Yes, this is a picture of my wrinkly laundry. I was washing the whites earlier this week. I pulled the church shirts out of the dryer, still wet, and put them on hangers. A little while later, I went back in and saw that I had unknowingly hung them in age order. It made me happy to see these white shirts and to think about how blessed I am to be the mother of three little boys and the wife to a wonderful husband. My boys are so small and needy in so many ways, but someday I will be the needy one and they will be my help. It scares me and excites me how fast they are growing up. Twenty years from now they could be anything in the world, but right now at this moment they are mine and I want to do a better job of remembering that. Brett’s worked quite a few 15 hour+ days lately and on those days sometimes I loose my patience with the boys, sometimes I feel like I’m not a very fun mom, sometimes I let them watch more TV then I would like, but when the house is quiet and everyone is asleep I know that they love me. This week I made a conscious effort to try harder. I was sure to spend one on one time with all three boys at least once a day. I tried to take more deep breaths before scolding them about something they had done. I replaced “go play downstairs, I’m trying to get this done” or “not now, maybe later” with one of these three phrases, “Yes, let’s do it!”, “I would love to. . . ,I will finish this quick so I can spend more time with you. Do you want to help me finish?” or “I just set the kitchen timer for 5 minutes. I’m going to finish what I can of . . ., but when the timer goes off then you’ll have my full attention.” These few changes have made a big difference in the boys’ attitudes and mine. I can’t say I was perfect at it. I lost my temper a few times and I got inpatient, but it’s a start. 
This week had two more noteworthy things happen that I must record, because this is my journal. This is the week I finally decided to plunge into sleep training Owen. I was getting sick of being tired all the time and being cranky every morning. We started Monday night by putting the pack-n-play in the basement with the monitor receiver in our bedroom. He spent a good chunk of 8-midnight crying. We went in a few times to comfort him and give him his binky, but we didn’t pick him up. He woke up a few times after that crying before morning, but it wasn’t very long. Monday night pretty much completely exhausted him, because on Tuesday night he slept from about 8 until 6am!!!! He was the happiest baby in the world on Wednesday! Wednesday night went okay, but not great. I put him down at about 7:00. He woke up and I fed him at eleven, then he slept until 3:15. 3:15 until 4 was crying/screaming. Brett had gotten home from work only a few hours before that, so I decided to pick him up and rock him to sleep, but not feed him. He fell asleep quickly in my arms and slept until 8. I used to be anti-cry it out. It just seemed so cruel, but after Noah (he would wake up and want to be nursed and held every 2-3 hours up until we made him cry it out at 9 months old) I know my body just can’t handle the sleep depravation anymore. I am really happy with his progress, and I’m glad to not be a zombie anymore.
A neighbor of mine made a 30 day, 30 minutes or more workout every day, challenge and I accepted. I’ve been really loving the challenge and support from others that are participating. One of my good friends and I are swapping babysitting three days a week and I do workout videos at home for the others. So far, I have gone running twice (and I will again tomorrow) and done core training Yoga twice. It’s incredible how great I feel already! My goal is to fit comfortably into my ‘skinny’ clothes by my birthday in September. I’m feeling motivated, lets hope I can stay on track.
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