It'll be better when the can be reasoned with

will it? That's what I told myself yesterday but I think I'm kidding myself. I was thinking that when they're older, we can say "mummy and daddy are tired now so you go to sleep so that we can get some sleep too, OK?"...yeh right! I heard that they cannot be reasoned with until they are 3 or 4 years old...does that mean they will just be bigger babies with more physical abilities but just as much of a pain in the arse as they are now? I guess only time will tell.

It's not really easier

Everybody said that the first three months are the hardest. In some ways it is but at times it seems like it's harder now than ever. They're 8 1/2 months old now, nearly 7 months corrected, but they're not sleeping through the night yet. Jin used to sleep at least 6 hours, but the last month or so he's back to 4 hourly feeds overnight! Cloud is a bit better, he goes 5 hours. I don't get it, how can they regress??? I've read that they are not suppose to NEED food over night, as long as they've had enough during the day, by this stage, they should be able to hold out until morning. I know that all babies are different, some sleep through at 4 months, others are still waking up at 3 years old! Is it a matter of training them or is it a matter of personality/physiology? Our paed said to leave it until they are 9 months old before trying to force them to sleep through, not sure why he said 9 months...should have asked him. So we've got a couple more months of a maximum of 5 hours straight sleep before we can do anything.

Jin is going to be harder to change as he has more bad habits than Cloud. Jin is addicted to his dummy, not just for sleeping, but during the day too. I think that's why he wakes up in the middle of the night crying...no...screaming for his dummy, it's like it's calm, then without warning, he's SCREAMING! Once he gets his dummy and a few pats, he's usually OK to go back to sleep, but it's a really rude way to wake someone up! He also has a tough time putting himself to sleep, he usually needs to be held to sleep, then when you put him down, he'll scream, as soon as you pick him up again, he's fine. We try to get him to fall asleep in the cot as much as we can, but he just screams the place down unless he's in our arms! Unless he's really tired, this is the norm for him...it's got to change, we can't have him needing to be held to fall asleep.

It's amazing how the human body adapts. Pre-babies I was getting 8 hours of sleep a night and if I only got 6 hours, I'd be really grumpy the next day. Now, I'd be in heaven if I got 6 hours! Sure I'm tired during the day now, but it's just the norm so I don't think about it too much, unless I'm really tired. It's all relative!

Day & night reversed

Jin has taken to waking up at 2am and staying up for 2 hours! He seems to think that it's play time or something. He sleeps more during the day than night :( I don't know how he got into this habit but it just ain't right. What can you do if he just doesn't want to sleep? We have no choice but to stay up with him, we don't play with him, we just hold him, it's the only thing that keeps him quiet. He used to be such a good sleeper, 8:30pm through to 2 or 3 am! What happened!?!

Ken Keyes - The Hundredth Monkey

Ken Keyes Jr., probably most famous for his Living Love method and the Twelve Pathways, wrote several books, mostly on personal development. I read his book, The Handbook to Higher Consciousness, which he wrote back in 1972 and was instantly hooked. He also wrote a book about nuclear disarmament which he did not copyright as he wanted to spread the word as much as possible. Here is an intro and then links to the entire text from the book The Hundredth Monkey, which I typed up years ago.

The Hundredth Monkey

The Hundredth Monkey by Ken Keyes, jr. This book shows you how we have the creativity and power to change both ourselves and the world. You are introduced a radical new way of realizing the impact of your energy on the world around you - a quantum leap in consciousness, as inspired by the legend of the Hundredth Monkey. You'll find here the facts about nuclear armaments that some people don't want you to know. The failure of a 46 cents computer part could sound a false alarm that enemy missiles are on their way. An all-out nuclear war in the first few weeks can kill about half the people on earth - and cause leukemia, cancer, and birth defects in the people in all countries. Are you willing to live in such an insane world?
The Hundredth Monkey was written by a successful author whose books now total over 3.25 million copies. So urgent is this information that he has not copyrighted it. He feels that his survival and yours (is there any difference?) are more important than anything else.
Your life and well-being are at stake. This book tells you what you can do about it. It gives you hope and direction.
Please feel free to point to this site or even keep a copy on your site, we need to spread the word!!!

The Hundredth Monkey

Dreams

Dreamt of my family last night, we were at a restaurant, Mum and Dad were there, along with some unknown uncle...I was speaking Chinese, not really well, but getting by, just a bit slow. Dad was saying that I'd never miss a day of work and that I am a very good worker. Uncle piped up and said that of course, he's learnt by example from you and even if you had a sign up saying otherwise, I'd learn from your actions. This is so true and it's something I have to constantly keep in mind now that I have children who will be looking at me for direction.

Another dream was I was given a pair of hairdresser scissors, they looked really weird and I had no idea how to use them...pretty obvious explanation here, I need a haircut badly!

Our first XMAS with the boys!

We bought a proper pine tree, none of these plastic trees that we reused and more and more bits went missing every year. Our first XMAS with the boys, as a whole family :) Of course they have no idea what's going on, but we'll show them the photos when they're older. Next year they should have some idea...or maybe the year after. They're 8 calendar months old now! Or 26 weeks corrected.

Mum still doesn't know about them, I feel very bad about it...guilty, ashamed, embarrassed...but I agreed that it is for the better, the boys aren't really missing out on anything by not knowing my family. Other than to say that they have a grandma, uncle, etc, but all of them are unconscious people who would more than likely pass on negative values to them. B is right in that I want them to know only for my own reasons, I'm not thinking of the boys' needs first. I feel like I'm living a secret life, I am really, but I never see my family anyway nowdays. I last saw mum a couple of weeks ago, only briefly, and before that it was around March!

I've thought about writing to Dr. Phil to ask his advice on what I should do about this constant guilt, whether I should tell them or just leave it as it is and when they somehow find out, just deal with it then...my problem with the latter is what if it's like a few years before they find out, how will I explain why i have 2 toddlers that they don't know about!? But in reality, it's already passed that stage, they are already 8 months old, maybe 6 months ago I could have said "the pregnancy was really stressful and B nearly died, so we decided to keep it quiet so that we wouldn't have to deal with family at the same time"...or some shit like that. But it's way too late for that now.

On the one hand I respect B's decision to keep them from my family, they are her children too and she has a 50% say in what happens to them. But on the other hand, my traditional upbringing is telling me that what I am doing is WRONG, family should come first, how dare I keep this from them, etc, etc.

I've told B how I feel and said that I might not be able to handle it much more and I'd have to tell them, but we agreed that I'd tell her well in advance before that happened. I should really think carefully about what the consequences of my actions would be, just do a pros and cons list...

Pros:

• My guilt would be relieved and I wouldn't have to constantly battle the feeling of being a bad son/family member.
• The boys would know that extended family (this could arguably be a con), and would not have to explain to friends/teacher why they don't know their grand parents.

Cons:

• They would be subjected to their negative, selfish, traditional values and possible abusive behaviour.
  
• B would be stressed every time we visited them.
• They would want to see them when they want, not when we want.

Fairly even in numbers, but the severity of the cons far out weigh the pros...my struggle continues...