The Daily Hailey

I’m not sugarcoating. Last night sucked. I’m not going to get into it too much. Laela was incredible, and slept from midnight-ish until 4:45am. For lots of reasons, she and I were up until after 6:00am trying to get back to sleep. It finally worked out, but I was super frustrated and was pretty convinced my night was over. Lucky for me, I did end up falling back to sleep and woke at 10:00am!!! Dekker was chatting quietly and Laela was starting to stir. And then I remembered my mom was coming for the day. As previously discussed, around 9:30am. Now I know my mom is comfortable in our house and would likely have found something to busy herself with, but I bolted out of bed and to the living room. As I suspected, she had done a couple things and then just found a magazine to read while she waited for us. I felt ridiculous but not too choked. Probably more choked that I was in my underwear. I got over both and headed back to put on some sweats and change Laela. My mom made her a bottle and fed her while I sat for a minute or two and had a bowl of cereal before getting Dekker out of bed. Quite a night.

To follow the night, Miss Laela was awake ALL DAY! Sure, she dozed out once in a while, but she hardly had any good solid sleepy time. Its really not a problem though. She is so relaxed, and sooo bright eyed when she’s awake!

Meanwhile, Dekker was on fire today, in the best possible way. When my parents babysat the other night, they tidied up his toys and dispersed them throughout the basement in their appropriate places, so Dekker had a riot pulling them all back out today. At one point, he brought me a container filled with green toys. Yay for not being color blind! He’s got enough going on with his eyes already. (* Side note on that: Dekker has his preliminary testing with his second opinion eye doctor this Friday! I’ll mention it again closer to the date but for those who want to start praying now, please do so!) But he played hard and didn’t fight naptime one bit. Just gave me a big kiss and leaned for his bed. I’m so proud that he’s growing up the way he is.

My mom left around dinnertime and Brady was home pretty quickly afterwards. We ate and played toys with Dekker downstairs. Deks really didn’t want to go to bed when it was time, and he hit Brady in the face. This is a stage we’ve been working on for months now, and I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I break down and just bawl, feeling like I’ll never be abel to break the habit of hitting. I know lots of kids hit, but I think its a big deal and something that needs to put to a stop. Yet he’s been hitting for a long time. As he gets stronger, he’s also gotten more intentional about hitting. However, I have recently been able to hesitantly say that its slowing down, as Dekker can comprehend things better. He’s learning consequences and I think that helps. However, today, he hit. I said to him “Dekker, it is never ok to hit Daddy.” and he reached up and hit him again. Grrrrr. So I took him from Brady and he knew right away that he was in trouble. But I kept it together, sat him on the change table so we could be eye to eye, and I just spoke to him. He was wailing away and frankly, if I can’t hear myself, neither can he. So I asked him to quiet down and he did. I asked him to look at me and he did. I said “Can you hear me?” and he looked me right in the eye and waited. So we had a good solid talk about why we don’t hit and that its never ok to hit anyone! Daddy, Mommy, Laela, anybody! I asked if he was sorry and he reached for a hug. So we had a big hug before Brady came into the room. Dekker gave Brady a big hug, and everything went back to normal.

I left the room to let the boys do their thing and was sort of knocked off my feet when I realized how smoothly and (hopefully?) normally that had all gone! Brady and I are officially adults. We have two children. One of them is old enough that he needs to be reprimanded sometimes. He’s been in that age bracket for a while now, but it excites me that Dekkers capacity to understand is growing and growing! I can’t wait until his language is stronger and he can tell me with words why he’s upset. I’m rambling. I was very proud of Dekker this evening, taking correction with humility, accepting that he had done something wrong, and making it better the best way he can. Go Dekker!!!

I love my kids. As the title of this post suggests, its been a wakeful day. Dekker has been in bed talking for over a half hour, and Laela is laying next to me, wide awake, as she has been basically all day. I’m hoping this bodes well for a long night. Tomorrow is a day for me to be alone with the kids. Weirdly enough, I’m not as nervous about that aspect of the day. I could do without all the break ins that keep happening in town though. People are sure getting gutsier around here… Prayer would be welcomed.

So would sleep. And snacks.