Disagreements....

So, it's probably not surprising that my husband and I don't always see eye to eye. One HUGE example of this would be on the "CIO" (cry-it-out) method. I am COMPLETELY against it, where as he believes it's the ONLY way that Lena will learn to self soothe and sleep through the night.

It's true, Lena is nearly six months old, and still waking every 3-4 hours. **big sigh** As exhausting as this is for me, I feel that if she's waking up and crying out, she must need something, even if it's just me to hold her. I am also convinced that she will outgrow this. Prime example- my parents never did cry it out with me, and I don't need them to come in and rock me to sleep anymore!! :0)

However, I am really beginning to get slap happy with the lack of sleep. The ONLY time I get a little extra sleep (ie and hr or two) is on the weekends when Josh gets up with Lena in the mornings, allowing me to sleep in, or when we are with family, and they get up with Lena in the mornings, allowing me to sleep in. I am still the one, though, that gets up with her during her wakings at night, so while the couple of hrs extra are nice, they still aren't a full 8 hrs straight of peaceful sleep.

So tonight I am going to give an attempt at starting Elizabeth Pantley's "no cry method". I feel that this is the best method for both Lena's and my emotional state. So far, o-k! We layed her down in her crib, and to no avail, were quickly swimming in the sound of horrific crying. We let her cry for a bit, before I went in, picked her up to calm her down, and placed her...awake...back in her crib. I then stood over her humming and gently patting and rubbing her, until she drifted off to dreamland. This is a HUGE feat for us. Usually Lena falls asleep with the bottle in her mouth, and in my attempt to wean her off of that at night, I cut out that comfort feed.

There's not much of an update other than that she's slept peacefully for about the last hour in her crib. Nothing new, she usually goes down after being rocked and sipping on a bottle for 3-4 hours. The toughest part is going to come later when I have to fight my tired eyes at NOT putting her in the bed with us.

I'll let you all know how this works for us. Unfortunately we are going out of town for two weeks on Friday and I HATE the thought that all this work will just go down the drain. But the reality is, we travel and have visitors CONSTANTLY! I am just going to have to put Lena first when we are gone, or have people over and keep to her bedtime routine. Just when we think we get a breakthrough, we have the parents over, or end up at home where people want to hold her till all hours of the night. It's sweet, and I get it, but the truth is if we don't hold on to some sort of normalcy, life is literally HELL when we get home. Why you ask? Because Lena EXPECTS to be held 24/7 after that, and it's just us out here. I love cuddling with my baby, but unfortunately I have to get other things done during the day, like eat, shower, pee occasionally!

So we will see where this attempt at peaceful nights takes us, and again, I will do my best to keep you all updated!

Cooking!

Those of you that know me and Josh, know that we very RARELY eat out. When we do decide to venture out of the comforts of our home, it's usually with the company of friends or family. We are home bodies through and through, that LOVE LOVE LOVE to cook! With the trees beginning to turn and the smell of fall wafting through my home, I've def. been on a roll this week with the home cooked meals. Let's just say, I think Josh will keep me!!

Monday night we got home late from Bowling Green, and decided we should throw something quick together. I had some chicken bites in the freezer and some romaine lettuce. An egg was boiled, bacon microwaved, and buffalo sauce used. It was yummy, and Josh gets the credit for this one. Tuesday night we did a chef salad. ( we wanted to use up the lettuce since we'd been gone a few days and didn't want it to wilt and be wasted) Wednesday brought homemade potato soup, Thursday was cheese ravioli, salad, and yummy apple dumplings, and tonight is a big ole pot of beans and cornbread!!

Something about this time of year makes me want to get up and go. My house always stays clean, and the laundry done, and my baking skills drastically improve. I have a ton of friends that "claim" they are just not good cooks. However, I'm just not buying it. The beans I'm making tonight are just a bag of pintos covered in water with some slices of bacon thrown in a crockpot. Easy as pie.

Speaking of pie, those apple dumplings are the easiest dessert, and I promise you wont be disappointed. You just take cresent rolls filled with pieces of apple ( that have been rolled in sugar and cinnamon) Put in a baking disch and fill with a half a cup of water mixed with lots of sugar and cinnamon, then dollop the dumplings with butter and bake for 30 min!! AMAZING, you won't be disappointed!

This time of the year I also tend to watch Hocus Pocus about 100 times. We haven't gotten around to a viewing yet, but I am thinking it would go amazing with some pinto beans and cookies!! ;0)

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