Some things bug me. A lot. Isaac's fingernails and the lovely nasal mucus inside his stuffy nose are two such things.
Isaac's fingernails are sharp. And I mean SHARP. I file his nails about three times a day, but it doesn't seem to help much--he still has a few scratches on his face and ears. Plus redness on his cheeks, which is probably caused by him scratching his somewhat tamed eczema. (I put hydrocortisone on his eczema three times a day, plus moistureizer almost every diaper change. That seemed to help.)
Many people suggested putting mitts on Isaac's hands, but I don't want to do that. I heard it slows the development on his sense of touch. Also, mitts don't stay on his hands for very long--15 minutes if you're lucky.
Consciously and subconsciously (and perhaps even unconsciously), Isaac scratches his face a lot. After all, scratching his forehead, eye, and ear in a circular motion is one of his favourite actions when he is tired, about to fall asleep, or in light sleep. Sometimes we try to keep him from scratching by holding his hands (and sometimes even pinning his whole arm down) when putting him to sleep, but most of the time I just let him be, choosing sleep over scratches.
While scratches are something I had been battling for a while now (really, since birth), a stuffy nose is relatively new. Thanks to a common which spreader from Daddy to Mommy to Baby, Isaac now has a partially blocked nasal passage.
He HATES it when I try to touch or do anything with his nose. He protests loudly whenever I try to put saline drops in, use a nasal aspirator, or just wipe the mucus he finally sneezed out. Yet, someone with a cold, he hardly sneezes! Obviously, asking him to blow his nose is futile. And unlike his fingernails which I can trim when he's asleep, I can't do anything to his nose when he's dreaming away neither.
At least Isaac has learned to (and, like his Mommy, seem to favour) sleeping on his side, so breathing in his sleep is easier than sleeping on his back. Hopefully I only have another day or two of mucus to deal with--for now.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
From No-House to House and Back
(Blogging has been too sporadic because I'm too lazy.)
We have been seeing houses every weekend since the beginning of March. Three weeks ago, we found one house we liked enough to make an offer. It's a vacant house which has been on the market for over half a year already, because the front of the house isn't very appealing, and more importantly, there is CN rail right behind its backyard.
We liked the layout of the house. The living room had two-storey high ceiling. The whole house has hardwood or parquet flooring. It was bright. There was a huge deck in the backyard. All the bedrooms were of decent size, including a not-too-big master bedroom. There was even a study on the main floor, in addition to living room, dining room, and family room. The kitchen was big enough for at least two people to work comfortably (our #1 requirement). The breakfast area was open and lively.
We were fortunate enough to hear a train pass by while we were at the house. The noise level was barely noticeable (Daniel: "you snore way louder than that"), even without any furniture or fabric in the house to absorb the noise.
We made an offer, the usual drill: lowballing. We had a fairly firm price limit in mind, although we could afford more. It was a vacant house with lower resell value. We thought we could negotiate a lower price with an earlier closing date at a later stage of the bargaining. The game of ping-pong went around a few times, each round getting closer to our target price. Our final offer was $1,000 below our price limit, closing by end of April. We were comfortable to sell our condo in a short time, so we didn't put selling it as one of the conditions of the offer.
However, the sellers were having none of that. They wanted more. Another smaller house around the corner--one we almost made an offer on--was sold a few days prior to the start of our negotiation. To our chagrin, the sellers were not willing to below the other house's selling price. We said, fine, we'll pay that price, but we will change the closing date to early July. I even went to the bank and prepared the bank draft for the deposit.
The sellers said no friggin' way. We asked them to name a price for early July. They didn't answer back. The seller's agent said the owners had no mortgage and weren't in any hurry to sell. We said, alright, if you say so--we aren't the ones bleeding money on an empty house. After all, they started selling the house with a listing price $42.5k higher than the current one last summer when they were still living in the house, raising it all the way to $85k higher than the current price last fall, then, after they moved out, gradually lowered the listing price to the current level.
