8:52PM – I just checked on Samantha and that little turkey is still awake. I go back to our bedroom where Brian and I are talking about how to handle Ellie during the night. She’s still not sleeping great. We have been taking turns at each outburst, but after 3 or 4 of those during the night, it’s hard to remember whose turn it is. I was proposing for each of us to take a night. For example, one night, I am responsible for all outbursts so Brian can sleep. The next night, it’s his turn so I can sleep. We didn’t really come to a resolution. I lay down on the bed, which means: game over, I fall asleep.

11:01PM – Brian wakes me up to feed Ellie.

11:38PM – Go back to bed.

1:15AM – I hear Samantha crying. She woke up crying last night too. That never happens. Last night, she must have had a bad dream about a boat. Random. I get up and walk into her room. She tells me, amid the crying, that she needs a napkin to wipe her ear. Um. What? I get a Kleenex and ask her which ear. Sure enough, there’s a nasty goop all over her left ear, face, hair and pillow. Great. An ear infection. (Here’s the original discovery that goop could come out of her ear. Beware, it’s gross.) She had a cold a few weeks ago. She got over it in about a week, so I thought we were in the clear. Oh well. I make a note to call the doctor. I ask her if her ear hurts and she says yes. I ask her if she wants some medicine and she says yes. I give her some Motrin. I tell her we’ll call the doctor in the morning.

1:30AM – Go back to bed.

3:30AM – There’s a raucous on my nightstand. What is it? Is Samantha standing by my bed messing with my nightstand? I’m confused. Molly. Molly is trying to eat my lavender lotion. “Stop. Molly. Stop.” I say as I’m hitting her rear end. She stops only momentarily. I grab her by the collar and pull her off my nightstand. Fall back to sleep.

4:08AM – What. In. The. Name. Of all that is holy. “Molly. Stop.” She’s trying to eat my bottle of lotion again. I grab her and throw her out of the room and close the door. Go back to bed.

4:33AM – “Mreow.” Oh for crying out loud. “Mreow.” Maddie. “Mreow.” She’s standing on the floor just beneath my nightstand. “Mreow.” She is staring up at me. “Mreow.” She wants to be near her beloved Molly. “Mreow.” She is persistent. “Mreow.” I get up, open the bedroom door and wait for her to bolt out. Mostly close the door. Go back to bed.

4:35AM – The air conditioner kicks on. The bedroom door slams closed.

5:13AM – Ellie wakes up. Normally, I would be happy if she slept till after 5. Brian gets up. I don’t hear her in the monitor any more.

5:15AM – Brian yells at me from the front of the house. “Jane! I need some help!” Doesn’t he know that he’s going to wake up Samantha if he yells like that? I get out of bed. I nearly walk into Sam in the hallway. She is standing with nothing on but a shirt. Ellie starts to cry. Brian is stripping Samantha’s bed. He says “Pick one.” I go into Ellie’s room and give her a paci. She falls right back to sleep. On a normal night, that never happens. I come back out and help Sam get to the potty. We sit for a while in the bathroom. She says she needs to go, but nothing happens. After Brian finishes with her bed, I put another diaper and new PJs on her. I get her back in bed and tell her to go back to sleep.

5:30AM – Go back to my bedroom. I ask Brian what happened. Apparently, after quieting Ellie, he heard some strange noises in Sam’s room. He went in and she was sitting up in bed. He told her to lay down. She said she couldn’t because her popsicles were wet (her PJs have popsicles on them). Sure enough, she and all her bedding were wet.

6AM – Ellie wakes up. Brian gives her a paci and comes back to bed. She continues to squawk. It’s not really a cry, but it usually means she’s tired or cold.

6:30AM – Alarm goes off. Like I need it. I’ve been awake since 3:30.

The end.

We have the gown that me and my siblings were baptized in. It has also been used for some Burns grandkids, including Samantha as shown below.

The slip has been embroidered with each baptism name and date. It begins with Elisabeth Noel in 1976 and ends with Patrick Jacob in 2008.

