Sleep Training is Upon Us

Oh Lily, how we desperately love your little round face, your sweet and outgoing personality and your giant, innocent eyes. Your sleeping habits are downright rubbish however. And Sweetie, your days with no sleep training are coming to an end. Quickly.

This is what happened last night after I left you in the guest room/soon-to-be-your-room, screaming your little head off, crawled into bed and announced to your Dad that you would be starting sleep training. Immediately. Notice all that blue? That's because I got to sleep while your Dad took you. And something about being with your Dad calmed you down and you slept for four hours. And last night, oh precious little girl? You slept almost a full 8 hours without waking. The threat of sleep training must have been enough. Let's keep it that way. I don't want to sleep train you any more than you want to be sleep trained.

You're eating solids now and that's quite the hilarious fest. You are not terribly good at it yet but you love it, lunging for the spoon like there could be nothing better. I can't wait for you to continue to gain weight so you sleep even better, more regularly because Sweetness 'n' Light, your parents are tired. But, we love you none the less.

The Sickness Remains

When I last wrote, we were all struck with some form of sickness. I am delighted to report that I am the only one left with said sickness. I have been trying to deny it all week, to be a trooper, and carry on with verve and style but today, I was found out in a very ugly way that I was possibly actually sick.

I was sitting at my desk, a delicious handmade vegan nut energy bar in one hand and a sheath of bank statements in the other. I was deep in thought. A senior team member came into my office with a quick question, did a double take, and then asked, with real concern: "What is coming out of your head?!" Sure, I had felt that my nose was filling up but I was busy, people, busy! This team member is a very very gay man so he put some attitude into it and was all, "Girlfriend, you have GOT to go check yourself. Go! Go! Go!" Sure enough, I head to the mirror and there is a HUGE gob of disgusting, neon green snot emerging at least 1/2 inch out of my nose. Of course I was mortified but now, I'm thinking back to all the assistant interviews I've done this week when I felt my nose filling with snot but didn't want to disrupt the interview to blow: was it happening then? And did the one candidate that pulled out due to "fragrance sensitivities" really just pull out because she was disgusted by my personal hygiene?! Aughhhh, so so so gross.

Chris sprung to my rescue and is taking care of Lily tonight so I can get a full night's sleep. Bless his happy husband heart. 

Speaking of Lily, I am weaning her (not by choice) off of breastmilk as I am managing to produce only about 25% of what she eats during a day but now she's starting to add solids to her repertoire so I feel good that we've gotten this far. Oh, but since I am still breastfeeding (however pathetically), no drugs for me for said horrible form of sore muscles/headache/sinus cold. 

 While our life is extremely chaotic at all times, Jamisen is proving to be an amazing delight. He continues to wow me with his grasp of difficult concepts (he can pick up on husband and wife tension super quickly now and doesn't hesitate to say it). His vocabulary is advanced and full. And, he is a polite, happy boy almost all the time. The times when he is not: 

 Last night, Jamisen hit Lily very intentionally. He got an instant time out. I continued to hold Lily and read to her in the kitchen, Chris came and started cleaning up the kitchen a bit .... and all of a sudden, I realized it was quiet. Too quiet. I sent Chris back to check on Jamisen and sure enough, he was no where to be found. He had **put on his shoes** and walked outside, in the rain, at 8:30 at night, in the dark (!!!) in search of his truck. We found him on the other side of the house, searching or his outside truck. Chris and I debated what sort of punishment to do and decided to take away his beloved kitchen for a day. That worked for now but I do see a day when spankings may be necessary. 

 Lily gets up with me multiple times per night. Let's hope and pray it's  better night for Chris. And on that note, I am taking advantage of this full night of sleep and g'night, sleep tight!

Interview with Jamisen. Second Round.

I last asked Jamisen his three questions here (trains, dentist, "I will teach you.") and sure, I maybe got one of the three questions wrong this time (it was by memory people - I'm just impressed I remembered to ask him again!) and here are his answers now that he is the wise old age of 2 1/2:

What is your favorite color? "Yellow"

What do dream about? "Bunnies"

What do you want to be when you grow up? "Tractor Driver"

What is the meaning of life? "I will get old."

