospital came home with her for a week to help out, imagine that!) and tales from years ago (summer vacations with friends in the Poconos, ironing every single piece of clothing every single time it came out of the wash for years and years and years… hmm, that must be why she suggested I iron my cloth napkins for the next breakfast she comes over for).
Anyway, it was a lovely multi-generational walk with Granny, my mom, me, and Dash. So many mothers in one place, it felt powerful.

Oh, and gifts! I’ll add some photos of these soon, but for now just the descriptions. Neil had a great photo of him and Dash taken and printed out for me. It’s wonderful and makes me tear up. Must be framed. And… he bought me cable tv. I hear most of America has had this “cable” for decades now, but we’ve been getting by on rabbit ears and a whole lot of patience. Good god, I can’t believe we’ve lasted this long. The cable lady came this afternoon and we’re now the proud owners of some 30-odd stations (odd might be a key word, actually) of sports, shopping, and a few miscellaneous channels from the next package up that snuck their way in. Spike network anyone?
I was luxuriating out on the porch with a book while she hooked us up and when I came in to see the results, our rabbit ears were mysteriously nowhere to be found. Do you suppose she confiscated them? She was probably mortified to see them and thought she might do us a favor and just have them put down for us. Thank you cable lady.

My third and most creative gift was from my mom. She’s gotten into making altered books lately though I didn’t expect to ever receive one. Well, she made a lovely themed book (theme= me) with page after page of things that I like to do or read or eat, and one final page about being a mom with a photo of Dash as a baby-baby. Thanks Mom. I love it.

Hope you all had a nice Mother’s Day too.

But I spent several minutes on 5 Minutes For Mom entering my name in their Mother’s Day Giveaways anyway.

Low odds, maybe. I guess it’s just the thought of winning. Brings me back to the first thing I ever won, way back in the early 80s at a church raffle. I just knew I was going to win the phone (a phone! just for me! and i didn’t even have a phone jack in my room! don’t care!) or the fancy clock radio.

I even wrote about it in my diary. Such was the excitement surrounding this raffle. 

Results?

Did not win phone.

Did not win fancy clock radio. 

Did guess the exact amount of jelly beans in the jar and won one of these:

I am so excited that it’s finally the weekend. The sun is shining (still a bit cool, though I’m willing to overlook that), the birds are tweeting, and the daffodils are in full bloom. Neil is working regular hours again and we were just invited to Granny’s on Sunday for boiled dinner. Sounds good so far, huh?

So what are you all doing this weekend? For me (us) it’s early-morning Pilates (while Dash and Daddy have quality coffee shop time or maybe a walk about town) followed by an afternoon at Camp Ketcha in Scarborough. It’s their annual May Day Family Festival featuring pony rides (!), face painting, pizza eating, and music for the whole family lovingly played by my dear husband.

Come on out if you’re going to be in the area. It promises to be sunny and slightly warm (it’s maine in spring, what do you expect?) and there will be ponies! Ponies, people!

Sunday, what I’d really like to do is get started with our garden. We put in some lasagna beds about three weeks ago and while we wait for them to settle and prepare for planting, it’s time to get a head start on the seedlings. Tomatoes, peppers, artichokes, sunflowers, lettuce, blueberries, basil…. I can’t remember the entire list but it’s FULL. Maybe even too full for the space we have to work with!

With that list, it’s off to our local gardening center and maybe a call to Johnny’s to get things started.

Now to figure out how to keep three cats and a curious child away from the rows of growing seedlings…

Aside from putting them at table height (which will keep Dash away but not the cats), any other suggestions? I have some plant-loving kitties here.

Well we’ve had quite the weekend/week around these parts. Neil is working overtime to meet a deadline in spite of a cold that he was thoughtful enough to share with our son. Which means I’m taking care of drippy nose delightful Dash who wants to be held more than usual. Can’t say I mind that (he’s such a cuddle-monkey) though he is getting heavier and heavier. On the plus side, nice upper-body workout.

Thankfully, in spite of the coughing/snot dripping cold, he is still sleeping through the night. I feel the need to say that again, bear with me. He slept. through. the. night. And has been for a couple of months now. For someone who got up every two hours for a year that is an amazing statement. I mean seriously- momma’s tired kid.

A lot of people have emailed me and asked me how we did it which I will happily detail below. But first I just want to say thank you to all of you who shared your stories about your own sleepless kids. It actually does help to know we didn’t go through it alone. Though I don’t remember seeing you in my bedroom when I was nursing Dash every two hours. Hmmmm… Maybe that’s just as well. Would have been weird.

So here’s how we did it:

Shortly after his first birthday we sold his crib.

Shocking, I know, but he never used the thing. We bought it because that’s what people do when they’re expecting their first child, and in particular, that’s what crazed-nesting soon-to-be-mom’s go nuts over and make their husband’s assemble rightnowdamnit!

Anyhow, note our cat violet curled up in the sun. She and the other cats got a lot of use out of the crib and were no doubt sorry to see it go. But it had to go because it had no part in our Get Dash to Sleep Through the Night if it’s the Last Thing I Do plan.

We replaced it with a twin-size futon mattress that we put right on the floor. The three or four inches of mattress height were enough challenge for Dash so we’ll deal with a bed frame later on. And no, you will not be seeing a photo of the bed because it’s really hard to make a mattress on the floor look anything but trashy. And yes, our bed and box spring are resting on the floor too, so I know what I’m talking about.

For the first week, I slept with Dash in his new bed. I wanted him to get comfortable there but still have me at arms reach. He woke up here and there, but was almost immediately sleeping better than he had his entire first year of life. So far so good. But the ultimate goal was to get me away from Dash so he would get over the temptation of nursing every. minute. of. every. night. So…

After one week, I returned to our bed and Neil started sleeping with Dash. I won’t lie to you, there was some crying. There was also cuddling and singing and talking and back rubbing. And soon thereafter, there was sleep.

There were maybe two weeks where Neil spent every night with Dash. Dash would wake and be upset there was no nursing on his horizon and cry for a bit. We tried bottles at first (which were no substitute since he wasn’t looking for food, he wanted the comfort) until one night when I forgot to pump and strangely, everything went fine. He adjusted to no milk at night pretty quickly (which resulted in my milk production going waaaaaay down) and started sleeping in larger stretches.

Neil moved back into our room (hello husband!) and when/if Dash would wake crying, Neil would go in to comfort him back to sleep and then creep quietly (note: pay careful attention to just how creaky your floors are when buying a new house. Too creaky? You will be sorry when trying to sneak around on your baby.) back to our room.

And now? Dash sleeps twelve hours a night, waking promptly by 7am. And that means that I have the ability to sleep twelve hours a night, though naturally I do not. I’ve rediscovered the simple pleasure of reading in bed so I waste a couple of hours right at the beginning. But who cares!? My baby sleeps alllll night!

And that’s how we did it. Any questions?