Our Ordinary Miracles

For a few days in a row last week, Julia, or the girl I used to know as Julia, woke up from her nap in a psychotic state. She has never been one to wake up and just play. She always fusses or cries. But this was bad. It was scary. She thrashed around in her pack-n-play and was simply inconsolable for 30-40 minutes. After hours of internet research I found everything from "she's just cranky" to "she has autism." Don't worry - I DO NOT think she has autism. Those are just the extremes that you find on the great World Wide Web. What seems the most likely explanation is Sleep Inertia.

In children, sleep inertia appears to be more severe and more prolonged for those who are more overtired. It appears that sleep is intruding into wakefulness, and this overlap state is painfully uncomfortable. One mother described it as a "fugue" state, another as a "demonic" state. The children are out of control, panicky, crying, or screaming hysterically.

It was comforting to read that there are many many children out there that do the same thing so we're not alone. I am glad to report that the last three days have been better. She's woken up happy. I attribute this to prayer. For the last three days before nap I prayed out loud with Julia that God would help her to sleep well and wake up with a happy heart. That's what I prayed the first two days. Then today, day three, I told God that if He wanted to help her sleep a little longer, like Sam and Sophia, then I would not be too sad about that. And ya know what? She took a solid two hour nap! Thanks Lord!

Last night the kids had their first bubble bath. I did research online (surprise?) about which ones are safe for girls and found that California Baby makes some. They loved it! They gave themselves beards (which I was sort of surprised they knew exactly what beards were but I guess since Pop Pop has one...).
Sam is a great jumper. Today Shane was sitting on the stairs and suddenly Sam was channeling Superman and sailing over Shane's shoulder. He was able to grab him and all was well, but now Sam thinks it's fun to jump on the stairs.One of the kids favorite things is climbing in and out of the pack-n-play that Julia naps in. The S's are much more physical that Jules, but she still tries hard to join in. Today she got one leg over and looked up at her daddy and said, "I'm learning Daddy." *melt*
I wanted to make some healthy breakfast cookies for the kiddos so I found a good looking recipe. I followed the recipe just as I had copied it: with 1/4 cup of flour. I plopped them on the sheet like this:
And they came out like this:Clearly I copied the recipe wrong! Yeah, it was ONE and 1/4 cup of flour. Oh well! I actually scraped them up and gave the kids some. It was tasty!