If anyone has asked us ‘How are you?’ or ‘How is the baby?’ in the last few months, they got an earful about how the baby was waking up 7-10 times per night. His sleep problems have consumed us.  He always went to bed with no problems, but couldn’t stay asleep.  Toby would handle any wakeups before 3a, and I would take the 3a-8a shift.  For me this usually involved me getting out of bed around 3:30a and putting him in his stroller and rocking his stroller nearly continuously until 7:30a.  If I stopped rocking, he would wake up and scream.

Toby implemented a night time bottle / comfort weaning regimen about 6 weeks ago.  This involved letting Roland cry for 5 minutes before consoling him for 20 seconds.  Then let him cry for 10 minutes and console for 20 seconds, and so on.  Do not pick up the baby!  Rinse and repeat as necessary.  The immediate consequences of this program was that he cried for up to 2 hours at a time in the middle of the night (anywhere from 11:30p to 4a) for a number of days.  I ended up sleeping (trying to sleep) with my yard work earmuffs on.

The problem with this was that I couldn’t roll over with these things on, so I ended up waking and taking them off.   This went on for many weeks, and I despaired of any change.  During the day, Roly was a cutest little baby, but at night he turned into a scream machine.  Kind of like feeding mogwais after midnight.

I am happy to report that the last 2 weeks have seen significant improvements in Ro’s sleep patterns.  At 8p, Ro goes to bed.  Toby has an alarm set for 2:30a and she sticks the bottle in his mouth while he is sleeping.  Then he will sleep until 7:30a / 8a regularly, sometimes longer.  He still cries out in the night, but is able to comfort himself and go back to sleep on his own.  We are planning on eliminating the mid-night ‘dream feeding’ next week.  Below is a picture that reflects Toby’s hard work and patience.

Some times a hidden gem is found, other times …

On Sunday, the Santa Barbara Zoo held its annual Snow Leopard festival by bringing in snow and sleds for the kids.  We decided to have a family adventure and experience the snow.  We didn’t tell the kids what we were doing until we pulled into the zoo parking lot.  They were very excited, and we were shocked to see the line to get into the zoo snaking through the parking lot and onto the public sidewalk.

We dropped the kids to wait in line, I ran to the front to buy sledding bracelets and Toby parked the van.  We all came together to walk into the zoo once the line started moving.  Max, Lucy and I ran to the top of the hill at the zoo, ready for the snow.  

We saw a tiny patch of shaved ice that held enough of a slope for a 2 second ride in a plastic toboggan.  There were enormous amounts of people trying to throw ice-balls at one another.  There were so many people standing on the snow that volunteers had to use lawn rakes to ‘fluff’ up the ice so that it could be scooped up by the 3 year olds.

After his first run, Max decided he would rather play on his Nintendo DS.  Lucy found a neighbor girl to play with, but only lasted a few minutes herself.  Toby was mad because the concession stand closest to the ice patch would not open for another hour and when it did open, it did not serve hot coco.  I was amazed at the number of people who were waiting in lines scores deep for the 2 second ride.

So we decided that the morning could be rescue with a trip to Toby’s favorite bakery to get hot coco and éclairs.  We arrived at ‘Xanadu –French Bakery’ in Montecito to find the building was surrounded with caution tape and posted danger signs on the plywood over the doors.

We ended up having Vons donuts.  🙁

I have been forgetting to refill my water softener with salt for the past two days, so tonight I bought some salt and had Max hold a flashlight for me while I filled the softener.

Walking back to the back door along the side of the house, Max was swinging the flashlight around and the beam passed over the top of the fence.  Staring down at him was an opossum sitting on the top of the fence.  Max squealed and ran into the house faster than I have ever seen him move.  Certainly faster than when I tell him to take out the trash!  Well, the flashlight went with Max, leaving me in the dark.  I scooted past and joined Max in trying to take a picture through the window.  It was like trying to photograph Bigfoot!  Here is a sample what we ended up with.

Oops, flash is on.

Too much zoom

Bad light placement

Right on.

We have a lot to be thankful for this year.  To celebrate, we had 15 adults (14+) and 6 children.  Since I was a kid, our family  has traditionally celebrated Thanksgiving with the Neinhuis family (Poppa and Burt are cousins).  I believe that the families have been together on Thanksgiving for 25+ years.

We had 10 Neinhuis members (Burt, Sue, Kelly, Lucas, Tim, Jodie, Brooke, Jake, Joe, Caleb, Melissa) and 11 Theule members (Poppa, YaYa, Bub, Toby, Max, Lucy, Roly, Jeff, Jan, Emily, Nathan Bernards) on Turkey day, and Burt/Sue, Jeff/Jan, Joe/Melissa came back for breakfast the next morning.  We capped off the weekend with a pot of chocolate fondue that Jan brought over.

We got to celebrate Toby’s 38th birthday and Roly’s 4 month birthday at the Cheesecake Factory in Woodland Hills last Saturday.  At the restaurant, there was a nutrition guide on the table.  After reading that my lunch portion of Fettucine Alfredo had nearly 1600 calories, I decided that 3 bites was enough and took the remainder home for a second meal.  Lest anyone think that I left the restaurant hungry, I was quite full from splitting a 1000 calorie salad with Toby as an appetizer.