No sleep 'til Brooklyn

I don't get enough sleep. I know this for a fact, and yet I am doing nothing to change my situation. Part of my resistance to go sleep when my baby goes to sleep is my burning desire for some meeeeeee! time. Even if my 'me time' consists of me cleaning up dinner, making lunches for the next day and wiping down the kitchen for the one billionth time that day. My desire to stay up has more to do with the fact that I can do a few things around the house without another person attached to me than it does with actually taking care of myself. I know I should be in bed earlier, but it is nice to spend a few hours awake not having to cater to every whimper and cry of a small, yet demanding person.

However, I must get more sleep. Yesterday I found myself at my wits end with my son, to the point that it was scaring me a little. Matty was fussing last night, and refusing to take his end of the day nap, the one which gives me some down time and allows me to start dinner, etc. He wouldn't go to sleep. I was getting so frustrated with him and then I was getting frustrated with myself for getting frustrated with him. Fun cycle. What made it worse was my lack of sleep.

Every night I think, tonight will be different, tonight I'll go to bed earlier. But then, I have this teeny tiny hope that maybe tonight will be the night that Matty doesn't wake up at 4 am for no reason at all. I can't base my sleeping habits on the hopes I have for my 7 month old son. That's ridiculous, and yet, I keep hoping that maybe, just maybe, he'll surprise me and start sleeping through the night like he did when he was three months. Ahhh...too bad that only lasted two weeks. It will be a joyous night when both my son and I can sleep without waking up and crying.

Wha' Happened?

For the last two months my son has gone to bed without so much as peep. We go through our usual bedtime routine, and when Matty is finally plopped into his crib while being serenaded by the Dixie Chicks, he rolls over, sticks his bosse in the air, and starts sawing logs. That was until Sunday night...when apparently all that was good went bad.

For some reason Matthew has started screaming now during his song, and for a good five to ten minutes after the song has ended. Tonight he screamed longer than ten minutes, I just stop paying attention after ten minutes (to the time, not to the child, though maybe I should think about reversing my tactics). This nightly regimen of screaming begin after we returned from the beach, and at first I chalked it up to being a readjustment phase, but now I'm thinking it's my child who actually needs readjusting. I need to tweak him back into his old self who would embrace his crib. So really - Wha' happened? What gives kid? I would love to figure out something that would calm him down, instead just standing there as he screams his head off, silently willing my child to shutupfortheloveofGod, because for some reason that isn't working.

If I block out how the day ended, and only think about the actual day parts of the day, everything else was wonderful. We had a pretty relaxing time together, which was nice because I am usually trying to get several things done, work from home, and spend quality time with my baby. Today was different. I did some work, then we went on a nice walk and stopped and played on a playground (Matty didn't seemed phased at all by the awesome slide we went down, but we kept going down it nonetheless and it had nothing to do with the fact that I thought it was awesome. Nope. Nothing.). After our walk we came back home and played with blocks, a large blue elephant with various things glued to his elephant, and momma's hair.

The funny thing about today was Matthew would not open his mouth all day long except to eat food and to chew on multiple things. I could not get that child to give me an open mouth smile to save my life. I took some adorable pictures of him while we ate dinner, but all with his mouth closed, smiling with his lips pursed together. Then when Jim got home Matty broke out the big grins. He giggled, laughed and smiled so much for Jim, and became so hyper in the tub that the entire right side of my body was soaked from excited splashes. He saved all those grins for his Daddy, it was the greatest thing to witness, I wish I had broken out the video camera. All day I thought 'Matty must be feeling a new tooth coming in, and that is why he is pulling his lips together', but no. Matty just needed to be reunited with the one person who can make him smile just by looking at him: Papadapalous.

P.S. - Matthew, even though you rock the cuteness on daily basis, PLEASE go to bed nicely tomorrow night. Your cuteness will only get you so far, especially if the person who thinks you are so cute and who takes care of you for most of the day (hint: me) is brain dead from hearing baby screams at the end of a long day. Also, if you went right to sleep I could stop with the lame 'wha happened' jokes (the only part of 'A Mighty Wind' that stuck with me). (Actually no, that stopping with the lame jokes is a lie. But still. Quit with the screaming. MMMkay?)

Teeth

Before I forget: Jim named Matty's first two teeth Chopper & Chopper Jr., and it cracks me up every time I hear those names.

I really wish I wrote here more than once a month

Seriously, where does the time go? Everyday I think "I need to write about this so I don't forget" and everyday passes and I don't write.

Well, since most of my updates occur on significant dates, why should today be any different? Matthew is indeed 7 months today and according to my meager calculations this puts him closer to being one year old. Holy timegoesfast Batman.

We just returned from a week long vacation to the beach where Matty was less than pleased to be sunning and funning on the sand. It was only towards the end of the week that our little man decided putting both his feet in the water at one time did not equal the end of the world. I got several hilarious pictures of Matthew pulling his legs up at the touch of the ocean water; beach bum he is not. Well, at least he got to experience something completely new, something that totally exhausted him by the end of the day. He slept really well while we were gone, and I think it was mainly because he was so overwhelmed on the entire trip. From the new sights and sounds, to housing with super talkative and energetic family, there was always something new happening during the week.

When we returned from our not so vacationy vacation, (Jim had a lot of work to do and wasn't around, which bummed both me and Matty out) Matthew promptly began teething again. I think he celebrates turning one month older by getting new teeth. Poor kid, he has had a HARD time falling asleep lately because of the pain. He is constantly pulling on his ears and the pain is waking him up at night. I feel so badly for my boy. My father is up watching Matthew for the next few days since Jim is so busy with work, and this morning as I was leaving Matty was both extremely tired and in pain. I rocked him for a long while, and then passed him to my father, so I could get ready for work. Going from my arms to Grandad's arms woke Matty up a little, and as soon as he realized that I was no longer holding him he began screaming again. He woke himself up, saw Grandad's face and was instantly angered. I tried leaving the room before he saw me, but I wasn't fast enough. Matty twisted around, saw me standing there and reached out his arms for me, sobbing uncontrollably. My heart broke, but at the same time it soared. This was the first time that my baby has ever reached for me. I felt so badly for him and wanted nothing more than to scoop him back into my embrace and hold him close, but I knew that Grandad would be able to comfort him. I stayed present and rubbed my baby's head for a little while, since he had already seen me, and that seemed to help calm him down. Leaving for work was especially hard today, however when I checked in about an hour later the report was that my baby was back to his smiley, amicable self.

Currently Matthew's sounds of choice consist of screeching at the top of his lungs and coughing over and over again. The screech is a mix between a high-pitched gurgle and a pterodactyl call. Soothing? No. Highly entertaining? Yes. Also it seems that 7 months means beginning to crawl. He doesn't quite have the skill to put everything together and actually move forward, but he is oh-so-close. He will pull up on his knees and hands and start to rock back and forth. He is also skilled at sliding himself along on his stomach (albeit very slowly), and he can roll like no body's business. This child has a ton of energy and wants nothing more than to explore every inch of the house and everything that comes within fingertip distance gets grabbed, be it hair, faucets, glasses, toes, mail, etc. It is wonderful to see this little baby become so active and interested in the world, I love learning about things from his perspective.