So, as of now, back to square one. No house in sight.
We have been seeing houses every weekend since the beginning of March. Three weeks ago, we found one house we liked enough to make an offer. It's a vacant house which has been on the market for over half a year already, because the front of the house isn't very appealing, and more importantly, there is CN rail right behind its backyard.
We liked the layout of the house. The living room had two-storey high ceiling. The whole house has hardwood or parquet flooring. It was bright. There was a huge deck in the backyard. All the bedrooms were of decent size, including a not-too-big master bedroom. There was even a study on the main floor, in addition to living room, dining room, and family room. The kitchen was big enough for at least two people to work comfortably (our #1 requirement). The breakfast area was open and lively.
We were fortunate enough to hear a train pass by while we were at the house. The noise level was barely noticeable (Daniel: "you snore way louder than that"), even without any furniture or fabric in the house to absorb the noise.
We made an offer, the usual drill: lowballing. We had a fairly firm price limit in mind, although we could afford more. It was a vacant house with lower resell value. We thought we could negotiate a lower price with an earlier closing date at a later stage of the bargaining. The game of ping-pong went around a few times, each round getting closer to our target price. Our final offer was $1,000 below our price limit, closing by end of April. We were comfortable to sell our condo in a short time, so we didn't put selling it as one of the conditions of the offer.
However, the sellers were having none of that. They wanted more. Another smaller house around the corner--one we almost made an offer on--was sold a few days prior to the start of our negotiation. To our chagrin, the sellers were not willing to below the other house's selling price. We said, fine, we'll pay that price, but we will change the closing date to early July. I even went to the bank and prepared the bank draft for the deposit.
The sellers said no friggin' way. We asked them to name a price for early July. They didn't answer back. The seller's agent said the owners had no mortgage and weren't in any hurry to sell. We said, alright, if you say so--we aren't the ones bleeding money on an empty house. After all, they started selling the house with a listing price $42.5k higher than the current one last summer when they were still living in the house, raising it all the way to $85k higher than the current price last fall, then, after they moved out, gradually lowered the listing price to the current level.
So, as of now, back to square one. No house in sight.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Sleep Problems
Isaac's sleep problems took a turn to the worse over the past two weeks, and it's giving us total headaches (not to mention ruining our nights).
According to my meticulously-kept sleep log, he has been sleeping less than 12 hours a day, when he should be sleeping closer to 15 hours.
The problems are multi-folded. First, during the day, the little guy wouldn't nap longer than an hour. Usually, his naps are only 1/2 hour long. It didn't matter how he fell asleep (by himself, nursed, rocked, cried). When he woke up, he usually wasn't in a particularly bad mood (i.e. not crying). However, he would start crying if I left him in his crib for 15 minutes or so. I couldn't soothe him back to sleep--we never could soothe him to sleep anyway.
After we picked him up from the crib, he would be wide-awake for at least two hours. That's not two hours of playtime. I usually attempt to put him back in his crib after he has been awake for between 1-1.5 hours. Unfortunately, by then, he would begin to fight sleep. Often, he started crying once he realized he was put down in his crib. The "better" times were when he wouldn't cry until I left his bedside, but if he was particularly cranky, he would start crying as he was carried into his room--honestly, how could he tell when half of those times his eyes weren't even open?!?!?!
If I was lucky and he wasn't crying when I put him down, it would still take him at least 1/2 hour to fall asleep in his crib. Of course, he could still start crying any time after I put him down.
Assuming I'm not particularly lucky (which I'm not), then I either had to nurse him to sleep or rock him to sleep. Neither method has 100% success rate, and even if I succeeded, I still had to put him back to his crib without waking him up--something I can do usually one out of three times--or I'd have to start all over again. (If he woke up after I nursed him to sleep, you can often find me in an insanely awkward position of trying to nurse him back to sleep without picking him up. That's right: I would actually be leaning over trying to shovel the nursing parts into his mouth.)
And then, 1/2 hour later, he would friggin' wake up again. That gave me enough time to maybe have a snack or check email.