Another Week of Sick

It's hard to believe it but for a second weekend, poor Chris was down for the count. He spent three days in bed, sleeping and generally being miserable. Of course, we threw a dinner party Friday night that he was barely conscious for. But, he held on, undoubtedly for the delicious Pink Vodka Pasta deliciousness that is my standby for dinner parties. In the photo below, Lily has her 'I Voted' sticker because she was my +1 at Election Night parties. My little social, smart, politically savvy girl ...

The kids seem to be surviving the onslaught of germs though it would be difficult to figure out if they ever got better from last week or not. I caught whatever Chris has but managed to escape the 3 day sinus headache he had that laid him flat out.

 To Jamisen's credit, he didn't need one time out all weekend with me. He was perfect - even with this little punch (he pulled it before it connected). 

Lily is just starting to explore solid foods. She got a gluten-free lemon poppyseed muffin taste today and basically lunged at me to get more. Her real meal was sweet potatoes (yummy!) and she did really well for about 12 mini spoonfuls.

Work has been extremely challenging as of late. The company is growing and our sales are high but with growth comes challenges managing it all. That coupled with staff turnover is causing stress but 'tis the season. This is the busy season for us and the only way to get through it is ... to go through it. However, on the plus side, I did learn how to give myself the perfect blowout (that's the hairstyle I'm sporting in the above selfie) so that's a plus. I will leave you with this photo of our Customer Service Team Leader Kevin and Lily hammin' it up. There's your laugh for the day!

The Sicko Family

We're quite the picture of healthfullness in this family ... three out of the four of us down and out for the count. Not that Jamisen recognizes it but he has a chest cold that makes him sound like he might cough up a lung at any given moment. Of course, he's passed this delight onto his sister who is having trouble sleeping since she can't breathe and his Daddy. So, basically, our house is super soggy right now.

Halloween came and went without a lot of fanfare. We had under 10 kids at the house.

We did follow Grandpa Faiola's lead and do full size bars for those 10 kids. Jamisen hated his costume but was stoked about the sugar. Chris thought our pumpkin looked "a little wet" so he baked it, leading to a Mr. Grumpy pumpkin that could have used a face lift.

And, darn those other 50 kids that did not show up, there was far too much sugar left over in this house for me not to end up eating half of it. That caused a downward spiral that's gone all all week that simply must stop.

Jamisen has taken to being less subtle about his attention-seeking lately and has been perpetually locked in his room on one time out or another after hitting, kicking or biting his good-natured sister. It's almost impossible to tell from these photos but he does have a mischievous streak in him.

We tried a new school for Jamisen this week because I'm so distraught over the USDA food pyramid food his current school serves. Jamisen loved it but didn't seem quite comfortable with kids older than him so we will wait and try that organic, hippie, kale-loving school again in a few months.

 We've moved Jamisen's crib out of his room and he doesn't seem to miss it all that much. He does insist on loading his big boy bed up with lots of toys and books, lest he be bored while trying to sleep.

Lily continues to roll over and is starting to sit up with support.

Our downstairs remodel for the mother-in-law suite is coming along, thanks to Chris's careful management of the project.

We went shark diving at Pt. Defiance Zoo this week and found it to be thrilling and interesting. I'm going again while Chris watches from the outside with the kiddos. This is how they disposed of their pumpkins at the zoo. Pretty funny, no?

Fall is here! I took a beautiful run/hike with my friend Jody in the mountains and the leaves were all in piles, fluffy and ready to jump in.

Save the Milk

I just got back from an amazing (mind-blowing, earth-shattering, perspective-shifting) business conference - the Fortune Growth Conference. With notables like Ram Charan and Stephen M.R. Covey and top thought leaders of this decade, my head is spinning from the absolute wonderment of it all.

I got the thrill of my life when I was pulled up, on stage, to talk about micro-specialization as a trend. Verne Harnish, a teacher of mine from my MIT Entrepreneurial Masters days, was the Master of Ceremonies for the conference and he was so thrilled about my book (and the fact that it was his advice to write the book) that he came and grabbed me from the crowd, told me to wait on the sidelines and then called me up to the stage. I was honored, thrilled and had no idea what he would ask me!

