A Quick First...

Something happened today that has never ever happened before.

Mal elected not to take a nap today (that's happened plenty) and was sitting in the living room floor watching videos at about five o'clock. He had his orange wooden chair from his room and had put his laptop up on it. Originally, he was lying with his head in my lap but had moved into the floor for a better view, I guess.

Anyway, at some point, he started banging his head against the edge of the chair. I asked, "What are you doing?!" then realized that he was literally nodding off.

It's the first time he's gone to sleep like that in his life! Not in a car, not boobing, just... doing stuff.

I know that's a normal kid thing, but so far, not for this kid!

I felt so bad for him, but let him sleep about an hour, then tonight he went to sleep just before 10, which is the earliest he's been asleep this week. Think I'll go join him. And his dad. We're a sleepy bunch. The rain is helping. :)

Divine Serendipity

Tuesday night, I had one of the best nights of sleep I've had in recent memory (read: a year). Mal woke up at least 4 times to nurse, but that's not as many as usual, and each time he just woke up, wanted milk, and went back to sleep.

Last night? Last night was very different. Mal got a little wound up at an event last night, and when it came time to go to sleep, he was ready, but there was some crying involved and there usually isn't (although there's always some aerobics involved).

Then, all night, he wanted to nurse. And not just nurse. He wanted to cry because he was on the "wrong" side, climb over me to get to the other side, not want to wait for me to readjust at all, and then get madder when, in trying to cover my cold self, I accidentally covered HIM with a blanket (which is just *not* done!), and he had to kick it off.

All. night. long.

I don't count because I don't want to go crazy, but let's just estimate that this happened 15 times. He'd wake up into a full stand a few times, too. I had to wrestle him back to bed before he lost his balance and fell over, hitting his head against the wall or window (I don't think he's fully awake when he does this).

I might have started grumbling and complaining at some point. You know, just to share the joy with my husband. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.

Then, at a bit before six, Mal had drunk so much that he soaked through is special night-time Pull-Up and I had to go change his diaper and his clothes. James got a towel to put over where he'd been lying, and I hoped against hope that Mal would go back to sleep.

It didn't look promising. Mal sat up, talked, climbed over me several times. In my exhaustion, I started thinking black thoughts like, "Why, in 14 months, has my husband never taken this child first thing in the morning so I can get some extra sleep?" (The reality of that probably lies somewhere between "He doesn't want/have to" and "Mal wouldn't let him, anyway.")

But, praises for small miracles, eventually Mal konked out lying on my shoulder. My arm went to sleep and my hand was freezing, but I did not dare move as I was able to doze on and off for another hour.

When we finally got up, I started the laundry. Sheets, blankets, mattress cover, etc. I managed to get James lunch (as it was, not much) but he had to find breakfast on the way to work. Mal and I did our usual morning stuff, but he was already getting tired and fussy. I ended up opening the 73-piece kitchen set we were going to give him for Christmas (what does he know about Christmas this year, anyway?) just so he'd have something new to distract him.

By 9 AM, I knew we had to get out of the house. Crepe Crazy has a new location on South Lamar grand opening today, so I thought we'd hit the gym for just a few, then go on to that. By the time I changed out the laundry, straightened Mal's room, and got everything together, we were ready to leave here at about 9:20, just in time to be at the gym when it opened at 9:30.

Mal was excited! We got down to the car, I opened the driver's side door and put him in (our back door doesn't open anymore, so we go through the front, just so you can stop worrying that I let him ride in the front), then clicked the "unlock" button. Nothing. Aww, crap.

Last night, I'd turned on the dome lights to keep Mal awake while we drove home from the gingerbread contest awards ceremony.

I don't know who won this category, but this was my favorite.

I'd turned my front lights off so I could drive in the dark, and just must not have noticed that they were still on. So our battery was dead.

I stood there thinking for a minute. There were guys coming to work on the apartment remodels, and I thought about asking one of them to help me jump start the van, but they were on the clock and I didn't want them to fall behind schedule.

Also, of course, though I usually back into my parking space, because I was in a hurry last night and wanting to get Mal upstairs to see his dad before he fell asleep, I had pulled straight into the parking space, which meant my battery was facing the forest. Fortunately, the parking space is sloped, so I could back out, but it'd be tight, since I'm parked perpendicular and barely behind the covered parking for our building.

After about five minutes, I decided to go ask our downstairs neighbor Reggie if she could give us a jump. We knocked on her door and she answered, groggy but happy to see us. Apparently, she has trouble sleeping and was napping. Oops. But she told us she'd be happy to help, and asked us to go chat with her mom while she got her keys and got ready (dressed).

