So it was a, well, challenging Christmas season, once again....

As usual, we celebrated Christmas with my in-laws in Germany. My husband's parents are divorced; his father is remarried, and his mother's mother (now a great-grandmother to our son!) is still alive. She is 88 years old.

• We stayed with my mother-in-law, as we usually do. My father-in-law and his wife have cats, and I'm allergic.. There was drama - FIL felt neglected, because we didn't spend as much time with him as we did with MIL -;
• There was awkwardness - MIL doesn't "get" that it's sometimes hard for me to spend a whole week with my in-laws (she thinks she is easy to live with - but she's really, really not. Plus, she moved to a smaller house, which made it difficult to stay with her without getting annoyed with each other);
• There was fatigue - we slept in one room with our son, who had a bad cold. My husband did too, so every time he coughed, baby awoke, and every time baby awoke, I did, too. Needless to say: we are still trying to recuperate from the whole thing.

We've thought about staying home for the holidays, but then how would we deal with the divorced in-laws? We live in tight quarters, too, so we can't very well have them sleep here (there is no bed for them, let alone a room to put it in...). Plus, hubby's grandma, who we love dearly, doesn't travel anymore. She likes to sleep in her own bed, and at her age, I think she deserves to do whatever she pleases! So I think we'll be traveling at least until we have a house, and possible until grandma dies (although... her own mother lived to be close to 100 years old, so maybe that's a bit long!) In any case, if I get pregnant again, physical problems will most probably prevent me from traveling, so we'll have to change our plans then.

I suppose we should be grateful to still have hubby's parents and grandma - and we are! - but I'm just not made to be the perfect daughter-in-law for a whole week. I need some room to breathe!

My mother is whole other story. We always stay for one night at her house on our way to and from Germany, and it's a delight. She lives in a huge house, so we  have lots of space, and she has more toys than we do, plus a crib and anything else we might need. We don't need to unpack everything there, which is great. Plus, she lets us do our own thing while she plays with our son - awesome! You would think that I just feel that way because she's  my mom, but even my husband is more relaxed at her house than he is at his mom's...

So that was Christmas. When we got back, we found our heater was clogged and our kitchen had an inch of water everywhere... welcome home! The clog was fixed in under 30 minutes, which was awesome, but the cabinet that holds the heater needs to be replaced. Just when we were going to put our home on the market! *sigh*

Anyhoodle... everyone have a happy, healthy, relaxing New Year!

I just read yesterday's QOTD (Question of the Day): "what is the ideal spacing between children?" and I just about had a fit...

I guess I'm having a bit of an issue with this question because it seems as though no-one bothered to think about the fact that not everyone gets to "choose" when they have children! Rather than asking what the ideal space between kids would be, how about asking WHY people's kids are "spaced" as they are?

I only have one child so far, and he is 18 month old now. People have been asking "so, when are you going to try for another one?" as if it's all that easy to not only get pregnant, but carry the child to term without major problems. Hey, if I had had my way, I would have been pregnant again now! But my body just cannot handle another pregnancy - I have barely recovered from my first. I have had to endure severe SI-joint problems and sciatica. Ttranslation: I was in pain 24/7 for the first 6 months of my son's life, and gradually in less pain up until now. I am still not completely pain-free, and need to rest more often during the day than other people do.

Also, there are our finances and home situation to consider. We are currently looking to sell our home in a down market, and are hoping to buy a bigger home while the market is still down. Another issue is my personal situation: I am still trying to finish my MA-degree, since I paid good money for tuition, plus I only have a short contract at my two jobs, which means I would probably lose both those jobs if I got pregnant now. These situations dictate that I cannot get pregnant right now, even if my body were able to handle another pregnancy.

I'd like to think that despite it all, I am usually a pretty happy, "focus on the positive" kind of person, but sometimes innocent questions like the "are you trying for another one yet?" question just drive me crazy!!

Are there any other moms out there who have experienced problems with their pregnancies? Have your problems prevented you from having another child?

Just a few weeks ago, I bragged in someone's comment section on how good UeberKid was at going to sleep, and sleeping through the night.... and I jinxed it!

Of course, there are always circumstances that lead to problems in the bedroom (haha.. no pun intended...), that is, problems with sleeping through the night. UeberKid has had a lot on his little 15-month-old mind lately: his molars are coming through one after the other, he had a couple of not-so-nice shots which made him feel crappy for a couple of weeks, he is learning to talk (yay!), stand up on his own, walk whilst holding on to one hand instead of two, his daycare days have expanded from two to three days a week, his regular daycare nannies have left/are leaving (all THREE of them!! but that's a whole different post...), and to top it all off, we took him to Germany for a week to visit my in-laws.

Needless to say... poor UeberKid couldn't get to sleep the first couple of nights we were in Germany. Hubby kindly volunteered to sleep on the couch next to the traveler crib, and that seemed to calm UeberKid down, and he slept pretty well for a couple of nights. Then we went home, by way of my mom's house (halfway between the in-laws and our home in Holland), and the same thing occurred.We've been home for three nights now, and each night UeberKid has either not gone to sleep at his regular time, woken up screaming at least five times during the night, or both... Every time we went into his room though, he would stop crying as long as we were in there, and would sit up (or stand up) and want to play! And every time we walked out, he would start screaming... Help! Last night, UeberHubby even tried sleeping on the floor next to the crib, but that just made UeberKid want to play, not sleep. At 4.45 am, I gave in, and got him out of his crib and sat with him on the couch until he fell asleep in my arms (at 5.30 am), and we slept in till about 8.15 am. In other words....

We are pooped!

Today, UeberKid is in daycare, and I'm "working" at home (that is, trying to prepare for the classes I'm teaching in August) and so is hubby (he is a musician, so he is preparing for his gig tomorrow night). After I took UeberKid to daycare, we both took a LOOOOONG nap, and then we talked about how to deal with UeberKid's sleeping pattern. It seems he is not so much feeling bad, it's more like he has developed a pattern and wants to stick to it... We're hoping to get him to go back to falling asleep on his own at night (like he DOES do with his afternoon naps!) by using the SuperNanny method: we go back every couple of minutes, lay him down again, and leave the room, expanding the time we wait to go back by a couple of minutes every time. It'll probably take a couple of nights, but I think we need to establish a better pattern for the future.... Maybe we've just been a bit soft lately, but he's had so much to deal with,  you know?

How did you deal with your children's sleeping problems? Were they continuous, or can you (in hindsight) see where and why they started? How did you go about establishing night-time routines?