Sunday, January 10, 2010

Readings of late

Been meaning to blog for ages, and of course now that I have time can't seem to remember what about... Hmmm...

1) I read The Alchemist over Christmas break. Only read if you have free time and are a fast reader, otherwise don't waste your time. It was interesting and the end made me laugh, but yah, not worth the effort. SPOILER ALERT: So it's about a boy who is a shepherd in medieval times, and has a dream that he is going to find a great treasure. So basically its about he he gives up everything he has in search of this great treasure, thus completing his higher purpose in the universe. Lots of goofy language, like 'the wind of the soul' and 'heart of the earth' stuff, and I think it supposed to be very philisophical and deep. Except for the ending which totally made laugh, and maybe I missed something, but if I had to summarize the ending I would say that he finally gets to the end of his journey, he's lost all his money and finds himself almost beaten to death, robbed again, when he is told, "You left your homeland and lost all your possessions and money, and gave years to this journey because of a dream? You big dummy!" I know, super funny right?

2) watched the movie Paper Heart. Very good. It has actors form Juno in it, and they were very endearing.

3) Read 'How to Solve your child's sleep problems.' (by Richard Ferber). An excellent read. I particularly liked how he was not judgemental. He was very encouraging and kind; hope giving. Since reading it I have been tackling Gemma's sleep problems, and am into phase II of sleep training. Phase I was sit at the end of her bed. Phase II is sit outside the door. Phase III will be enforce this until summer so we NEVER go back to mommy has to lay down with her to go to sleep. I now consider myself a sleep expert, having read a few books on the subject and raising two children, the first whom we did everything WRONG with and is a terrible sleeper, and one who we did everything right with and is a great sleeper. In summary of Ferber's book, a good night's sleep is dependant on sleep associations. A child has to fall asleep by themselves in the place they will sleep all night with the things they sleep with all night. All people wake up slightly between sleep cycles. We do this to make sure we are ok and safe. An adult might notice if the pillow has fallen on the floor, or if a light has been left on. We fix the problem, go back to sleep, or if there is no problem we go back to sleep without even realzing we were awake. If a child falls asleep with mommy, when they transition from one sleep stage to the next and have that slight wake up, they look around and realize that mommy isn't there and this counts as a wrong. So they wake up. And try to fix the situation. In cases of confusional arousal, like Gemma has, where they wake up yelling and crying and thrashing, but aren't really awake, its their body literally being half asleep and half awake. Part of the body wants to wake up and part wants to sleep. And the big kicker I got after reading like 250 pages of this book was that there is not much you can do for that, and most kids outgrow it before they are 6, having good sleep assoiciations can help. PLUS I am just ready to have my evenings back. So anyway, if your child has sleep problems check it out.

4) Been reading psalms lately, and halve been in the 80s-90s. Some great material there. 'The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.' Psalm 87:15 (I think). Hmmmm, so warm and fuzzy feeling.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow - crammed a lot of good parenting tips in one blog post! We'll be moving Maria to a bed soon so we'll have to check out the book. I like parenting books, actually. Interesting stuff.

Shirley said...

I'm having a bit of trouble here, trying to decypher those verification letters. So, you may get this three times! Hope not, because it'll get pretty tiring pretty fast!
I was saying "I'm going to give you some old-auntie-advice. Put a light on her bed. Let her choose a book, and tell her that she's such a big girl now, that she can read till she's tired and turn out her own light, and GO TO SLEEP. Our kids developed their own schedules, and didn't try to stay awake all night or anything. (Maybe they did, but we never knew about it, and that's the whole point!!)

Unknown said...

Thanks for the nice blog. This is very useful and interesting.I read this and my self very appreciate with this blog. Thanks a lot...

Quran

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