While I was in the always lovely Las Vegas, this is how I talked to my kiddos - Facetime, courtesy of Apple. Can you believe this technology didn't exist just a few years ago? Talk about a digital disruption!

I am proud to say I've been to the strip once, for only 4 hours, for a wedding, in my entire life. Las Vegas and all it entails (gambling, overindulging, grey moral lines) has never been something I've subscribed to (of course, the Tony Hsieh Vegas on the other hand, I am all in! He was a speaker on how he's recreating Downtown Old Las Vegas and his idea of community was motivating and inspiring). However, for this trip, a group of us that were all coached by the same coach (the amazing Ron Huntington) piled into cabs to go eat at a quintessential Las Vegas restaurant, Nobu. Ron insisted on paying. I kept warning him that the prices at Nobu were ridiculously expensive (like crazy high) and he was equally certain he wanted to show his clients a large amount of gratitude and largesse.

When we got the bill, we found out the Wygu Beef was $38 per ounce. That flaming stuff? That's Wygu Beef. All of it. $38 per ounce. And we had 8 equally impressive courses with impeccable service and taste. The bill was so much money (over $4500; discretion did not permit Ron to tell us the actual total) that one of the other larger clients with half of the guests split the tab graciously.

When it was time to go home, I was so delighted. Between pumping breastmilk in airline bathrooms and at breaks in the conference, I was miserable. I developed a clogged milk duct (painful!) and my right breast had swollen to such an uneven size that I looked like an indecisive stripper. I carefully packaged 12 ounces of breastmilk in a plastic ice bucket (graciously provided, unwittingly, by room service when I lifted it from a room service cart coming back from another room where it had delivered Hagen Daaz ice cream), filled with ice, packed in a plastic bag, surrounded by another plastic bag and then, packed in a bag that had handles for easy carrying. TSA didn't even raise an eyebrow and quickly and professionaly performed a test to confirm it was breast milk. Phew.

Because of the breastmilk, I had arrived at the airport almost 3 hours ahead of my flight (I wasn't sure what would happen!) That allowed me to give up my first class seat to fly middle seat, stand by, on an earlier flight and take a bus back to Bellingham from SeaTac instead of flying back to Bellingham on a later flight. That was probably the right thing to do since the rolling fog was pretty intense so I don't even know that the flight would have landed. When Jamisen heard I was coming home early, he was pretty excited! (actual screen shot above when he got the news). It was all worth it to be home for the midnight feeding and, for pancake making with Jamisen the next morning.

Sweet boy asked me to make blueberry pancakes. He was pretty dang happy about them and ate two. He asked me to make some for Daddy and was very concerned that his Daddy have some too.

Lily was her gloriously happy self and the morning after I got home was full of joy and laughter and yes, chaos but it was happy chaos. There's no place like home.

Lily is 5 months

Oh Lily Lily Bobilly,

You are 5 months old today and continue to amaze and delight us. You and your brother have a fantastic relationship. He loves to kiss you, hold you and tries to help out whenever possible. Every so often he has a rush of emotion that comes out in the form of hitting or kicking you but for those times, he has special bite toys that he bites down on realllly hard to try to keep himself from hurting you. We're all thankful for that. You're getting some decent neck strength and roll over all the time. You still can't sit up on your own and would wiggle out of all of your little seats if you weren't belted in. You love to watch us with your wide eyes and squawk at us whenever we put you in your little seats to get anything (laundry, cooking, cleaning) done.

You are eating at 10 p.m., 1 a.m. 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. and basically are still trying to kill your parents, especially your Mother. Your Dad is proving to be much more resilient than your Mom. I am merely tired and more often than not, Dad gets you and Jamisen up and lets me sleep in for another hour. Dad is sure setting a good example for your brother on how a husband should be.

We love you more and more with each passing day and are thankful that your little personality has joined our family. We didn't think we could get any happier as a family unit but it turned out that we were just missing our final piece: you.

Love, Mom and Dad