We have the gown that Brian and his siblings were baptized in. This was the gown that Ellie was baptized in. Here is a letter dated on Brian’s BIRTHday from his maternal grandparents.

Isn’t that a lovely letter? And here’s Ellie in the gown:

We have the gown that Brian’s maternal grandfather (Leonard in the above letter) was baptized in. Brian’s great-grandmother, Agnes Eckl, made the gown. His grandfather was the youngest of 5 children, so I’m not exactly sure of the gown’s age. It’s at least 83 years old.

Some Betbezes:

the great-grandchildren:

I didn’t take any pictures because my hands were full (of sand and saltwater among other things)! So, thanks to Brian, we have a few pictures to document our stay.

Little E didn’t go outside the house. Luckily, there was usually someone who would watch her for a bit so we could go to the pool or the beach.

We should have taken a picture of Samantha’s room. It was our closet! It was huge! It held a crib/toddler mattress, 2 suitcases, and had room to read books on the floor! She loved having her own space!

Brian went fishing again this year. He didn’t catch 2 sharks like last year (my dad caught the one shark and one grouper) but he had a good time catching the limit on snapper. See Alex’s fishing trip picture.

Later, when we got home, (she’s still in the exact same clothes, by the way – hooray!), she wanted to sit with Brian in the recliner.  Which, for those of you who know Sam, that is something special.  She’s not the cuddly sort.  She was saying “we’re together” over and over.  She even had to go get some covers from her room so that she and Daddy could cuddle.  (And by the way, this handmade pink crocheted blanket – made by Carol, and the white one underneath – crocheted by our friend Kris, are her favorite blankets.  I love that she likes the handmade ones the best!)  I think she had a great weekend hanging out at the house.

(And sorry for the yucky photos – they were shot with my phone!)

…Yep…

If you’re counting, that’s 2 weeks. It might have been longer than that, but I know at least since that day. (In reality, consistent naps haven’t occurred since we got rid of the crib, which was Sunday, March 14.)

Since then, we’ve had much kicking, screaming, hitting, gnashing of teeth, timeouts, spankings, you name it. Life at our house is not pretty. It all begins at pick-up time at the babysitter’s house and goes way downhill from there. FAST. The thing is, she’ll take a nap with the babysitter, Brian, Nana, or as it seems, anyone but me. Actually, it seems she’ll do anything for anyone except me. Either she knows that life is about to change and she’s taking it out on me, or she knows that I’m already stressed to the max so she’s going to take it out on me.

The pediatrician once told me that “strong-willed children make great leaders as adults.” I hope I can make it that far.

EDIT (4/7/10): She took a nap yesterday!! Hallelujah! After 1.5 hours of waging war, I decided to leave her door open. Wide open. I don’t know if that did the trick, but it seemed to help.

Brian and I had debated about how to transition Sam into a big bed.  My thought was set up the bed, let her see it, talk about it for a few days, then move her over.  Maybe nighttime in the bed at first, but naps in the crib (for my own sake really).  I had been convinced to remove the crib after a few days, even if she wasn’t keen on the new bed.  Brian’s idea was put up the bed, take down the crib.  Boom.

Her bed arrived at our house (via Brian’s “awesome” new ride) on Saturday.  We had a lot going on that day already, so it sat in boxes.  We had been talking about a big girl bed for a while, but I didn’t know if she would associate herself with one.  She knows a few other kids with big beds, and even jumps on the babysitter’s daughter’s big bed.

When she woke up from her nap on Sunday afternoon, Brian arrived home with her new mattress (via Brian’s “awesome” new ride).  Sam was super interested.

We had talked about what kind of mattress pad we needed, but never actually bought one.  The time had come.  Amazon (where I buy most everything) had waterproof mattress pads for about $14.  Thanks – I’ll take two.  Brian wanted to leave the plastic on the mattress.  Ew.  Luckily for me, he bought a floor sample mattress so it didn’t have sealed plastic.  The salesman also convinced him that we needed a mattress protector (even fancier than a waterproof pad).  Thanks mattress man!

