Mama on the Verge

I finally remembered what that additional topic was that I wanted to blog about on Friday.  Sleep.  Or my lack thereof. 

We continue to have a rough time getting Conor to go to sleep.  Once he’s there, he’s actually been staying asleep until 4:30 or so.  But the actual process of getting the child to wind down and close his eyes has been frustrating. 

And here’s the strange part:  no matter what time we start, the bedtime routine takes exactly 1 hour from start until finish and he goes into the land of nod.  Start at 8?  End at 9.  Start at 7:15?  End at 8:15.  Start at 6:30?  End at 7:30.  So it’s not that the child has a particular time that he wants to go to sleep.  It appears that it takes an hour’s worth of bath, story, nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing and back patting before he goes to sleep.  I’ve tried (yes, I actually have) letting him cry/fuss a bit.  No difference.  (In his going to sleep.  I was able to do a few things like feed the animals and/or grab a snack myself which relieved my stress)

I have to be honest, it was worse with Dave gone than with both of us.  With him here, I can get a (little) break from the nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing part of the routine before my head spins off my body.  And we just saw a tooth sprouting out of some reddened gums which explains some of the set backs last week.  And honestly, last night, Conor took his own break from nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing, nursing to play in his crib by himself. 

Since there appears to be no difference in time in which is actually gets to sleep, we’re going to start sooner rather than later.  He still wakes up at about the same time so he’s getting more sleep altogether.  And we can tell a difference in crankiness when he’s a well slept baby than not.

Walkage

We had actual walkage this weekend.  Yesterday, at a birthday party for a friend, he pulled himself up on an ottoman, stood alone for a few seconds, and then starting walking back and forth from the ottoman to the coffee table, practicing his walking and standing.  He was so proud of himself.  We were thrilled. It’s the first time he walked without us squatting to the ground and encouraging him to walk to us.  And as I thought, his gait is very steady.  There is no Frankenbaby in his gait.    He’s been waiting until he could do it “perfectly” before he’d do it at all.  There are good and bad things that could come out of waiting until it’s perfect to do it.

Spider Solitaire

Oh, don’t you dare act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I know you do. I’ve been stunned by the number of people confessing to a new addiction to this game, from tenured professors to our admin assistants.  I’ve taken it off my laptop so it can’t tempt me any more.  I don’t know why this one is so addictive, but I learned long ago that if I like a computer game too much, I can’t keep it.  I still think about it though.  You may be thinking about it yourself right now, too. 

11:01:52 AM