I was glad we had the chance to talk to the mom, because she loves Mal and we haven't seen her in a while. She'd fallen at a beauty salon a couple of months ago and had to do rehab, but said she's doing a lot better. She's going in for some tests this afternoon to make sure she doesn't have cancer anymore.

While we were there, Mal managed to change the input for her TV before we got the remote from him, but fortunately her daughter knew that the input as supposed to be HDMI2 (I'd tried cable/antenna, video, HDMI 1, and figured... why would it be 2? But it was...)

When we got outside, Reggie pulled her car out so we wouldn't block her, and I tried to back out in neutral. Problem: I was right on the curb, and the tire was caught. I managed to push it back using one leg, but it only went back about 3 feet and stopped. This time, I did ask the contractors for help. It took three of them, but they got the car pushed back far enough for the cables to reach, but not for me to hit the car behind me (steering is sluggish and difficult when you have a big vehicle and power steering is out!).

As I went to get Reggie's hood open, she told me she'd never opened it herself before. It took me a few tries before I figured it out, but once I did, we got everything hooked up and it worked fine. She was concerned about my driving anywhere, but I stopped to get gas on the way (leaving the car running; trust me, it's fine) and by the time we got to Mal's gym, the car has been running 25 minutes, which was plenty to recharge the battery.

About the gym: I think I spend about half of my time there re-closing the bathroom doors (hurray for you parents with kids who *don't* play in toilets, but could you help a sister out?), about a third of my time there giving Mal snacks, and about a sixth of the time actually watching and helping him play in the gym.

Anyway, we ran by BK to use some coupons on the way home, and when we got here, Mal was ready for a nap. He wasn't quite asleep yet, which is just how I like it, when we started up the stairs... And Reggie came out of her apartment to ask me a favor. She wanted to know if I'd be willing to sit with her mom sometimes when she needs to run out to the store really quickly. I was so tickled! Ever since we started moving in, I have been wanting to do something for them besides just visiting (although that helps a lot, morale-wise).

If my battery hadn't been dead and I hadn't asked for a favor, she might not have felt comfortable asking for one in return. So, if that was the point of all of that, then I think it was incredible, and I thank God for it. It wasn't even that bad, anyway; just a little inconvenient. And now we get to do something nice for the ladies downstairs. Well-played, God.

"I hear the secrets that you keep..."

My husband warned me early in our relationship that he talks in his sleep, often responding to questions, and apparently often without a filter. He said he had a girlfriend who used to pump him for info when he was dozing off, then she'd get mad about his answers.

There have been many times he's said things that made zero sense when seeming to wake up in the middle of the night. But last night's was the winner so far.

As a follow-up to my previous post, the HDMI adapter I'd ordered was the wrong one (we needed a pass-through and somehow I'd mistakenly ordered a cable with two male ends, so... grrr), so I knew that I was going to have to go to Best Buy to pick up the actual thing, plus I'd wasted two orders to Prime Now on things we didn't need, PLUS Mal was waking up every 20 minutes, which he continued to do most of the night, with some longer stretches in the 2-4 AM timeframe.

Anyway, I was pretty discouraged and cried a little for my poor naive self who thought she'd get to lounge lazily after a good night's sleep.

A couple of hours later, James came to bed. He fell asleep and was snoring, then seemed to wake the next time Mal woke up and I had to readjust (moving a nearly-30-pound kid from one side of me to the other is an increasingly difficult work-out; also, now that we can use covers, it's staticky and binding). I had just started to doze off but hadn't fallen to sleep despite having been in bed for nearly three hours.

Once again, I gave into pity and said, "This is the 11th time he's woken up, and I haven't gotten to sleep yet. I am going to go crazy."

To which James replied, "The first stage is to figure out why I haven't been able to go to sleep."

"Excuse me?"

"Stage One is to figure out why I haven't been able to get to sleep."

I'm laughing as I write that, because it's so out of character for my husband. And I realized, of course, that he *was* asleep when he was talking. My brain said, "I'm sorry, Snory McSnortface, but I'm pretty sure you HAVE been asleep, and thanks ever so much for the compassion."

So... is this just a case of his having zero filter when he's sleeping and that's really how he feels about my whining? Hmm... It had the desired effect, if so. I didn't say a word the rest of the night, and I barely got any sleep. But it ended up okay.

