Cold Turkey!

Let me open this up by saying King Edith has been a sleeping champ for most of her life.  Months 0-4 have been a breeze.  She would go to sleep no problem, and sleep for large chunks.  Until 6 months hit...

She has grown progressively less and willing to sleep through the night in her crib.  This is our fault.  We know it.  I think this is what happended. 

Around the 6-month mark, she had a few spells where she wasn't feeling well.  On those nights, she would wake up extremely frequently throughout the night.  In the early mornings - when she would wake up at like 5am - we would bring her into bed with us.  Just for the last two hours of sleep mind you, but we did it.  Kent and Leslie - do not do this at this age.  Because those two hours become three hours, because she's up at 4am, and we need some fucking sleep.

As time went on, we found that the only way to get her to sleep past the 2am or 3am hours was to bring her to bed, and make sure not to roll over on her as we all slept.  Usually this entailed me going downstairs to make room, but it worked.  She would sleep.  We would sleep.  A small amount of sanity would return to the househould.

See, the 6 month mark is notable for many reasons.  For one, she's much more tuned in to what is going on around her.  She actually knows who is around and where she is.  So she definitely notices when she's all along in a crib.  For two she's picking up all these new skills.  She's crawling.  She's pulling herself up.  She's sitting up.  All this crap that she never did before, that she really likes to do at night.  Three, she hates to be on her back - which is how babies are laid down to sleep generally.  So she wakes up in her least favorite position, notices that she's alone, and starts crawling around. And screaming. 

Such has been our last three weeks.  She's sleeping or screaming in her crib until we can't take it anymore and bring her to bed.  It's also brought about a lot of weird conversations between Chelsey and I in the middle of the night.  We were not meant to interact at that hour.

So this past weekend we went to Kearney, and pretty much had no choice but to let her sleep with us all night for two straight nights.  There was no other way to do it.  I could do into detail about this, but suffice it to say a screaming baby in a house full of people is a lot worse than a screaming baby in a house with just6 sleep-deprived parents.

We got back from Kearney yesterday and she went to bed at 8:30.  She woke up thirty minutes later.  Screaming.  I took her, and tried to settle her down.  She was totally awake.  So I took her downstairs and watched Green Lantern with her on my lap.  She fell asleep instantly, and then woke up 30 minutes later screaming, because she couldn't get comfortable on my lap. 

This was the final straw. 

I took Edith upstairs.  Woke up Chelsey and told her to go to the downstairs bedroom, shut the door, and turn on some music.  We were going Cold Turkey.

Cold Turkey is something we'd been discussing for a while.  It's the method where you let your kid cry it out until they fall asleep.  We figured we'd employ this method eventually, but had designs on carefully planning it out somehow.  I don't know what we were going to do, but at 9:30 last night, I was like "Fuck it.  I can't take this anymore."

And we began.  My friend John Fallon gave me a very practical baby guide that I have since forwarded it Kent.  It contains a very brief guide for this method.  You basically put her down, shut the door, and kiss your sanity goodbye until she falls asleep.  And let me just say, it is as advertised. 

I would let her cry for ten minute increments, and then come in for about 30 seconds. I wouldn't pick her up.  Just stroke her back, give her back her Devery Henderson (yes, we still call them that) and tell her it was going to be okay.  She returned this coaxing with an array of screams.  Then I left and shut the door. 

I did this three of four times.  I think it took about 40 minutes for her to fall asleep.  It took another two hours for me to settle down.  Hearing your baby cry for 40 minutes is not for the faint of heart.  Even if you have a good attitude about it, which I did.  It's just hard.  I watched two netflix movies (finished one, started and ended another) in the process.  I don't know if I was more rattled, or scared she was going to wake up.  But she didn't make a peep until 4:45am.  Which was amazing.

Then - to my great surprise - she actually calmed herself back down in the morning.  I had to replace her Devery Henderson once and she pretty much just went back to sleep.  She stayed asleep until I left for work at 7:00am. 

So that's how that went.  I'm sure there are darker days ahead, but last night was the first one in a long time that I actually felt like I had control of my baby's sleep pattern again.  I could feel the sanity slipping back in over my shredded nerves this morning.  It felt better.

  

Welcome Back to Work!

Today is Edith's first day of childcare.  Likewise, I return to work from a 2 week sabatical, and Chelsey returns to full time employment for the first time since Edith showed up.  This is a sad day in the Kosterpelding house.  The kind of day that makes you reevaluate your life.

For instance, what sort of cost-cutting measures would allow one or both of us to stay at home?  We don't need our badass cable or our badass cell phones. There's $200 in savings right there.  And who says you need utilities?  That's another $100.  Anyway I add this up, it's not enough.

I have tried to talk Chelsey into going off the grid.  This seems easy enough.  Sell both our cars.  Take the money.  Go to Bolivia.  Disappear.  She points out that this plan is no good, as we don't have the title for either of our cars.  She is right.  The only option is to cash out our 401k's.  There's a good-sized chunk of money in there.  We don't have to worry about the taxes because of our new "off the grid" lifestyle.  This could work. 

