What if Darth Vader were around to see Luke grow up? What if he took an active role in his childhood and did all the things that ordinary dads do with their sons?

Author and illustrator Jeffrey Brown has taken up this challenge in Darth Vader and Son, which paints a lovely and hilarious alternate reality of Darth Vader as an everyday father. Among the many scenarios depicted in the book, Vader teaches Luke how to use a lightsaber, takes him toy-shopping, and even goes trick-or-treating with him!

I hardly have time to check my Google Reader anymore, so I was absolutely delighted when J told me about this book. The only problem I can see with it is that Leia is nowhere in sight — perhaps the author will write a sequel featuring her?

This 64-page hardcover book will not be released until May 4, but you can be sure that we will be pre-ordering a copy for ourselves and our girls! In the meantime, be sure to check out the below book trailer:

Via Design Taxi. 

The first few weeks without J’s parents weren’t too bad. I really thought that I could do this.

But in the past week, Claire has started to act up.

My parents think that it’s because up until now, Aerin was still a young infant — just kind of there, taking up and room and requiring only the most basic needs met. But now that she is really starting to become interactive, not only demanding more of my attention but also garnering more from others as well with her smiling, cooing demeanor, Claire has begun to take notice.

And she does not like it.

Before, she wouldn’t mind if Aerin would play with her toys or her old baby products. She wouldn’t mind to see Aerin strapped to my chest, just as long as I was still paying attention to her too.

But now, she cries when she sees Aerin lying in her old activity gym. She demands to have Sophie back (even though she has never taken much interest in the popular teething toy). And whenever she sees me with Aerin in the Bjorn? She will whine for me to pick her up too.

She has even begun to hit me and her little sister!

This was what was the most upsetting out of the numerous things that went wrong last week: knowing that Claire — now a year and a half years old and at a stage where she requires much love and attention to thrive and be happy — is not receiving nearly as much care as she deserves.

There is also the fact that Aerin, who is now 5 months of age, needs a lot more from her caretaker(s) as well.

J and I have decided that I need help. But finding a part-time nanny to lend me a hand will also require a lot of work on my part, which I am already reluctant to do because I am so. Damn. Tired. ALL. THE. TIME.

Additionally, J’s parents are returning for three months starting next month. J thinks that we will only need help until then, because when they come they can help out with the girls once more. However, this poses two problems in my eyes: (1) I am reluctant to hire someone to leave only as the girls get used to her; (2) I do not want Claire to have to go through “losing” loved ones again. After all, in the past six months, she has “lost” her aunt & uncle (who moved to Shanghai) as well as her grandparents — all of whom she saw regularly and clearly loved and bonded with.

If anything, I would prefer that Claire’s grandparents do not see the girls too often when they come, because it almost seems cruel to have her see them almost every day for three months, only to have them leave for months again. However, J thinks I’m being silly in this regard.

Children need structure and routine. They crave consistency.

I am at a loss as to what to do.

My mother was talking to my aunt the other day and she told me how my aunt, whose first two children are 15 months apart, says having kids this close in age is harder than twins. She should know, as her own daughter actually has twins so she has seen firsthand how difficult twins can be.

I know that this post calls out as a cry for help, but it isn’t. I just need a place to vent in these minutes before J heads off to work for the day. We are still considering possibilities for childcare and help (believe me when I say that I have looked into all possibilities — we have been doing this since I found out I was pregnant with Aerin), but none of them are great.

I must stop writing now. All I ask for as some prayers for these rough months ahead.

I am by no means an expert on baby sleep, but the (very) general sleep pattern that my girls seemed to have followed is:

• 0 to 2 months old: sleeps most of the day, but also wakes up often. She is still getting used to being outside of the womb.
• 2 to 4 months old: the sleepy newborn stage. She is finally used to the outside world and is “resting” from the trauma of birth. (Did you know that oftentimes, being born is much more difficult than giving birth? Think about how traumatizing it must be for the little guys!)
• 4 months onward: sleep goes to crap again, otherwise known as the 4-month sleep regression. She is starting to discover the world and is simply overwhelmed.

