Everybody Hates Going To Bed

SoulBaby will now sleep for several hours through the night, but getting him into bed is the most challenging task I face all day. Every once in awhile he will go to sleep peacefully and I can rush for a couple hours to get a few tasks done before I too must retire. It seems that the norm is more often that he goes down for and hour or so and then pops back up ready to go again.

I have set an optimal (according to me) routine bedtime for him every night - bathing him, reading to him and massaging him just as the Johnson & Johnson site says to do to relax your child. Now I have not used their line of calming products which I am sure would add benefit to their claims of ensuring a good night's sleep with their simple nighttime steps, but I have plenty of good lotion and it that really going to make him sleep better? I have read countless child books, blogs, and message boards to search for something new, one small helpful piece of advice that can win me some extra time everyday.

Still, I have put him down three times already tonight and as I write this now he is twitching in his sleep – the first indication he is faking it and will soon be up again. The doctor says he’s a baby and I can’t expect him to cooperate. The books say he should be sleeping regularly now, or at least in a routine. My mom says he is just so social and thinks he is going to miss out on something if he falls asleep.

I am going to let him choose his own sleep path and see what happens because really, I am just tired of fighting to get him to sleep. I hope I am not setting my child up for afternoon kindergarten and an inability to wake up before 8 in the morning, but right now I am so tired I just can’t be bothered to worry that far ahead.

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When I first had SoulBaby he was in the NICU for several days due to some breathing problems and a fever. I remember one of the nurses in there was talking to us about how at first you are so worried about everything with your child, continuously checking to see if they are breathing while they are sleeping and whatnot. Having not had my son at home all to myself, I could not yet imagine this behavior.

When he finally did come home, the first night was the second most shocking experience I had had to date, only topped by the delivery nearly a week earlier. I never knew that a newborn made such irregular, phlegmy and overall unhealthy sounding breaths. And I never knew the kind of pain and concern that his non-stop cry would shock through my body. It was not a physical pain like the labor, but a mental anguish that affected every ounce of my body when I heard his shrill, scared cry.

I think we woke every hour or two to strange gurgling noises in the night for the first week. We became accustomed to the sounds and did not have to worry whether or not he was breathing in the night because we could easily hear him sleeping in the bassinet next to our bed. Finally, he quieted and then we graduated to watching the rise of his chest by the light of the nightlight. Ahhh, yes he is still breathing, and we rest again.

Slowly we became more comfortable. He started taking longer naps and sleeping more at night, leaving me alone in the house with him more, but not with him. At least once a day, I look around and wonder where he is, and then, yes he is still napping, I remember. I have been here with him almost every moment for four months and now it is weird to be awake so many hours in a row undisturbed by baby’s needs. So I have to go check on him now.

Programming The Child

I desperately want my child to be bilingual. Before young SoulBaby ever grew in my womb, I had grandiose ideas of how I would train my future baby to speak Japanese. Having spent one year of university studying abroad and several additional years of training in the language, I always thought I would pass this knowledge on to any offspring.

Now it has been nearly 10 years since I have lived in Japan and nearly 4 now since my last visit. However, I still have the very basic conversational stylings of the Japanese I once knew - I can discuss the finer points of various electronics in Akihabara with the overenthusiastic sales clerks, order delicious food with ease, and ask directions, as well as understand the answers.

Now that my son has passed five months old, he is recognizing some small nuances of speech like the inflection of a question and the certainty of an answer. I, however, am finding that as his interest in language grows, my vocabulary lacks. It has been so long since I have stretched my mind to Japanese mode where I can output words with ease and state my thoughts succinctly. I confuse simple tenses, forget basic vocabulary, and have incoherent words fall right out of my mouth as simple as the babble and drool falls from SoulBaby's.

My current strategy has me continuously writing down the missing words from my vocabulary to look up later in the day when I have a few extra minutes. Hopefully by the time that he is ready to start talking back I will have regained some of my past linguistic glory.

I am also thinking that as he gets older I should supplement his learning with some Japanese Language videos, flashcards and other learning tools. I have read a lot of mixed reviews about these products. Most state that a lot of the products are next to worthless as they only teach vocabulary and not the actual communication of a foreign language.

I figure that with one semi-competent Japanese speaker in the house, these supplemental tools are just what I need to help my son learn. Where the videos leaves off with vocabulary and word use, I can pick up with reaffirmation and familiarity.

For now I am learning Japanese nursery rhymes and they have been received with much glee by a constantly smiling face. If anyone is interesting in teaching some different songs to their children check out Mama Lisa’s Blog filled with lyrics and MP3s of great songs for children from around the globe.