Alayna's Adventures

I now know why some animals eat their young.  It's because they won't take a nap.   There are only two things on this earth (at the current moment) that make me angry, one is stupid drivers and the other is my son when he won't take a nap.   Being a mom is really hard and quite taxing.  I feed, change, clean up, correct, help, and love on my little ones all day from the second they wake up, and often times all night too.  Come two o'clock or three o'clock in the afternoon, I need a break.  I need to be alone for five minutes.  I need my house to be quiet.  I need everyone to stop crying.  I need to enjoy coffee or iced tea or ice cream in peace, alone.  I need to attend to my disaster of a house.  I need to not have to say, "Please be nice to your sister" or "Please put on your clothes" one more time.  I need to pee, ALONE.   My children both need naps, every single day.  My chance for aloneness....

Two thousand and twelve was a year of adjusting for me.  I t was a year that began with me quitting my job and finding my new "work" at home.  I knew when God nudged me to begin my blog shortly before Annika was born, that my job title would change from HR to SAHM plus something more.  God has stretched and encouraged me in blogging in this year, and has more for me in writing in 2013.  My fodder to blog about has been life, period.  My loves, my fears, my passions, my God, my kids, and my hubby - life as an adventure.  And two thousand and twelve was an adventure, a pretty good one as a family...  We had mostly ups and only a few downs, all of which I'll recount for you here.  Annika turned one.  Isaiah turned three.  They both are exerting their independence in various ways, ones that can sometimes drive this momma mad.  But it's part of growing up.  Life is a separation process from the time that the umbilical cord is cut...

This has been a very interesting week in the Richard household.  Isaiah recently began sleeping in his big boy bed in his new room on a regular basis.  We first attempted the big boy bed earlier in January, but it was an epic fail, and Isaiah ended up screaming in the middle of the night and then slept back in his crib.  On January 10, he napped for the first time in his big boy bed, and it actually went really well!  We did the normal bedtime/naptime routine and he went right to sleep.  So, it sounds like the change from crib to big boy bed is a success right?  Oh, so far from it.    On January 18, he began sleeping in his big boy bed every night.  It has now been a week and a half and while it is apparently a joyous milestone for Isaiah, it has been hell for mom and dad.  On Monday morning at 3:45 am, Isaiah decided that "I no take a nap" and was awake for the day.  On Tuesday, Isaiah got into the *childproof* Tylenol contain...