If I could have Ferber and Karp in the same room....

How can one get angry at this face? Really.

But oh BOY has he been testing the patience of mine lately. We went from sleeping through the night to up several times a night. I'm sorry what? Dude you are 22months old this mama's body has adjusted to the long stretches of sleep so what gives?

I frantically surf the web every night looking for answers. Answers to why oh WHY is my precious little Tank causing so much disturbance to my REM sleep. Tag lines like: Sleep regression or sleep problems in toddlers or HELP-I-want-to-jump-off-the-nearest-bridge-my-child-won't-sleep run through my search engines like the NASDAQ on trade day. Every perfect parent has ideas and solutions to the frantic and sleep deprived parent questions. Cry it out, pick them up, hug them, feed them, give them a bit of bourbon, throw their crib in the garage. You know... all those ideas that have worked for those really great parents.

Anywho so the night I saw the clock from 2:30am-4:00am I enlisted in the Supermom tactics of a lackluster parent. I mixed Ferber with Karp (*gasp) and threw in a little bootcamp Mama. It was not the shining moment in my career as a mom. As I threw back the covers, said some choice words each time I had to go into the Tanks room. I raised my voice out of frustration and I hugged him when I felt bad. That night I realized that those books are garbage really good sources of information in which I can say DUDE you don't have a child like mine do you?

Anyhow- he's cute, he's funny and most of all he makes my heart smile every time I hear that little Tank of mine say "Piggle" or "I-want-that".

From this

to this

Now really- could you get mad at that? His chubby little face just screams trouble! I will say it again. Its a damn good thing he's cute!

Bonjourno!!?!

Welcome back! The defunct Tao of James has not recieved an update in quite some time. Well. I've been busy. I swear!

Superkid is now approaching 3. O-M-G if anyone had told me. No wait- warned me that this is probably the funniest and yet most annoyingly challenging age I'd never believed it. Until today. I once house broke a puppy and raised a newborn at the same time practically alone (as superdad's work schedule is less then desirable to a family with young'ins). Not even THAT can compare to a few hours in the same house as Superkid. We move from laughing to screaming in about 0.0000002 seconds here I think her moods are far more unstable then a 49yr old woman experiencing menopause. Repeat my mantra daily- 'I love my children, I love my children' as it is necessary to get through a day around here.

SuperbabyII a.k.a The Tank arrived in March, he turned our world upside down more so then his moody counterpart. After 5 long days in the hospital our family of 3 became a family of four in cramped quarters. A few days after he arrived home I proclaimed it was time to move. Five months of room sharing (and not with Superkid I might add, he was alllllllllllllllllllllllll ours) was enough motivation to get packed and move to our current house. The added square footage and room to roam has been a blessing. However- I forgot I would have to clean and organize a larger space. We are definitely not done that yet.

25months 8 days of spacing between births. Again... WHERE WAS MY WARNING? No one said 'yo crazy', and if they did they sure didn't speak loud enough. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't (and couldn't) change it for anything but WOW... I don't have anything on those Duggar folks. Two is our limit, in fact I think one could have been the stable limit but ha- stable? Is there such thing. We rocked the cart and well the dysfunctionals are in da houuuuuuuuuuse.

Oh and because we recognize our limits after bringing The Tank home, we gave Phoenix to a great young couple who could give him everything he was craving- attention, walks, love, companionship. He was so sad with us, and I was so sad that he was so sad. I was also sad that we had to do what we did but it was the best decision for him and that takes a big person to admit that. We didn't give up on him but we were busy and perhaps I should have (and next time I will) listen to my mother when we said 'hey we are getting a dog'. So the James' family albeit complete technically shrunk by 1 in June of 2009. We hope he is truly happy with Lisa and Paul and their Superpug.