As the day progressed, his moods would worsen all thanks to his sleep deprivation. That means it became progressively harder to put this overtired baby to sleep. By the time he finally slept for good, it would be close to (or past) midnight.
"Sleep training" by letting him cry to sleep didn't work. This guy could literally cry for at least 2 hours straight--that is when he was held in our arms, not left alone in the crib. Worse yet, he cries so viciously that if we don't keep on soothing him to at least soften his cries, he would vomit. (That has happened more than once when Daddy lost his cool and went on a yelling match with the baby. Not fun.) Honestly, despite the advice and reassurance of a lot of "baby sleep coaches," I can't see how letting a baby cry to throw up is in any way constructive--after all, I had to change his clothes and sometimes the crib sheet, which served to keep an overtired and crying baby up even longer.
We are at our wit's end. For the past two nights, I gave up (gave in?) and slept with Isaac. It kept his sleep-fighting crying to a minimum, although at the expense of slightly more fragmented sleep (but less disruptive awakenings) for both of us. (Daddy was kept out of this picture because he was--and still is--sick and was quarantined.)
According to my meticulously-kept sleep log, he has been sleeping less than 12 hours a day, when he should be sleeping closer to 15 hours.
The problems are multi-folded. First, during the day, the little guy wouldn't nap longer than an hour. Usually, his naps are only 1/2 hour long. It didn't matter how he fell asleep (by himself, nursed, rocked, cried). When he woke up, he usually wasn't in a particularly bad mood (i.e. not crying). However, he would start crying if I left him in his crib for 15 minutes or so. I couldn't soothe him back to sleep--we never could soothe him to sleep anyway.
After we picked him up from the crib, he would be wide-awake for at least two hours. That's not two hours of playtime. I usually attempt to put him back in his crib after he has been awake for between 1-1.5 hours. Unfortunately, by then, he would begin to fight sleep. Often, he started crying once he realized he was put down in his crib. The "better" times were when he wouldn't cry until I left his bedside, but if he was particularly cranky, he would start crying as he was carried into his room--honestly, how could he tell when half of those times his eyes weren't even open?!?!?!
If I was lucky and he wasn't crying when I put him down, it would still take him at least 1/2 hour to fall asleep in his crib. Of course, he could still start crying any time after I put him down.
Assuming I'm not particularly lucky (which I'm not), then I either had to nurse him to sleep or rock him to sleep. Neither method has 100% success rate, and even if I succeeded, I still had to put him back to his crib without waking him up--something I can do usually one out of three times--or I'd have to start all over again. (If he woke up after I nursed him to sleep, you can often find me in an insanely awkward position of trying to nurse him back to sleep without picking him up. That's right: I would actually be leaning over trying to shovel the nursing parts into his mouth.)
And then, 1/2 hour later, he would friggin' wake up again. That gave me enough time to maybe have a snack or check email.
As the day progressed, his moods would worsen all thanks to his sleep deprivation. That means it became progressively harder to put this overtired baby to sleep. By the time he finally slept for good, it would be close to (or past) midnight.
"Sleep training" by letting him cry to sleep didn't work. This guy could literally cry for at least 2 hours straight--that is when he was held in our arms, not left alone in the crib. Worse yet, he cries so viciously that if we don't keep on soothing him to at least soften his cries, he would vomit. (That has happened more than once when Daddy lost his cool and went on a yelling match with the baby. Not fun.) Honestly, despite the advice and reassurance of a lot of "baby sleep coaches," I can't see how letting a baby cry to throw up is in any way constructive--after all, I had to change his clothes and sometimes the crib sheet, which served to keep an overtired and crying baby up even longer.
We are at our wit's end. For the past two nights, I gave up (gave in?) and slept with Isaac. It kept his sleep-fighting crying to a minimum, although at the expense of slightly more fragmented sleep (but less disruptive awakenings) for both of us. (Daddy was kept out of this picture because he was--and still is--sick and was quarantined.)
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