Sleeping

My Children are asleep... in their respective beds... in their ROOM. That's right, room, not rooms. They are asleep in the same room... at the same time. Whoa.

Let me fill you in on Natalie's sleep the past week or so.

Okay, newsbreak: Joanna is not asleep, just quiet. That's okay with me!

Anyway, about mid-week last week Natalie slept through the night in a big way. We layed her down around 8pm in her bassinet in my mother's empty room. At 4am, Matt's like, "Hey Jess, it's 4'o clock." I was out of that bed like a flash and in to check on her. She was fine... kind of scrunched in the top of the bassinet, but fine. She woke up on her own a few minutes later, ravenous of course. The next couple of nights went about the SAME WAY! Then Sunday night we got home late so she didn't go down until about 10pm and woke up at 3am. Not quite as great, but still long! Then last night she went down again about 8pm and slept till around 3:30. I'll take it! We decided we'd go ahead and try letting the girls sleep in the same room tonight. Now, Joanna can get into the crib, so it's a little scary. We had a nice long talk about how she was going to sleep in her bed and Natalie was going to sleep in the crib. We'll see how it works out. I've been just letting Natalie sleep next to me when she wakes up in the early morning. I won't do it forever, but it works for us for now. As some point I will get my lazy self out of the bed and put her back in her bed when she's finished eating, but that would require me to stay awake. Um, right. When Joanna was sleeping in her own room but still nursing 1 or 2 times a night, I'd feed her in the recliner, watching a little TV. It was kind of a nice, quiet time for us, and I enjoyed it. I envision something similar happening with Miss Natalie. Maybe when we get this "two girls in a room thing" kind of routine. I'm really hoping Natalie will continue to sleep this long stretch -- a person really can live like this!

I do have pics to post, and I will soon I hope!

Also, Joanna's having problems with her bottom again. It is very red and raw, and I don't know what's causing it! She did so well for a couple of weeks, then last week it started getting bad again. She has days of lots of tiny BMs, then very loose stools, culminating in a very red and raw bottom. We keep cream on it; we've even got some very strong prescription stuff that we only use when needed -- it's VERY strong. It still takes it a few days to work though, and if we don't fix what's causing it, it just comes back. Argggghhhh! If you would keep this situation in your prayers, I would appreciate it. It hasn't gotten as bad as it's been, thankfully, but it easily could. Please pray that we learn what is causing this. If it gets worse instead of better the next couple of days, I'll probably take her in to the doc. The last time we were there, it had just gotten better after weeks and weeks of awfulness so I didn't really press him for a "diagnosis." He kind of agreed with my theory of what it was, basically an overcompensation for constipation, causing diaper rash which caused her to try to hold in her BMs because it hurt, causing more diaper rash when it didn't really work. Seriously there were days when I changed more that a DOZEN dirty diapers from Joanna alone -- teeny tiny dirty diapers. Oh, it was awful. Oh, it was so so awful.

I realize that I have seriously rambled. It felt good, though. Thank you for reading!

I think Joanna is asleep now. What a milestone -- 2 girls in one room!