Mal and I got out this morning to get the adapter, and we even stopped by to look at some pumpkins, but I need another hand with me to manage the kid and some big squash. Anyway, rest assured that Daphne is still having issues with the tablet, so it's a work in progress. James is safely at work, no bruises or anything. And I'm clearly choosing to do something other than sleep when the baby sleeps, so I must not be dying.

My two favorite guys, even if one makes me lose sleep and the other is indifferent about it. :D

The Day I Gave Up

I don't remember what day it was, exactly. But I remember it. It was the day I said, "Let's sell the crib. We'll put his mattress on the floor." It was the day I gave up.

And it was glorious freedom.

I don't know whether you remember, but I spent a lot of Mal's first, oh, six months complaining about his sleep/lack of sleep habits.

When I brought him to bed with me the first week or so he was home, I never ever would have dreamed that we'd get almost a year under our belts and he'd still be here.

When he was two months old, if I'd known this, I would have lost it. Lost. It.

But now it's different. Why? Because I gave up.

Understand this: My son is coming up on 10 months old, and he has never once "just" fallen to sleep. That magic "drowsy but not yet asleep" doesn't happen to him, except when he's in the car or bike seats. So I've never been able to just lay him down and have him drift off to sleep. Even crying, he's only fallen to sleep once, back in early February.

So that hasn't changed.

Nope, but I have.

When Mal was a couple of months old, it started bothering me that I didn't get any time to myself in bed. I started asking around and a lot of people who also co-sleep said that they put their baby in a bassinet or crib at first, then move them into bed when the baby wakes to nurse.

I tried that, and it sort of worked. Mal would often wake up when moving from my arms to the bed, but usually after a few tries, I could get him to stay in bed... for anywhere from 5 minutes to a couple of hours. It was usually closer to 15 minutes, and I never actually fell asleep or really rested; I was too on edge expecting him to wake up.

What was worse is that, after a month or so, he just would not tolerate the move from my holding him to going into the crib. I would spend easily half an hour to an hour each night, standing beside his crib, swaying, trying to discern the perfect time (his sleep level, my ability to bend over and deftly place him) to drop him into his bed, but he'd wake up. We even pre-warmed his bed by putting an electric heat pad in there before trying to move him.

One night, I tried and started bawling after the fourth time he woke up. I calmed myself down and tried a fifth time, and fuh-reaked out when he woke up again. I mean, whisper screaming to James, "What am I doing wrong?! What am I doing wrong?" between very colorful swear words and pounding my own bed with my fists in absolute desperation.

I felt angry. Was I angry with my baby? I couldn't be! He wasn't doing anything "wrong." Except he wasn't meeting my expectations, and I was on edge.

That particular night, I made the limit of two times. If he woke up two times, I'd give up and he'd come to bed with me. And it happened more often than not, which made me feel like a failure. I still wasn't doing "it" right, whatever "it" was.

After a while, I stopped trying to put him in the crib at all, because I thought I was too tired to deal with it. As it turned out, that was the right thing.

Here's what I slowly realized: This boy cannot sleep on his own. He just can't. There's no way to "train" him to do something his body doesn't have the ability to do.

So I gave up.

I reluctantly embraced our reality, and found that life is a lot easier when you go with the flow instead of trying to fight it. We even bought a king sized bed when we moved, and that's been a huge bonus! We actually have room to wrestle it out (literally; Mal is very active when he semi-wakes between sleep cycles) without messing too much with James' sleep.

He is getting better and easier about some sleep things: We typically have two pretty reliable naps per day. There is one in the morning, between about 9 and 11:30, that lasts an hour. Then there is another one sometime between 1:30 and 4:30 that lasts an hour or two.

Mostly, Mal naps on the couch. But he's slept on his floor mattress at least half a dozen times, which is half a dozen more than he slept in it when it was part of a crib.

What I've learned from watching his naps is the fact that once he reaches a certain level of wakefulness, he literally cannot put himself back to sleep. Even if he's still sleepy. Even if staying awake means he'll be fussy and crying. It doesn't matter. I have to help him get back to sleep, even during the day.

Eventually, Mal will sleep through the night, or at least big chunks of it. Eventually, he'll sleep in another room, in his own bed. Apparently, eventually, one day I will miss this time of familial closeness. I can't imagine that, but I also can't imagine going back to the stress of trying to shove a giant square peg into the eye of a needle (appropriately mixing metaphors there).

Giving up was the best thing I could have done for my son.

From May 2015

From June 2015

From June 2015

From July 2015