We sleep-trained Claire at 4.5 months because not only were we, as her parents, dead-tired and cranky, she was also miserable from the lack of sleep. Getting her from waking up 5-6x per night to 3x a night took about a week, and getting her to nap more than 20-30 minutes at a time took about two months. I used Dr. Weissbluth’s extinction method in both cases, and while sleep-training was one of the toughest things I did as a parent, I also believe that it was also one of the most worthwhile — Claire is such a happier child when she is well-rested!

With Aerin being a more laid-back, happier baby who slept better than Claire from the get-go, we had been hoping that we wouldn’t need to sleep-train her. And as she neared 4 months of age, I kept my fingers crossed that she would skip the dreaded 4-month sleep regression (as some babies do)…

But no such luck. Aerin’s sleep regression hit a couple of weeks before she turned 4 months old, and it progressively got worse. At one point, she was waking up every hour! She also seemed to have the same trouble that Claire had with naps, waking up just 20-30 minutes into her nap just as the deeper, more restful sleep cycle begins.

I had read that some babies just naturally grow out of their sleep regressions (often after just a couple of weeks) so we decided to wait it out a bit. I was petrified of sleep-training Aerin, you see. We live in a small 2-bedroom condo with two babies. And with Aerin still sleeping in our room, how were we, the parents, supposed to make a baby just mere two feet away from us CIO? And what about Claire? If Aerin cries half as much as Claire did when we were sleep-training her, Claire was SURE to be disturbed from her sleep and wake up crying herself.

Two weeks passed. The situation did not improve. We needed to sleep-train.

We decided to keep Aerin in our room for the duration of the sleep-training process because I would rather deal with one cranky baby than two. Aerin had been sleeping in our bed, her bassinet, or the swing — and we decided that with sleep-training, we should just kill two birds with one stone and start having her sleep in a crib. A full-sized crib in our room is a very tight fit (I have trouble reaching my nightstand), but we manage. Besides, this is only until Aerin starts sleeping better through the night, and then we will move her into Claire’s room to share.

(I should also note that we purchased the same exact crib and crib bedding as Claire so that there would be little chance for jealousy and they could share the extra fitted sheet that we had purchased with Claire. The crib bedding set was actually discontinued, so I got it for $80 cheaper than we had paid for with Claire. Score!)

We also purchased a duplicate sound machine so that she would get used to that exact sound. And while we were at it, we decided to stop swaddling and move onto our beloved Magic Sleepsuit. (Claire’s old ones have held up well.)

And, going against most sleep-training advice, I began to sleep-train her NAPS ONLY.

Our little Aerin, napping peacefully

Call me chicken, but I was still terrified of making her CIO at night, knowing that J has work the next day and Claire was sleeping in the next room.

I also took it a step further by making her pre-sleep routine as short as possible. Some may even say that there isn’t a routine in the first place — it is literally just turn off the lights, turn on the sound machine, put her in her Magic Sleepsuit, turn on the mobile (I know that the Infant Stim-Mobile is a popular choice, but both our girls seemed bored by it and like the Fisher-Price Precious Planet 2-in-1 Projection Mobile with its lightshow much better), pop a pacifier in her mouth, and leave.

When we were nap-training Claire, we would do a shortened version of her night bedtime routine: play quiet games in a dim room, read her a book or two, then all of the above. But when I am by myself watching both kids, I honestly can’t leave Claire alone for that long while I put Aerin down for her naps. Do I feel bad about it? Yes. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

On the very nap with which I began sleep training, Aerin fussed (but did not cry) for about 5 minutes before falling asleep, and woke up just 30 minutes into her nap. And I ignored her. To clarify: I knew she was crying, but I did not rush in as I usually did. As for Claire — so that she does not get upset by the sounds of her little sister crying — I calmly took her into her room and closed the door behind us so that the sounds of crying will be muffled, and played some loud games with her. (I did go check on Aerin every 5 minutes or so, just to make sure she wasn’t somehow strangled or had a limb stuck somewhere.)