In the meantime, I'm reading about how when Tom Waits had his first kid, he was in the process of taking over his management, and finding out he was broke.  He was also moving to New York, and completely changing his musical style to something that his label told him would not sell.  They ended up dropping him over it.  That album turned out to be Swordfishtrombones, which restarted his career, and turned him from lounge act to what he is today.  Of course he did all of this at the prodding of his wife, Kathleen Brennan.  Thank you Chuck, for the fine book.

The answer is clear.  I need to develop some sort of artistic and start to get paid handsomely for it.  Then Chelsey is going to have to come in and make it like twice as good.  Then we move to New York.

Because I want to be like Kent, but better

Yesterday I was carrying a box downstairs and missed a step.  I landed awkwardly on on the side of my foot and twisted my ankle around in a bad way.  Then I fell down the stairs. 

My first thought was "Oh, shit.  We're having a baby, and I just broke my ankle." I let out a scream of frustration and pain.  Chelsey came down to check on me.  I was trying to not throw up.  Then I threw the box at her on accident while I was trying to clear a path. 

But I was able to put weight on it.  And even though is swelled up like a grapefruit, I think it's just sprained.  So I am now officially hobbled for the arrival of this baby. 

But at least I didn't break my ankle.  Right before I moved from Atlanta to New Orleans. 

Spider Dream!

THE DREAM

I had a dream last night where I was in a house full of spiders. Really big ones. They kind of looked like the bugs from Starship Troopers, and I tried to kill one with my hand and it was really hard. I tried to squash it, but it just withstood the pressure. I had to hit at it several times. So I was kind of on red alert and then my mom showed up. And suprisingly when I told her about the spider issue, she was totally ok with it. We walked into this room that was full of spiders, and instantly a big tarantula climbed on her back. She didn't freak out or anything. Just instructed me calmly to get something to knock the spider off with. Which I did. I finally woke up a little freaked out.

WHAT I THINK IT MEANT

I think the spiders symbolized the many things I'm freaked out about with this kid on the way - which explains why my mom wasn't phased by them. Spiders were a good choice, as I am not necesarily afraid of them, but if I was in a room full of them I would certainly not be at ease. Also, I think the weird looking spiders at beginning represented the fact that there will be unexpected things that I don't see now that will unnerve me after Edith gets here.

Thanks brain. I was hoping for some reminders about how unprepared I am for parenthood.

Why You Don't Mess with the Kosterpeldings

Today Chelsey and I got our neighbor removed from her house. And we got her house condemned. We didn't mean to, but we were fairly sure she had fallen in her house. And were afraid to go in and check on her because she is a hoarder and the idea of going in her house frightens us. So instead we let her lay there for like 20 hours, and called the police first thing this morning.

They came in, scooped her up, and condemned her house. From what I understand a crime lab was involved. Lots of pictures. And policemen choking and gagging from the state of her house on the inside.

So now she's gone. And we both feel bad. But it was either that or let her lay there until she died. There was no way we were going in that house.

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 18

A Song You Wish You Heard on the Radio

I never listen to the radio. So why would I care what is being played in it? I guess it would be nice to hear this song. Since I love it so...



Chelsey, here is you video with some nice back story.



Chuck, here you go. I'm not going to say all Sigur Ros sounds the same to me. I'm going to say I am too impatient to stick around long enough to differentiate it.



Kent and Wendy. I'm not reposting yours.

Whose Up for Some Cloud Watching?

Please look at this picture and try to make out some dicernable parts, aside from the massive ear.  It appears we may be having a blob.  We will love her just the same.

For the Sake of History

This is my official post about the fact Chelsey and I are having a baby.  We found out on New Years Eve, and as you might imagine, it was a big fat shock.  Chelsey had an inkling.  I did not.  Finding out made the world stop.  We both sat down.  Chelsey cried.  And then the started the process of trying to wrap our heads around what had happened.  We are still trying to do this.

Having a kid was something that Chelsey and I had talked about and decided was okay only a month or two before.  We basically decided to try less to not have a kid, and boom:  preggers.  In short, we weren't ready for this news.  And it's been a long process trying to become ready.  But I guess we have some time, so that's good.

Chelsey is being a real champ about this pregnancy stuff.  She seems to take everything in stride, complaining along the way.  But complaining good-naturedly.  I've seen her white with nausea, and she gets more absent-minded by the minute, but she just seems to roll with the punches.

This weekend she had a bloody nose because now that's she pregnant she gets bloody noses.  She sent me a text that said something about how she now gets bloody noses thanks to "fucking Frank" (the name of our kid if it's a boy), but the autocorrect screwed her message all up, so it came across as "King Frank".  Which is what we have taken to calling the fetus. 

So here's to King Frank.  You are the king of our hearts already.