Nap Trap

I'm trapped on my couch right now.

We've finally been succeeding at getting Jack to go to bed at a reasonable hour.  Three cheers, right?  Wrong.  Because he's been going to bed so early, he's also been getting up early - at about 5:30.  In my last post I mentioned that as if it was a one-time thing.  Well, now it's turned into a three-time thing.

Jack waking up early means Alyssa has to get up early too.  And since I don't fall asleep quickly at night, and since Jack usually wakes up at some point in the middle of the night to eat, I'm not getting much sleep. Last night I fell asleep at about midnight.  Then Jack woke up at to eat at 2.

I fed him, put him back in bed, and went back to my own bed.  But he was still awake.  So I got up, rocked him a bit until he fell asleep, put him back down and went back to my own bed.  And he woke up again.  Repeat process.  Then repeat it again.  It was now 3 o'clock and I was so desperately exhausted I finally just let him sleep on my chest.  Which he did.  Rubbing his head back and forth and moaning for the next two and a half hours until Lewis' alarm went off at 5:30.  As soon as the alarm sounded, Jack's eyes flew open and he was ready to be up for the day.

I was a zombie.

To fix this super fun 5 AM wake-up call, I want to keep Jack up later than usual tonight.  But he's a baby and babies tend to be difficult to wake up (only when you want them awake; when you want them asleep, it's a piece of cake to wake them up) so I need him to sleep as long as possible during his naps.

Like the one he is taking right now.  On the couch, right next to me.  He fell asleep while he was eating and I didn't want to try and put him in his crib only to have him wake right up,  so I just laid him down right there.  And due to the shape of our couch, I would have to climb over him to get up, possibly waking him, and I don't want to take that risk.  So I'm trapped on my couch.

Which is too bad cause I really have to pee.

Creepy Sounds in the Night

When you hear unusual sounds in your house in the middle of the night it can be unsettling.  This is particularly true if you hear them over your child's baby monitor and when you are already worried about his well-being when he is so far away from you, they can be downright alarming.

This morning Jack and his dad woke up at about the same time.  Lewis gets up at about 5:30 every day to go to school.  Usually I will wake up long enough to wake him up and then I will go back to sleep because Jack has only slept through the night once (which is once more than he had when I wrote the last post) and I'm tired at 5:30 in the morning.  Usually, if Jack wakes up at this time, I will feed him and put him back to sleep.  And when I say usually, I mean every time until today.

Today Jack woke up and squawked.  So I went to check on him.  When I poked my head in, he appeared to still be sleeping, so I went back to my own bed.  A few minutes later I heard a really odd sound coming through the baby monitor.  I don't really know how to describe it, but it sounded creepy and it was clearly coming from my child's room.

Oh, how long our hallway seemed as I raced down it towards Jack's nursery.  I was ready to lay the smack down.  The crazy ax-murderer that I was sure was hunched over my baby's crib had picked the wrong mother bear to threaten.

Of course there was no crazy ax-murderer.  Everything was exactly as it appeared to be the last time I looked in here, mere minutes before.  But I heard the sound nonetheless so I walked to the center of the room to investigate.

In the darkness I spotted Jack's bright eyes peering up at me from his mattress.  He was wide awake with his left arm curled around the crib slats, and his little hand was tapping away at one of them.  This was the source of the exceedingly creepy noise.

As I picked him up, Jack gave me a huge smile.  I had no problem sacrificing a few minutes sleep for my little monkey, so I took him back to my room and fed him, expecting him to fall back asleep right away.  Except he didn't.  Lewis got to play with him a little bit before leaving for work, though, so... yay.

And now I'm really tired.  But at least there's no crazy ax-murderer in my house.

Jack and I played with Photo Booth today.

Separation Anxiety

I may have mentioned this before, but I'm a worrier.  I worry.  I can't really help it - it's in my genes.  My dear mother is also a worrier.  Whenever we were to do something mildly dangerous/not at all dangerous but far from where we were living at the time, she didn't want to hear about it until after it was over because she would worry too much.  It doesn't help that she has lived overseas for the majority of the time that her four older kids have been out of the house.

In any case, I worry too.  I worried plenty about Lewis/my siblings/my parents/everyone else I know before I had a baby.  But now that Jack is here... hoo boy.

Let's just say that it's no wonder I have more than my fair share of gray hairs at my plucky age of 25.

At his two-month appointment, Jack's doctor told me not to be in a hurry to kick him out of our room.  He recommended waiting until about four months to start that process.  That was fine by me.  It's a heck of a lot easier to check on your infant son's breathing if he is at the foot of your bed.  Plus he had yet to sleep through the night (more on that later), so having him in our room still was no burden whatsoever.

Jack turned four months yesterday.  At his appointment his doctor told me to go ahead and start the moving out process, but don't force it if he wasn't ready.  I smiled and nodded, confident that Jack wouldn't be ready.

He was ready.

True, it took him a while to fall asleep last night (we are trying, so far wildly unsuccessfully, to get Jack to fall asleep on his own), but once he was asleep in his own room, he was asleep for the night.  He slept peacefully until after six in the morning.  When he did wake up, he was as happy as a clam and just cooed in his bed until I went and got him.

And after four months of getting up at least once a night to tend to his needs (not to mention the last five months of my pregnancy when I was up several nights to pee), I finally got a good night's rest.

Jack doesn't sleep here anymore.

Oh wait, that definitely didn't happen.  I worry, remember.  Not only did it take me about a bajilion hours to fall asleep, I was up every so often, creeping into Jack's room to make sure all was well.  There was one tense moment when he rolled over just as I put my hand on his trunk and then I ran into his door on my way out, but he didn't wake up even then.

So thanks a lot, Mom, for the awesome genes.  Gosh!

Christmas and Torturing Children

Well readers, 2012 is here and I'm pleased to say that after a brief hiatus to enjoy as much time as possible with the two most important men in my life, Extra-Strength Awesome is back.

Please, hold your applause until the end.

Back before Christmas 2011, Lewis and I discussed how much fun we will have when our kids are old enough to appreciate Christmas morning.  Actually, mostly just I talked about how hilarious it will be when they are jumping on our bed in excitement, poking and prodding us to get us to wake up while we snicker with our eyes closed, pretend to be asleep, and then sluggishly wake up.  Lewis listened to all of this with a look of incredulity on his face because, well, in the three Christmases we had so far (at the point of this conversation) shared as a pair, I had acted exactly like I described our kids would act, while Lewis pretended to stay asleep.

I love Christmas.

This past Christmas, however, I had every right to get Lewis to wake up in the wee hours of the early morn.  Christmas was on a Sunday and we had church at nine AM.  Between presents for three, Christmas breakfast, and getting Jack fed and presentable, we needed ample time.  In your face, Lewis.

Jack slept through the beginning of Christmas.

I would share with you all about how different it will be when Jack is bigger, how I will play possum like the best of 'em, but we all know I can't keep that promise.  I will be on board, though, for torturing our kids and making them wait upstairs until we're ready and calling them down one at a time, excruciatingly slowly.

They're going to hate it.

Yep.  Christmas is the best.