Matthew's First Year

I can hardly believe that it is Matthew's first birthday today. That went so fast! I'm so thankful that he came to join our family. We all love him so much, and he has brought us so much joy. I had so much fun making this slide show of his first year. I kind of got to relive everything, except that heinous c-section. Anyway, Happy Birthday Matthew. We love you!!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Saying, "I'm Tired" Would Be An Understatement!

I should have known that is was too good to be true. On a much earlier post I made the mistake of saying, out loud, that Matthew was a great sleeper and a self soother. HA! Talk about counting your chickens before they hatch. The last five months have been absolutely HEINOUS! He has turned out to be my worst sleeper. I am so utterly exhausted I want to cry. I am as sleep deprived as they come. How much longer until I go completely mad? On a bad night he is up every hour and ready to start his day at three or four AM. On a good night he's up two or three times and thankfully he'll sleep until seven. I've learned not to pray for help. It's kinda funny, or really, really sad, but I've talked to several Mom's and they all say the same thing. That is one prayer not to waste your time uttering. It just does not get answered in the way that you would hope. It seems to actually make things worse. I guess us Mom's are supposed to learn something painful. I've tried everything I can think of to get the little stinker to sleep. Crying it out has been a joke. A sick joke. He will cry, no, scream for hours at time. He'll get so upset that he throws up. That's when I cave. I just can't handle watching him be that upset. I hate it when people tell me that I need to let him cry. That did work for Hyrum but it hasn't worked for Matthew. After having five kids, if there is one thing I've learned it's that every child is different. I hate blanket statements like that. I think the worst part of it is that I'm so tired that I feel like I'm not a very good Mom. I'm totally inefficient and not myself. It takes so much energy to do the smallest things. All I really want to do is stare at the wall and drool. This past Saturday Mark took over and I got to sleep in, a nice little block of sleep. Later that day I was talking to Meghan and she said to me, "Mom, you look pretty. What happened to the circles and bags under your eyes?" Nice! Anyway, hopefully somehow I will survive this, because it can't last forever. Right? This too shall pass.

Hyrum's Day Out

Hyrum had his turn to go out with me and Mark. He chose to go to Chuck-a-Rama. He knows what's good. Hyrum got really lucky because Grandma Linge and Aunt Sue happened to join us. We had a great time and got really, really full! On the way home Hyrum smiled and said, "Even the food still stuck in my teeth tastes good!" And that my friend, just about says it all.