Epic Failure, Quiet Success.

There are some moments of Motherhood that are precious, yet sad. Like when you find your sweet toddler having way too much fun in your Rice Bucket. He was so pleased with himself. Can you blame me that I took pictures. Then, Sadly I threw away the rest of the rice, there wasn't a ton left, and I had a new bag, but it would have been nice if he hadn't rubbed his bum all over our rice.

There are some moments that you just wish you could forget, or even go back in time and prevent. I had to admit that I, Me, Samo Ja, I am one of the reasons we don't have nice things. This griddle, it was nice, that is until I didn't put it away, and instead piled things on top of it. My little J is my cohort in crimes against nice things. I may forget about them and pile things on top of them, but J, he is the one who figures out how to ruin them. In this case he found the plug for the griddle and not only did he attach it correctly but he then plugged it into the wall and turned it on. I didn't notice it until I saw him sitting at my craft area (which this year is in the kitchen- thus the griddle was oddly enough also on the craft table). J was playing with some paper flowers. I took them away from him and put them on a nice little pile of stuff I had created. As I told him, once again, that these things were fun to play with but that they were Mommies and so he shouldn't play with them alone......I realized that the air above my pile of stuff was warm, I also realized that the plastic container my paper flowers were in was looking a little melted. I screamed. I started pulling things off the pile. I turned off the griddle and pulled the plug out of the wall. J smiled and laughed, this was all so fun! I got to the bottom of the pile and found this- a melted plastic Ikea cutting board.
I threw away a few craft supplies that day and I learned a good lesson about why I should put things away. If it doesn't belong there, put it away Kate. Really. On a somewhat brighter note, the griddle may not be ruined, after the cutting board cooled off it was easily removed.....Ken is still not sure if the griddle was damaged, I guess we ought to try to use it.

Now, neither of those moments in Motherhood were Epic Failures, but this next one sure felt like it at the time. Ken is on the tail end of a 5 day weekend. I thought since he was home, and neither of us NEEDED sleep, we should make the big move and put the baby and J into the same bedroom at night. We both figured there would be more crying and fussing than usual, we were prepared. So we thought. We talked to the boys, explained how it was going to work. I removed all objects from the room that J could use to climb into the crib. We talked to J about how Baby B didn't need any blankets or stuffed animals in his crib and no matter how much J thought his brother wanted such things, he should not give them to baby B. Little J understood this so well that he, all by himself, removed all the stuffed animals from their room- I guess he just wanted to avoid the temptation. Smart Kid. Bedtime came for J and it took him a little while to calm down and go to sleep. Luckily he was finally asleep when we put baby B in bed an hour later. About 90 minutes after that we heard Baby B crying. It was a nice surprise to me that J had not woken up, or even really stirred at all when Baby B cried. That was a good surprise, the bad surprises came later. The next time there was crying it was from both of them. It was an all out Scream Fest. Off and on, more on really than off, for hours they screamed. I went downstairs to sleep in the guest room and Ken took charge. Poor Saintly Ken, I can not believe he didn't come get me after 45 minutes! Three hours later I came back upstairs and Ken and I decided that it wasn't going to work, the boys (and me really) were not ready for this.

We came up with a new plan. Baby B needed to be really really really good at self soothing. We have read the books, we know that Baby B doesn't eat during the night anymore {we know this because we are his parents ;) } but that he does wake up and we help soothe him back to sleep. So we decided that Baby B would stay in the guest-room for a few more weeks, and we would follow a new plan. 1st Extinction! (it is a pretty nasty word, but I like it a little better than "Cry it Out"). Extinction worked great for J, and it seems to be working great for Baby B as well. 2nd Nap Time will be held in his crib in the boys room, not in the port-a-crib in the guest-room, hopefully this step will help baby B get used to the crib and the room so it won't be so scary when he wakes up there at night. And 3rd, when the time comes that baby B actually moves into the boys room at night, Ken and J will get to take a trip somewhere for a couple of days- To Logan, or really anywhere they want to go where we can find them lodging. This will allow Baby B to acclimate without ruining J's life.

The funniest part about this Epic Failure- when we finally did call it quits and removed Baby B from the boys room, he was all smiles and giggles and coos. He had a gleam in his eye- It was almost as if he had enjoyed tormenting his brother. Odd, because I figured J would be the tormentor.

"What Me? Torment J? You must be kidding!"

The next day both boys slept really well! Failure can turn into Success quite quickly it seems.

Here is the last of my Quiet Successes- J, he is a really sweet and spiritual boy. We were at tithing settlement last week and J kept saying something to me that I didn't quite understand. "Pawfet, Pawfet!" I turned and looked at what he was looking at, it was a picture of President Thomas S. Monson. Oh, Prophet! I was so proud of him. In October I had shown him pictures of Prophets and pointed out President Monson to him, but I hadn't really talked to him since about prophets. My boy remembered! My heart really skipped a beat.

Then today I was talking to him about the pieces of our new Nativity set. We talked about the Angel and the Wise-men, and Mary and Joseph, and then we talked about the Baby Jesus. "Oh, Milk!" he said and he ran to the kitchen, I of course followed him and helped him get his milk out of the fridge. What I didn't expect was for him to then fed baby Jesus. (He fed baby Jesus for a long time, thus allowing me to snap some pictures.) What a sweet boy I have. I am sure that the actual non-plastic Jesus was proud of him too.

J was making "SHHHH" sounds as he fed the baby.

So there it is, those were the Failures and Successes of this last week. All in all, it was a pretty good week. I love Motherhood, I love my boys. And I love Ken for putting up with all of us!