Aerin cried on and off 20 minutes that day, then went back to sleep for another 45 minutes. And for her next and final nap of the day? She slept a full hour straight!

On the second day, she fussed another 5 minutes before falling asleep, and cried 15 minutes mid-nap. And on the next, she cried a little over 10.

Within just ONE WEEK, she seemed to be nap-trained! She would maybe fuss for a minute as soon as I put her down in the crib, but then fall asleep almost right away. And if she does wake up mid-nap, it’s usually because her pacifier got stuck under her neck or something like that and she will fall back asleep as soon as the problem was fixed.

She also seemed to develop a nap schedule by herself. Her first nap, usually at about 9:30am, will last about 45 minutes. The second, at about 12 noon, will last about an hour and a half. And the last, at about 3:30pm, will last about an hour.

Want to know the most amazing part? She naturally started sleeping better during the night too, within just a couple of days! After giving her a bath, we will do the same exact routine as with her naps, and she would fall asleep almost right away. She wakes up three times a night — which is perfectly healthy for her age — and the first time is almost always when we are still awake, so we do not lose out on any sleep ourselves. And for the second and third times? All we do is feed her, change her diaper, and she falls right back asleep!

And that, my friends, is how my 4.5 month-old second daughter was sleep-trained in just one week. 

I am sure that we will hit hiccups along the road — just as we did with Claire — as Aerin begins teething, as she goes through growth spurts and additional sleep regressions, and so forth, but I did it! And having two sleep-trained babies has been a lifesaver, especially since I can coincide Claire’s nap with Aerin’s second, and longest nap of the day.

I know that we got EXTREMELY lucky with Aerin, and I know that many parents will be reading this with envy or even disbelief. But as mentioned previously on this blog, Aerin is our easy baby…and we are extremely grateful and thankful for this.

Ed note: When this post was published earlier today, it somehow published a version without the Rafflecopter widget and instructions on how to enter the giveaway.  I have no idea what happened, and I apologize for the mistake. Here is the correct version.

Your kids will be smart enough to know that A is for apple and Z is for zebra…why not broaden their horizons a little? And while you’re at it, why not add a geeky twist?

My Little Geek will allow you to do just that. This kid-friendly board book will certainly help adult geeks teach the ways of geekdom to their little ones, from “Android to Zombies.” Written by Andrew & Sarah Spear, and illustrated by Edit Sliacka, My Little Geek is full of wonderfully adorable pictures and nerdy concepts that is sure to expose your children to the amazing world of geeks.

When Sarah contacted me about giving away a copy of My Little Geek on this blog — and offered a complimentary copy for review purposes! — I did a little jig in joy. Because when I first read about this book a few months ago, I had immediately pinned it to my “Wishlist” board on Pinterest, and added it to my Amazon wishlist…I felt like Santa had come a whole 9 months early!

As soon as I received the book, I presented it to my little Claire and she immediately sat down with it. My book-loving daughter flipped through the pages as I pointed out each letter and its corresponding geekery…I could practically see her soaking up all the smart, fun, and exciting things represented on each page! (I only wish I had a picture of her reading the book, but she is too much like her parents in loving gadgets that we can’t bring out a camera these days without her immediately stopping what she is doing to repeatedly ask for the camera.)

As you can see, each wonderfully illustrated page is the perfect mix of cute and geeky. There are even little easter eggs placed throughout the book that it is sooo much more than just an alphabet book. (In the KLMN spread above, you can see the Nerdist symbol and “I ♥ Veronica” sticker.)

My Little Geek is available at ThinkGeek for $19.95. A small price to pay to hear “your young one chatting away about his holographic ninja or time traveling joystick,” if you ask me.  And if you want to play interactive games with your toddler in the theme of My Little Geek, you can download the corresponding My Little Geek Matching Game app for the iPad!

