...and other highlights of the chag

I thought over the course of the chag of about a dozen things I wanted to blog about, and have forgotten most of them. Well, let's see how many I can remember.

1. Iyyar stopped nursing on Shabbos. That's the big one. Up until a few weeks ago he was still pretty much nursing whenever he felt like it, which was often, all day long. I was starting to think that maybe we should put a limit on things when he got the toxic diarrhea attack, and I was worried about him not drinking enough, so for a couple of weeks there he was even nursing more than usual, not less. When he started feeling better I started trying to distract him from nursing when he wasn't waking up or going to sleep; it went okay, although he did periodically climb into my lap, grab the neck of my shirt with both hands, and peer down in there just to check that everything was still where it should be. Kind of like checking the refrigerator to see what's in there, even when you're not actually about to eat. Last week, he went to sleep without nursing a couple of times, so I started putting him to bed with just a cuddle, and that went over fine; over Rosh Hashana, my husband got him out of bed, and instead of wailing inconsolably until handed over to Imma, he just got down on the floor and started to play. On Shabbos, I picked him up to nurse him and he sort of latched but didn't really nurse; he just kind of looked at me, looked around, and then slid off my lap in search of toys. All done.

It's always a little sad, but it's definitely time; he's halfway through his seventeenth month, I'm well into my fifth, and I can't imagine he was getting much anyway. It's nice to be able to just sit and snuggle without him campaigning to nurse. Still... sniff.

2. Barak and sleep.... argh. Those who have been reading this blog for more than, oh, a week, will know that Barak was born and remains a terrible sleeper. He hates going to sleep and has never yet gone to sleep without a few declarations of "I don't wanna go night-night," usually at volume. Our original round of potty-trained was abandoned when he figured out that bedtime could be postponed indefinitely by crying "Poop potty!" from his crib; his standard sleep avoidance repertoire now includes at least one potty trip, plus drink of water, book, other book, etc. A few months ago, when he woke up at night (which he generally does a few times, every night) he would wake up calling "Imma! I needa pish potty!" I told him that if he needed to pish potty at night, he did not need to yell, cry, or call for me; he could just get up and go.

Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Yeah, well. This is Barak we're talking about. So for the last couple of months, whenever he's woken up, he's a) screamed about pishing potty for a while, often waking up Iyyar, before b) going into the bathroom by himself and screaming for help pishing potty, which he patently does not require, and c) coming into our room, finding a spare blanket and going to sleep on our floor. In principle I have no objection to the occasional visiting toddler on our floor, as long as said toddler does not have territorial ambitions including our bed. However, I do not want it to become standard. Also, while I can do fairly well on quite little sleep if it is uninterrupted, I do very badly indeed with even seven hours' sleep if I get woken up every hour or two all night long, even if only for a couple of minutes.

Yom tov got particularly bad. Instead of one or two wakeups a night, we were up to, oh, I don't know, a lot. Iyyar woke up, Barak woke up, they woke each other up, they woke me up. They also woke up my husband, who has a tendency to get sort of enraged when woken up by howling small people who are in no obvious pain. Then he gets angry, the kids get more upset, and there's more howling, etc. So the last night of yom tov I told Barak that he was not sleeping in Imma and Abba's room, he was not going to come out of his room, and he should not call for Imma because Imma was going to be asleep. (I am not an idiot, by the way, and have tried variations of "ignore your child when he cries" many, many, many times. They haven't worked. Ever. My kids just assume I can't possibly be hearing them and cry louder, till dawn if that's what it takes.)

However, this time things seemed to be marginally more successful. Iyyar woke up twice, but with dirty diapers, so can't blame him for that; Barak woke up and cried, I ignored him, and for what was possibly the first time ever, he just went back to sleep.

Seven hours! of sleep! in a row! Wow.

3. (Hey, this is getting long already.) Iyyar's vocabulary has recently expanded to include the essential toddler word "no." When he says it, it sounds like "nah," and he shakes his head vigorously for emphasis. He enjoys saying it so much that he says it to most things, sometimes even things he clearly wants. "Nah," he tells me emphatically, before stretching out his hand to the cup of milk I'm holding.

4. Iyyar's walking is now much much better, and he rarely crawls. He still does the flat-footed, splay-legged toddler lumber, but not with the zombie hand position. It's funny to notice the things he does like Barak did at this age, like walk around the house banging two Lego together, or pointing at Abba's books on the shelf that he knows he is not allowed to remove, asking politely, "Dis? Dis? Dis?" about each in turn. How about this Gemara, Imma? Can I pull this fifteen-pound tome off the shelf? No? How about this one?

5. Remember the Little Tikes car I got a couple of weeks ago. Barak likes it, but Iyyar loves it. It is his go-to toy, any time he sees it. He gets in, he gets out, he climbs in through the driver's entrance and then through the window, he pulls out the steering wheel and puts it back in. He puts Little People in the trunk. Sometimes he gets lucky and Barak pushes him around in it. He loves it, and spends a lot of time cackling with delight.

6. Speaking of delight, I bought Barak new pajamas yesterday. I am a big devotee of LL Bean's heavy polarfleece pajamas for toddlers, and that's what my kids have slept in in all previous winters. This winter, Iyyar is almost ready for Barak's 2T PJ's, but Barak is pretty thoroughly out of his 3T pajamas--and those nice LL Bean ones won't be on sale till December. I looked online, thinking I might buy them anyway--we keep our thermostat low in the winter--but quickly discarded that idea when I realized I'd be spending upward of $25 a pair. No way. So I decided to get him a couple of pairs at Target ($11.98 for two pairs, totally flimsy and cheap), hope they lasted till the December sale, and stock up on the really warm pajamas then. I went to Target yesterday and got a set that had one light blue pair with a car on the front, and one dark blue pair printed all over with little cars.

You have never seen joy and glee until you have seen a three-year-old boy with a motor vehicle obsession put on pajamas with cars! all! over! He literally cavorted around his room, dancing and singing (ai nai nai!) for a good fifteen minutes. Car pajamas! I gotta car pajamas! Iss got little cars! Iss got yellow ones and green ones! The joy, the joy!

Somehow I don't think I'm going to be replacing those with plain red LL Bean pajamas anytime soon, no matter how much warmer and better-made they may be.