Pregnant....again?

No, just kidding.

Actually, I'm just asking everyone to pray for a friend's son.

Christin over at http://babyboybryant.blogspot.com/ is a great mother, and a wonderful woman. Her son, Cohen, has been through a lot in his short little life, and yesterday he had his heel cords clipped, adenoids removed and a broncoscopy. From what I hear, he's doing as well as can be expected right now- he's such a little trooper! I've never met him (living on opposite sides of the country and all) but I know he's a doll!

Thanks guys, I know she'll appreciate it!

And no, I'm seriously not pregnant. Not for a long time.

Construction engineer for hire!

Tonight, in a fight for my life- I came out on top. Against a baby gate.

Ivan has been keeping me on my toes, between crawling from one end of the house to the other, stopping in the kitchen to play in the dog's water, and then starting up again.

Tonight I went to Target in search of the perfect gate. I was armed with a gift card from my parents, research that I did before going, and a happy baby.

I didn't want one of the short wooden ones, because they're too much to mess with every time Wrinkles wants to go out, and it's a pain to close them while holding a baby. I found a Munchkin brand gate that sold for 50.99, which was great..because I had a $50 gift card. That gate didn't work. Online it said it extended up to 52" which I liked, because our doorway opening is 46". It only extends to 35" or so, without extensions. They didn't sell the needed extensions at the store, so I had to go to plan B. I ended up getting a different Munchkin gate- the extra tall and extra wide.

I liked my second choice more so than my first, but I had to pay $30 out of pocket. Not a big deal, but having it be free would be better.

I got home and started putting the gate together..and it almost killed me, to say the least. I now have a headache, and am exhausted. I won't try installing anything like that again by myself..especially when I'm wrangling a 10 month old and a dog.

Shuffle Day 2

If you didn't see, I started doing the Sleep Lady Shuffle last night. I gave in around 1am, and had pretty much decided that I was going to wait until Monday night to start it again.

After a long fun filled day of driving and parades, we got home and managed to get Ivan in bed by 3pm for a nap. He fell asleep on his own with us shh-ing him and patting the mattress by 340 or so, but only stayed asleep for 10-15 minutes.

Tonight we had people over to bbq and have a fire, and he started getting fussy, so I got him to fall asleep around 8, but then he still only stayed asleep long enough for me to get outside and get comfortable.

Once he started acting tired again (around 930 or so) I brought him back in, sang the military version of "You Are My Sunshine" a few times through and laid him down. He was IRATE. It's now 1110 pm and he's been asleep for about 15 minutes. He wasn't upset the whole time, but couldn't get comfortable, and would lie down, sit up, stand up, sit down, lie down, whine, wiggle, sit up, and repeat a million times. He tried to get my attention a few times by reaching through the slats of the crib and pulling my hair of grabbing for whatever part of my body was close.

I'm hoping tonight goes better than last night because I'm exhausted.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy, when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take, my sunshine, away.

I know you're tired, my darling baby.
It's time to close up, your little eyes.
It's off to dreamland, your pillow's waiting
Now its off, to bed-dy by.

Your Daddy loves you, but he's a soldier.
He'll have to go off, to fight the war.
But he'll be home soon, this I assure you.
Each day he loves, you more, and more.

My first morning after walk of shame.

:sigh:

Last night was a long night.

Read my last post, and you'll see what we tried to do..The key word being TRIED.

I put Ivan in his bed around 907, and he fell asleep around 940ish. He woke back up at 1040, and was back asleep by 1125...and then woke up again at 130. I tried to get him back asleep for about 5 minutes.

I gave up after those 5 minutes, picked him up, and took him back to bed with me. He woke up a few times after that wanting to nurse, which woke me up, and I got about 4 hours of total sleep last night.

I'm assuming tonight will be worse since I gave up halfway.
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The Sleep Lady Shuffle, night 1.

Ivan is 10 months old today, and he's asleep in his crib at night for the second time in his whole life.

He's always either been in the pack and play next to our bed (for the first month or two of his life) and in our bed since.

I've looked at ways and different methods to get him in his own bed for the past few weeks and finally came across "Good Night, Sleep Tight" by Kim West. In short- you sit by the crib at night, gently shh-ing, patting the mattress, but not picking up baby and putting them to sleep how you usually do. The purpose of the whole thing is for them to be able to soothe themselves back to sleep at the start of the night, and whenever they wake up in the middle of the night.

Ivan has been waking up a few times at night and wanting to nurse back to sleep, as well as nursing to sleep at the start of the night, which is taking a major toll on me. He's also started crawling around a little bit at night, trying to get super comfortable, and usually ends up headbutting either Luke or myself.

Tonight after his bath and one final nursing session around 845, he started looking sleepy and trying to fall asleep with me feeding him. I laid him down at 907. He was up and down and sitting and standing and crying and screaming, doing everything he could to get me to pick him up. I picked him up 2 or 3 times, and laid him down 3 times. He finally fell asleep at 945 or so, and I sat in his room until 1002, when I was sure that he was asleep. I'm supposed to continue this every time he wakes up tonight..which will make for a long night. I'm really hoping and praying that he stays asleep for awhile because I'm EXHAUSTED.

Whew...Lets hope that this isn't too terribly awful. The first "part" of the shuffle lasts 2-3 nights when I'm right next to his bed, then 2-3 more nights when I'm halfway across the room, and so on and so forth, until he's able to put himself to sleep at night without me.

I'm really going to miss his snuggles at night, but it's time to turn our once marital bed- turned family bed- back into a marital bed.