I got ready to go back to the mattress store to buy a protector.  Lately, Samantha is in a stage where it’s really hard if I leave her.  She wants me to be with her at all times.  So, she and I venture out in the rain.  The mattress store was closed, but luckily mattress man was still there.  I guess he felt sorry for a pregnant woman with her two year old in tow standing outside in the rain.  He cut me a better deal than the price on Amazon (even a put-it-in-your-cart-to-see-the-price deal) so I bought two.  Thanks mattress man!

When we got home, the bed was set up and the crib was gone.

For now, we’re using the bed stuff that I had in college.  I think that when we move into another house, we can decorate her room then.  Her favorite color is still blue, so I think it’s a great fit.

It took her about 2 hours to fall asleep last night.  We found her in various places each time we went in: sitting on top of her new nightstand, in the closet wearing slippers, etc.  Like I said, I guess I should be prepared for no naps this week.

By the way, did I mention how much Brian loves his new ride and talks about it?  It was raining all weekend during the hauling of the big items.  Nothing got wet, nothing was tied down, nothing was covered with a tarp (or tarpaulin, as my dad would say) and all arrived safe and sound.  Does someone else want to hear him talk about it?

And another by the way, I shot these pictures in manual.  It’s the first time I’ve ventured over to the “M.”  They didn’t turn out that bad!  I do stalk a few good teachers and mentors.

Christmas started with brunch at the Betbezes on Christmas Eve.  I really like this tradition.  We enjoyed brunch then the kids began opening presents.  Samantha got lots of great gifts, but the #1 score (in her eyes) was a new shopping cart from Great Aunt Mary.  She barely had the patience for her daddy to put it together.  Goodness.

After naptime, we headed to mass.  It wasn’t as crowded as usual, so we actually had a whole pew to ourselves.  Our friend Kris took this family shot after mass.  It’s one of the few times that Samantha has actually smiled for the camera.  Thanks, guys!

We came home, had Chicken Tortilla Soup (yum) then nestled all snug in our beds.

On Christmas morning, we got up and opened presents.  Samantha got a few books and some hand glove puppets from Santa.  The hit was the Abby Cadabby magic wand book she got.  I like this shot because it shows Sam in her Christmas PJs and slippers, inspecting her new book.

As we were packing the car and getting ready to drive to Huntsville, I went to feed the cats.  We didn’t arrange for anyone to stop by because we were only going to be gone for a few days.  However, I discovered that we were almost out of cat food.  As in, we didn’t have enough to last a few days.  Uh oh.  It was Christmas morning, and I was sure that no store was open that carried our cat food.  Luckily, the Grissoms came to the rescue.  Thanks for buying our cats’ food and taking it by the house to feed them!!

We drove to Huntsville in time for lunch.  The kids were getting ready for their naps so we hurriedly opened presents.  Wow, what craziness.  If I had to guess a favorite from that bunch, it would be the keyboard from MamaLinda and Pop.  Now Samantha can play the piano and push lots of buttons while her daddy is playing too.  She loves dancing to the beat.

On Boxing Day, my mom and I went out shopping while the boys and kids went to the Train Exhibit at the Botanical Gardens.  I think it was a hit.  Of course, anything involving Jackson is sure to be lots of fun.  See a previous post.

On Sunday, we traveled over to Florence to spend some time with Brian’s family.  We enjoyed getting to see everyone.  We opened presents that night then spent a few days relaxing and playing games.  Samantha’s favorite gift was the rocking chair from Nana and Papa.  She loves it!  She also loved Chloe’s skirt and playing with wrapping paper, tissue paper and boxes!

We had a great Christmas!  Whew.  We were glad to spend a few days at home relaxing before beginning the new year!  Here’s one final picture of us in front of our tree at home.  (And you can see my new curtain in the background, and Samantha’s new white dot outfit from MamaLinda!)