Friday, August 06, 2004

Today was the first day of the rest of my life.

I signed my first (I'm sure of thousands) permission slip for my child. We dropped him off at Daycare today for the first time ever. He was so enthralled with the teachers and the toys, he didn't even notice that we left.

He slept badly last night. He woke up and fussed every few hours. Eventually it would get bad enough for us to go in there and pet him. I think he was cold, because we'd put his blanket on him and that seemed to solve it... Until he kicked it off... Then a few hours later, fussing. But he stayed lying down in the crib all night and ended up getting up for the day around 7, so it wasn't too bad. We just had to visit him 3 times in the night. It's like Marley said "You will be visited by your parents 3 times tonight!"

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

In other exciting Eric news.. He's been standing on his own these last few days.

The first time it was an accident. He was holding and empty water bottle in his hand and put his other hand on it, then he had this Wyle E. Coyote moment where he realized he was standing on his own and fell WHAM on his butt. I swear if he could have whipped out a sign that said "Uh Oh" he would have.

He's standing more and more, and Rich said he took a step yesterday too. It's just so amazing.

Big birthday bash for him coming up on the last Sunday in August.

It should be fun.
Oh Happy, Happy Day!

We went on vacation at The Farm last week. Eric slept in the room adjacent to ours. The rooms are joined by a pair of French doors. I was going in at 3 to nurse him when he fussed. But I realized that he was grumping on his tummy because he was trying to get back to sleep. So, instead of picking him up, changing and nursing him. I made that shushing noise that helps him get back to sleep.

Then the next day, I put him down around 7. Lo and Behold!! I woke up around 5 and realized I had not heard a peep out of him all night. He woke up at about 5:45 for the day, and WHOO HOO! He's pretty much been spending the night in his crib -- uninterrupted ever since. He sleeps from about 7 or 8 to 5:30 to 6:30 depending on the day. I don't begrudge him the early start because I get to SLEEP at night.

Oh happy, happy night.

Zaida came over on Sunday night for a party we threw for Sara the Wonder Nanny. Zaida FINALLY decided to play with Eric. They played a game she named "Escape" where she crawled in lightening-fast circles around our den and Eric chased her shrieking with complete and utter joy. He was all sweaty and exhausted at the end, so we gave him a cool bath and put him to bed. He was asleep in an instant, and didn't wake up until 6:30!!

This is huge. I totally didn't expect this to happen so quickly. I've learned so much.

If I put him in his crib, and he doesn't want to nap and he's fussing and hopping up, I just leave the room once or twice and then he'll settle down and listen to me and he'll fall asleep. However, usually I just have to lay him down a couple times and he decides he wants to sleep.

If he pops up and sings to himself for a while, and he's cheerful and won't sleep, I take that to mean that he's really NOT tired, and we go play. Now that the crib thing is pretty well established we can abort a nap and it doesn't really affect the next one.

In other GINORMOUS news, my darling husband is now unemployed. After much rumination and discussion, he quit his job before we went on vacation. He's networking his big tushie off trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. While this means we take a financial hit, I'm really happy about it. I've never seen him this contented.

It also means that he takes care of Eric in the morning so I can get my relatively well-rested self off to work on time for once! So whoo HOO!

Life is good.

Margaret