Plan Q

Getting Justin on a normal sleep pattern has been a freaking nightmare. He slept like an angel for the first 3 weeks of his life and then after that it's all been downhill from there.

At first he'd wake up multiple times for feedings and when we finally got that straightened out, he'd wake up for only one feeding but then he'd stay up for an hour or two. Eventually that one worked itself out, but then he started waking up earlier and earlier every day.

At first I hoped it would work itself out, of course it didn't so I needed to get creative. We tried keeping him up past his self imposed bedtime of 6:30 or 7pm, yeah that worked great. We kept him up until 9 and he'd still get up between 6 & 7am. Naptime has always been a joke he'll take up to 3 naps a day, and they only last for about 45 minutes each! I tried cutting out his morning nap so he'd take only one long nap in the afternoon. After two days of screaming for his morning nap I finally caved and gave him his morning nap. So I thought maybe I'd keep him up longer so his afternoon nap would run later in the day so he'd be able to stay awake later than 7pm. Again that didn't work either. His nap was about an hour now, but he'd still wake up at the ass crack of dawn. Finally, I decided screw it, I'll just let him sleep whenever he wants. I'm just going to have to get used to waking up before the sun everyday for the rest of my life.

That's when Plan Q popped into my brilliant mind. I thought maybe he wasn't sleeping long in the morning was because it was too bright in his room with the sun starting to come up. And I also thought that could be the reason he would take 2-3 naps that only lasted about 45 min each, it was just too damn bright in his room with the sun. There are mini blinds in the room but those are about as effective as keeping out sunlight as they would be for stopping bullets. So I got very creative found a bunch of blankets and hung them up in front of the windows.

Hoping that these would actually work I put him down for his afternoon nap and he slept for almost 3 hours. And again yesterday his nap lasted 3 hours! Since he took such great naps he's been a much happier baby and he's been able to stay up until 8pm. The best news of all though (are you ready, I hope you're sitting down), yesterday morning he slept until 8, which is unheard of in this house. And right now it is 8:45 and he's still sleeping! Which that's so incridble I think I'm going to go out and buy a lottery ticket and really press my luck!

I hope Plan Q actually works because I'm quickly running out of letters in the alphabet, next I'm going to have to move to the Greek alphabet.

Teething Sucks!

Okay teething gods, what did Justin ever do to you? Here is my 10 month old little boy who has ZERO teeth and the last few days has been so miserable, because of what I can only assume is teething. There are many times in the past few months I thought he was finally getting teeth, but after days of crying (mostly from me) not one single little tooth would appear.

Today he was up at 5:45am miserable and screaming. I didn't even realize that anytime before 6am existed on my clock! My mind is so foggy there's nothing I can do to clear it up. I have the darkest cirlces under my eyes it looks like I went 10 rounds in the ring vs. Mike Tyson. My eyes are so dry and gritty it feels like the entire San Diego shore line has taken up residence inside my eyelids. There isn't enough coffee on the planet to get me through today!

Enough about my pain and suffering, back to Justin's. The last few days have been torture for my little man. He doesn't want to play, doesn't want to eat, he really doesn't want to do anything except hang onto my leg.

All I have to say is he better finally get some teeth out of this, or hear me teething gods, you will feel my wrath. Trust me you don't want to mess with me when I haven't had enough sleep or coffee!

Don't Blink

Seriously where has the time gone? A month ago I swear I was 9 months pregnant with Justin complaining about how miserable I was:

Two weeks ago I swear I was holding him in my arms for the first time:

A few days ago I swear he just started sleeping through the night, okay well that actually did just start happening a few days ago.

When I was pregnant I used to get a slew of unsolicited advice from well meaning friends and strangers. I can't tell you how many people used to tell me, "Enjoy it, they grow up way to fast." I remember smiling politely while in my head rolling my eyes and thinking, "Sure time just flies." I put that high on the worthless advice list, right up there with my favorite piece of advice from my FIL, "When they fall down don't react. They only cry because you react when they fall down." Oh really so my kid smacking their head on the coffee table warrants a, "Shake it off kid." Or how about when they fall and cut their knee open we just take them out back and rub some dirt in it. Sorry for the mini tangent there.

Last week I was having a serious case of baby fever and I've now attributed that to the fact my babies are growing up. Justin turned 10 months yesterday. Long gone are his helpless, laying there like a big blob, baby days. Within the span of three days last week Justin pulled himself up, took a couple of steps while cruising along the couch and took two steps from the couch to the coffee table. It hit me like a ton of dirty diapers, my baby is no longer a baby.

Soon he's going to be chasing his sister around the house driving her insane. This moment is bittersweet for me. For years I've dreamed of watching my kids run around the house playing together wreaking havoc wherever they go. With this dream now on the brink of being reached, I've realized that it means a farewell to babies in my household.

If any members of my family read this post you better get started on making some nieces and nephews for me, like YESTERDAY!