In any event, let me introduce to you Juliet Rose.  She was born 12/26/11 at 12:35 pm.  We were blessed with a quick an easy labor and a very healthy baby girl weighing 7 pounds 7 ounces and measuring 19.5 inches long.

Celeste is an AWESOME big sister and is her happiest cuddling with her baby and a parent

We all couldn’t be happier to have this little one around.

Two years ago, I lost that job and was terrified that I had forced my family into poverty and searched desperately for another one.  Within five weeks I had a job offer (I know… how lucky was I?) and although it was a rather drastic pay cut, I felt that by working I was providing my child a better life with the things I could give her (other than time, of course).

Last year, we decided we wanted to try again for another child.  We wanted to try once Celly turned two and while  I was very, very happy that we had come to this consensus, I also made it clear that, with the birth of our second child, I felt it was best (both financially and for our family) if I no longer work and focus my attention on raising our children.

With the due date of Baby P 2.0 looming, today is my last day as a full time employed working mama.  Monday morning, I will not be waking up and running out the door to work.  I will no longer be working to pay someone else to raise my child. 

I cannot even begin to tell you how this makes me feel.  On the one hand I am elated that after two years of missing my kid and hoping I’ve made the right decision, now I will be with my kid and… well, hoping I’ve made the right decision!  I’m terrified to be honest.  Will we be able to surivive on one income?  Have I budgeted sufficiently to get us through this without ruining our credit?  Can I even stick to the budget I’ve set up for us?  Do I have the patience to be a stay at home mother to a toddler and a newborn?  Is Celeste going to hate me for pulling her out of school and away from the friends she’s made there?

I could go on, but I don’t think I need to.  I remember the first week back at work after my maternity leave.  I did miss my child something fierce, but I also learned that I missed adult interaction as well.  I was almost relieved to be working again.  When I started working at this job, I cried every night I had to work the late shift and I wasn’t there to kiss my child before bed, but if I’m honest, I also came to enjoy having an excuse for her Daddy to do all the work for a night.  And, I have to be honest here, working those late shifts and forcing my hubby to be her sole caregiver for a few hours in the evening did wonderful things for his confidence level as a parent!  To top it all off, I was raised by a stay at home mom and working father and witnessed first hand my mother’s extreme desire to get OUT of the house and be something other than a mom and wife.

I have talked to Celeste about the idea that she will be staying at home with Mommy and she gets excited about it, but I also know she enjoys the children she goes to school with and I will not be as attenetive once the little one comes as she is used to (at least for short periods of time).  Most of you who know me will know that I’m a researcher and as such I’ve been looking up fun activities for us to do and free printable worksheets for us to continue having learning fun with her.

What I think she will miss the most are the friends she has made in the past two years.  I’m hoping that frequent trips to the park will lead us to other children and stay at home moms and that the few parents I do know with kids in her age range and I will have a bit more time on our hands to get together.

Any stay at home moms that might read my blog, got any pointers for me?  I keep joking with people here at work that when I come to visit I’ll have a big ol’ bald spot on my head where I’ve pulled my hair out.  I am confident that staying home is what is best for my family and that is why we’ve moved forward on this decision but like every mom out there, I’m a worry wart.

Here are two simple examples of shots of the monitor that we have in her room from the past two nights…

She buried her head under the pillow like an ostrich in the sand:

And last night, she was hanging off the side of her bed with one foot on the floor (preparing for escape?)

So far we have had no issues since transitioning to a big girl bed with her falling out or getting up and wandering… here’s hoping it continues so well!

As an aside, please realize that Facebook is taking away my ability to have these blog posts automatically post to my notes pages in your newsfeed.  You may want to come back to the actual blog for more cutie patootie updates (we have both an email sign up AND an RSS feed, you know )

2009:

2011:

According to this site, “Night terrors are caused by over-arousal of the central nervous system (CNS) during sleep. This may happen because the CNS (which regulates sleep and waking brain activity) is still maturing.”  It goes on to say that a tendency toward night terrors could be inherited from the parents and that they are thought to be linked to children or are stressed, overtired or ill.  It has also been linked to taking new medications and sleeping in an environment away from home.

I would like to think that my two year old isn’t very stressed.  We’ve been trying to make the transition from only child to big sister a fun and special one, but maybe we’ve placed too much emphasis on the upcoming change and caused this… I steer away from this idea because a) she had night terrors before I was pregnant, and b) I just refuse to believe I could mess my child up that much J.  She does, however, refuse to nap and I’m wondering if I start to track if I’ll find a correlation between the days she doesn’t nap and the nights she wakes me up with a night terror.  The night I wrote about earlier this week I remember that she did not nap in school that day so the only day I can say I clearly know about this correlation does occur (but one night is nowhere near enough data to draw a conclusion).

As for the other two explanations the article gives for most kids’ night terrors, Celly takes no medication (other than a vitamin and occasionally an OTC allergy medicine) and she always sleeps in her own bed so the change in medication and sleeping away from home arguments are not valid in her case.

How many parents out there have had kids with night terrors this young?  According to the article, its most common in children between 4 and 8 and she’s not even three yet.  How do you deal with them?

“MOMMY!  PAPA!” comes screaming over the monitor and I’m jerked awake fifteen minutes later.  Oh man, she’s earlier than usual tonight.  Celly wakes me up on average four times a week like this.  She screams out in her sleep for her Mommy and her Papa.  She mumbles and yells and after a moment or two (it honestly is no more than two or three minutes but dang if it doesn’t feel like an hour) and drifts off back to slumber land.  I turn on the video screen and sure enough, she’s curled up, yelling out in her sleep unaware of the havoc she’s creating in Mommy’s head.  This night I also hear her ask for “her baby” and she says, “No, Papa” a lot.

I wait her out, trying to remain calm and keep my mind quiet.  I can’t help but try and decipher what she’s saying; to try and figure out what it is in her little head that makes her so worried she cries out in her sleep.  Invariably, she relaxes, falls back into a deeper level of sleep and goes the rest of the night without interruption and wakes up refreshed with no memory of the night terror at all.  For Mommy, however, it starts a vicious chain reaction.  I wait, worried (no matter how many times I sit through them) that something is truly wrong.  I worry that I won’t fall back asleep and that I’ll be a zombie the next day and sure enough, one worry leads to another and I’m an anxious wreck laying in bed for upwards of an hour trying desperately to turn my mind off and get more sleep.

Last night, it went like this:  Is she okay?  She asked for her baby, are we putting too much emphasis on the pending birth of her baby sister?  Holy Cannolli I’m going to have another baby.  Will I be able to control my blood sugar or will I be on medication soon?  Am I making the right choices for the girls?  Oh goodness, I haven’t felt the baby move (duh, I’ve been asleep, but I didn’t say I was rational), is everything okay?  Will I be a good mother to two girls?  Will I still be a good enough wife for him? Etc, etc, etc.  Some nights, it gets so bad that if the hubs stops snoring (yes he sleeps through the entire episode) I’ll hold my breath to make sure he’s even breathing.  

On good nights, I can get my mind in order and back to sleep within 30 minutes of her waking up.  On bad nights, like last night, I was up for two and a half hours.  If there is one thing I’m looking forward to after having this baby, it’ll be my hormones calming down enough for me to be a bit more rational again.  Being a mom is scary enough without my own mind dragging me through the mud!