Beach Vacation

We just came back from a long weekend at the beach. Although I'm not much for laying in the sand and getting sunburned and sweaty, it's nice having in-laws that live at the beach. We went for lunch/dinner/drinks at bayside restaurants,

took boat rides and went fishing, saw fireworks (from the boat), had another birthday party for Ben, played games on the boardwalk,

and took Ben to a waterpark.

We had a really great time. We were able to spend time with family and enjoyed being away from home for a few days. We were lucky to spend time with Aunt Nancy, who we only see once a year.

I did a total mommy thing...something I thought I'd never do. A few weeks ago I bought matching 4th of July t-shirts for all of us to wear! So silly, but it was fun. We wore them on the boat when we watched the fireworks. Aaron fell asleep for his first fireworks. Actually, I think they were Ben's first fireworks too; last year for the 4th there was a bad lightning storm so we ended up watching Mother Nature's fireworks. From our spot on the bay, we could see fireworks all up and down the coast of Ocean City. Ben had fun finding the "booms" and pointing them out to us. However, he fell alseep on J.R.'s lap before the big firework displays started.

I think my favorite part of the weekend was taking Ben to the waterpark. Last year he hated it, but this year not only was he a year older, but we just let him do whatever he wanted. He immediately went to the kid's waterslide and went down a few times, hesitantly at first, but he did well. He tried to squish the small water fountain in the pool

and we went in the lazy river.

I took him down the big waterslide, but he didn't like it when we went under water at the end. After sitting on my lap for a while, he went back to the kid's slide. I'm not lying when I say he must have gone down 40-50 times. He was practically the only slider, so the lifeguard was paying special attention to him. She was running down the steps and picking him up to take him to the top. He could have climbed the steps himself, but I think she had a crush on him :) He got spoiled from the star treatment and started to call for her if he had to wait for her to get to the bottom of the step. So funny. What a little rock star! Here's video of him sliding.

Sleep

At one time, I was able to link a song from Rhapsody to my blog. I can't do that anymore, so just sing "Who Needs Sleep" by the Barenaked Ladies, here. .......Who needs sleep? Well you're never gonna get it. Who needs sleep? Tell me what's that for?......

Aaron is doing OK with sleep. He falls asleep for the night usually somewhere between 11pm and 12 am. Yeah, I know, another night-owl kid. He did fall asleep around 9pm one night and slept til 12am or so. He'll fall asleep early, like 7, 8 or 9, but then he'll only sleep for a 1/2 hour or so then wake up again. At that point, it's just a feeding frenzy, but if he'll sleep for 6 hours after feeding him for 2, I'll do it. He has given me 6 hours a few times. So on the nights he falls asleep at 12, he wakes up at 6 and it feels like it's been all night. Most nights, it's 3 1/2 or 4 hours, then every 1 1/2 to 2 hours after that. Around 6am he wants to stay awake. Most days I'm able to get him back to sleep, if only for another 2 hours. In a few weeks I'll have to get up for work at 6am so I guess I'll have to get used to it. Aaron is a great sleeper during the day. (Doesn't it figure) He'll sleep for a good chunk of the late morning/afternoon, then nap again around dinner time. I don't necessarily want him to sleep through dinner time because I'd like him to fall asleep for the night shortly after dinner time; but it gives me a chance to get dinner ready for Ben (and the family) if I need to, and/or eat. I'm trying to work on some kind of a schedule for him based on his sleep patterns, but of course, every time I think I have something, something screws it up.

Ben's sleep routine is AWFUL!!! He is now going to sleep between 11 and 11:30 pm. Ugh!! It's been so hard to get him to get him ready for bed when I'm attached to Aaron. He's been watching a lot of videos before bed and I absolutely hate it. He was doing so well when I could read him a bunch of books (and I mean a bunch - I love to read to him so I'll pull out at least 10 books for him!) then we'd turn out the light and he'd fall asleep, most nights in less than 5 minutes. When I'm busy with Aaron, it's most easy for J.R. to pop in a video to help Ben fall asleep, which he used to do quite often (fall asleep, that is). Just the other day I found something on-line that states it's bad for kids to fall asleep with the t.v. on because they won't sleep very well. (I've read that about adults too, which is why it's not great to have a t.v. in the bedroom - a bedroom should be a place for relaxing, I read). I showed that to J.R. not to pick on him, but just to show him some back up on how I feel. For a couple of days, we had no t.v. and read books instead and Ben stayed in bed all night. On the nights where he'd watch t.v. (the no t.v. thing didn't last), he'd wake up in the middle of the night, like usual, and fall asleep again with us in our bed. I'm really trying as best I can to get back into a bedtime routine with Ben, but it's so hard. Tonight I wanted him to have a bath at 9pm, then brush his teeth and start reading books so we could hopefully turn the lights out after 10pm and he could fall asleep soon after. Well, instead he got a "Babar" video. I finally took him to get washed up and teeth brushed after 10pm, we only read 2 books because he wasn't paying attention to them (he threw a small fit at first because he didn't want to read - he probably figured out it meant bedtime was soon), and I turned the light out and forced him to stay in bed. He of course screamed for a while, but he was asleep before 10:45.

J.R. had Aaron while I was getting Ben ready for Ben. J.R. put Aaron down around 10:30 so he could lie down with Ben and I. Aaron was pretty awake, but he still fell asleep! We were both pretty happy about that. We'll see how long he sleeps til. Right now, I'm the only one awake. I need to put Ben in his crib and hopefully I'll be able to sleep for a couple of hours before Aaron wakes up....which might be soon because I just heard him make a noise. Sigh....

Who needs sleep?(well you're never gonna get it)

Who needs sleep?(tell me what's that for)

Who needs sleep?(be happy with what you're getting

There's a guy who's been awake since the Second World War)