Now, for the giveaway…

One lucky reader will win his or her own copy of “My Little Geek”!

To enter this giveaway, simply use the Rafflecopter widget below. Not sure how to use Rafflecopter? Watch this 52 second video for a tutorial on how to enter a giveaway using Rafflecopter. There are 4 methods of entry, with the first method (commenting on this blog post) being mandatory while the third method (Tweeting about the giveaway) can be used once per day:

This giveaway will end on Thursday, March 29th, 2012, at 12:01am, at which point a winner will be randomly chosen and announced here.

Please use a valid email address and/or Twitter handle so that I can contact you if you win!

Sorry, this giveaway is open only to residents of the United States.

Good luck, and thank you for entering!

A couple of months ago, I was making conversation with a nice, elderly lady at church. And typical of mothers who do not know each other well, we defaulted to the topic of our children.

“Just thirteen months apart? That must be tough!” she exclaimed when I told her about Claire and Aerin.

“Yes, but everyone tells me that these first couple of years will be tough, but that it will be soooo worth it after that,” I replied. “How about you? How many children do you have?”

“Four. And they were all born right after the other, which was not uncommon back in those days. At one point, we had four under five!”

My eyes bulged out from their sockets. And here I was, thinking I had it rough!

“Any tips for a new mother?” I asked.

“Just take it one day at a time. But other than that, I’m afraid I don’t have much advice. Those early years were so hard that I seemed to have blocked a big chunk of it from my memory.”

I nodded understandably. My mother too, has trouble recalling the most difficult parts of her life. She calls it biological amnesia.

“Oh! But I do like to offer up a piece of advice to all married couples!” the lady continued. “Always put your marriage first, because without it, your kids wouldn’t even exist. Take periodic breaks from your children and just enjoy each other. Be sure to have regular date nights.”

“My husband and I used to have monthly date nights. But now, even that is difficult…” I responded.

“No, that’s not good enough. In the forty years of our marriage, my husband and I had date nights every Friday night. And we’ve only missed it six times.“

And that’s when my jaw dropped.

I remember mentioning this story to J and suggesting that we start having regular date nights again. But no actual plans were ever made, because we always seem so busy and so tired.

But a funny thing happened last month. As we were preparing for his parents to return to Hong Kong, as we began to mentally prepare ourselves for the long tough road ahead of us, we began to have weekly date nights every Friday or Saturday night. We never planned this — it was almost as if we had an unspoken agreement between us, to take one night out of the week to have a nice dinner, just us two, to simply enjoy each other.

The surf and turf we enjoyed this past weekend

We do not have babysitters; we do this after putting the kids to bed so oftentimes, we don’t even start eating until after 9pm. Our meals are not too fancy (it is usually steak, because it is easy to make and we both love a good steak), but we make it a point to use our good china and crystal stemware. Sometimes, we don’t even sit at the table. For example, this past Saturday we had our surf and turf sitting on the couch in front of the TV, watching the Knicks vs Pacers game. But we made sure to keep talking to each other, remembering how a shared love for the Knicks helped bring us together in the first place.

These past couple of weeks have been extremely difficult for us. Aerin is full into her 4-month sleep regression, and as a result both J and I average only about 4 hours of sleep per night. Claire is being extra clingy and moody, and we feel that this stems from her grandparents leaving — it is only understandable that our little girl would miss them and is acting accordingly. Add also the fact that Aerin is becoming extremely attached to me, which is not only tiring for me, but frustrating for J because she won’t even allow others to feed her or give her baths.

Even after we put the girls down for the night, I am usually running around doing chores while J continues working (since he needs to be home before 7 every night to help me put the girls to bed, he almost always never finishes his work at the office) — sometimes until 2 or 3 in the morning!

But for those two precious hours a week, we are no longer parents or employees. We are simply husband and wife, remembering why we said “I do,” planning for our future, and taking a step back from our busy lives to enjoy each other’s company.