Regression

We have regressed. We're back to negative habits we had about 6 months ago.

"How could this happen? It was all going so well!"
I really have no idea. It just....did.
"But why did this happen? What changed?"
Can't answer that one either.
"Please, make it stop! Will it end soon?"
I don't know, kids, but I sure hope so!

By we, I mean the Bean. And the habit is sleep.

The Bean is usually a dream in this department, or at least he's been a dream for about 6 months now. Before that, getting him to sleep was a nightmare. We would rock and rock and rock him to sleep only to lay him down and have him wake up. Nights were no problem, but daytime was a catastrophe.

On my birthday (please, don't ever do this on your birthday!), we decided to let him cry it out. I know that this is a loved and hated technique. I myself love and hate it. I had sworn to myself that we would not implement this technique until he was 3 months old, because I read somewhere that babies younger than 3 months should not have to cry. And we almost made it. He was 3 months minus 8 days. We were both so tired. And he was so tired. Something had to be done. So we let him cry it out. I hated the process. Marc literally had to hold me back from going in to him (we did go in every 10 minutes to give him his pacifier again). I loved the results. We only had to let him cry it out once and then we had this baby that we could put to bed awake. And this baby, well he fell asleep on his own in his own bed.

It was wonderful.

3 days ago, something changed. I lay him down when he's tired. But he doesn't fall asleep. He plays, he rocks on all fours, he cries, he babbles. But he doesn't sleep. This goes on for 2 hours. I go in, give him his pacifier, rub his back and he's almost asleep. But as soon as I leave the room, he's awake. I take him out, cuddle him, rock him and he's almost asleep. I lay him down, he's awake. Eventually, it's been 4 hours since his last feeding, so I get him up.

What is going on? He can't be dropping a nap, he's already down to 2. And he is tired.

He's regressed. Maybe it's his teeth. Maybe it's because he's working on learning something new (crawling, perhaps?). I don't know.

I do know that this momma is hoping to make some progress real soon.

A Letter to my long-lost Friend

Dear Summer,

According to my calendar, today is your official start date. And yet, I am freezing. Have you forgotten us? Please visit soon (like yesterday)!

Love,
Me (the one wearing the fleece)

Gettin' Around

Gettin' Around from Sarah Dressler on Vimeo.

Comfortable?

I doubt it......

We are liking....

BabyLegs!

So the first time I ever saw BabyLegs, I thought they were really adorable, but totally unnecessary. Why should a baby need leg warmers??

But then it started to get warmer (the weather, that is). So we started letting Noah run around without any pants on. Well, not run, since he can't do that yet. But you know what I mean. Then we had the problem: without pants on, he didn't have any traction to practice crawling. And it seemed like it was too hard for his chunky little baby knees. So that's where the BabyLegs came in. I found them at a local baby items store and bought two pairs.

Not only are they super functional, they're just adorable:
And perfect for the World Cup!!

How I broke our floor

I bought flowers for a friend of ours. Her birthday was on Saturday - the same day as Marc's PhD party (PhD completion party?). Anyways, she had forbidden me from making her a cake or singing Happy Birthday - she wanted the party to be a celebration of Marc and his friend, who had also received his PhD. But if it were my birthday, I would be sad if no one said or did anything. So I bought her flowers. The flowers were one of 10,000 last minute things I had to get on the day of the party (can you tell that I was not involved in the planning??).
Noah was napping, so it was going to be a while until I headed to the party. I grabbed a bucket, filled it with water, placed the flowers in it and set it in front of the door (along with the 10,000 other things I had to take with me).
Fast forward to Sunday afternoon. We get home from cleaning up the garden after the party. Marc notices the bucket, which is still in the hallway and still filled with water. The loosely translated version of our conversation went something like this:
Marc: "What's that?"
Me: "I filled it with water and put the flowers in that bucket until we left yesterday."
Marc: "Did you know that that bucket leaks? The floor is probably ruined."
Me: "No!" (Frantically emptying the bucket and wiping up the leaked water.)
Sure enough, the floor is all welled up.
Me: Tearfully apologizing for ruining our floor (in English, because when I am really upset, it just comes out in English).
Marc: "No big deal, I wanted to replace the floor anyway."

Good thing she liked her flowers.

I love....

this kid.
He's only allowed to have his pacifier in bed or when we're on the road. So I am trying to teach him to take it out himself and leave it in his bed when he gets up in the morning/from naps. This morning, I asked him to put his pacifier in his bed and gently guided his hand to it. As his hand dropped, I thought I would have to take it out myself. But no, what did he do? He spit the pacifier into his bed. Not the method I was expecting, but still totally compliant....

P.S. We have some forward movement going on around here! And he's definitely working on his crawling form....