Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

So Brian called the realtor and kind of ran him through the wringer and told him that he is not doing a good job. Magically, we have a new realtor now! He called and worked it out with the bank that owns the property that we can close on the 1st. And he is going to try to find out if the property was insured during a hail storm in May, and if so then maybe we can get the insurance company to replace the roof.  That would save us a lot of money and if we can close on the 1st that will give us at least a fair amount of time.  Realtor guy has worked harder for us in the last 24 hours than he has the past 2 months! Also can I just say, I'm thankful that the person I married is not like me. I am more of a door mat type person (until it comes to my kids). I was all "Don't make him mad, let's just try to get this over with!" and Brian was all "No! He works for us and he needs to do a better job!" Guess who was right. :) Oh and the home inspector said that t...

Ben has been putting himself to sleep for nap times! Can you believe it? If you would have told me a week ago that Ben would be napping on his own right now I would have laughed in your face and said no way! NO WAY! Yesterday he took THREE naps on his own, the first two were an hour and 15 minutes and the last one was only 40 minutes, but hey beggars can't be choosers! I just nursed him, put him down in his bassinet awake, patted him a minute, then walked away. No crying, no fussing, and when I left he was awake. It's a miracle!  I think it has really helped that he has apparently developed a great love for his middle and ring fingers, and sucks on them regularly. It looks like he's signing "I love you". :) The bad news is, he has a cold so he's not really sleeping any better at night.  Last night he was up 8 times between 8 p.m. and 7:30 a.m. this morning. I downloaded a sleep tracker ap on my phone so I can easily see when he was awake and not have to tr...

So yesterday I tried the same thing as the night before with nap times - nursed him, then put him into his bassinet and tried to pat him to sleep. The first nap he slept for 2 hours and fifteen minutes! Did not wake up one time! This is the longest he has slept by himself since he came home from the hospital! He has slept for longer (the longest was 3.5 hours) but it was always in the sling or next to me in the bed at night. Awesome, right?? Oh I also tried to give him his bottle before that (which, if anyone is curious, was 2 ounces of breast milk, 1 ml of iron stuff, plus 1/4 tsp of formula). He ate one ounce and then started FREAKING OUT and wouldn't take the rest. I tried everything I knew how for 5 minutes to get him to take it and he just kept screaming. So I just nursed him. And even though I had just pumped he was definitely swallowing which I think is crazy. My boobs hate the pump and would rather keep the milk for the baby I think. Then, second nap, did the same thing...

So, sleep has not improved despite denying myself dairy.  Kind of crappy but oh well. So I've been trying to figure out what else I can possibly do. I just don't know how much longer I can go on getting no more than an hour or so of sleep at a time. I have absolutely no problem getting up in the night to feed my child. But getting up 6 times over the course of 8 hours to be his mommy pacifier? Yeah...that sucks. I don't care who you are. And it's not like it's just one bad night...it's every single stinking night.  I could do getting up 2, 3, even 4 times.  But 6 is just crazy. No way he's getting the sleep he needs. I'm definitely not. Another thing I've been thinking of is our day time routine. Right now I'm home alone with Ben while Brian is at work, D is with him (at football practice), and the other three are at preschool. I can nurse Ben to sleep for an hour if I need to, the house is perfectly quiet with no one coming or going.  Once w...

Well, sad to say I have reached the end of my rope with Ben's sleep habits.  After doing a little research, I came to conclude that he POSSIBLY might have silent reflux/heartburn.  He doesn't spit up very often, but he will occasionally get a horribly nasty look on his face and kind of smack his lips, not to mention the fact that he won't go more than an hour and fifteen minutes without waking up. I don't feel that he's waking because he's hungry, because he'd often go right back to sleep into a deep sleep after only 5 minutes of nursing. So, I feel that he was waking up mostly for comfort. I can understand that if you have heartburn (which I honestly have never had, another benefit to having a baby early I guess) you might like a nice drink of milk to cool down your throat, yes?  And then after a little drink maybe you will feel better and go back to sleep. He doesn't have really any of the other symptoms. But I just don't know what else it could ...

We had Y's birthday party on Saturday. We were going to have it the week before, but since he was sick we delayed it.  We just had a small party with the grandparents, which was the same thing we did for C's birthday party. We had pizza, and Y ate I think 3 pieces which is kind of a lot for a 4-year-old. While he was doing the cake stuff I had taken Ben into the bedroom to nurse him, so I missed that part. Anyway.  I guess he started feeling unwell, so he didn't eat any cake or ice cream (so sad!). But he played with and enjoyed his new toys. That night he threw up. Again. At this point we were thinking maybe it was a dairy sensitivity. The chocolate milk seemed to trigger vomit, and the pizza had copious amounts of cheese on it, so...? So we have been somewhat restricting his dairy, definitely no milk to drink, no more pizza, etc. Yesterday I was finishing putting away all the party stuff, and took a look at the number 4 candle he had had on his cake. It looked l...