Early Bird Gets the Worm

(Alternative Title: Chatty Cathy)

My sweet, darling, precious son has decided that the PERFECT wake up time is sometime between 4 and 5 AM.  He has been testing his new wake up schedule all week, and it must be working for him because he continues to do it.

But because my son is nothing if not aware of his parents need to sleep (ha!), instead of crying when he wakes up he just lays there and TALKS to himself.  One morning Rob and I listened to him talk and squeal for an hour.  He seems perfectly happy to lay there awake and talking.

The logical thing for me would be to say "well, he's not unhappy.  I'll just leave him and go back to sleep."  Problem is I am also a morning person, and once I wake up, I'm up.  So Drew and I are spending a lot of early morning hours together these days.  I'm sure I'll look back and love these moments, just the two of us, together, while it is still dark outside.  But right now I just REALLY need a nap.

The Vocal Stylings of Andrew Edward

For about the last month Drew has been a MARATHON sleeper.  On the craziest of days he was taking 3 2-hour naps in addition to his 11 to 12 hour nightly sleep!  I was googling "How much sleep does a 4 month old need?" and the numbers were coming in much, much lower.  I figured he was just going through the world's longest growth spurt or was trying to fill up the sleep bank that Rob and I deprived him of for the first 3 months of his life.

Well, as of last night the need for sleep was OVER.  He slept fine until 9:30PM, and then he proceeded to wake up EVERY HOUR from then on out.  Rob was out of town, so I was doing the trek up and down the stairs each hour alone.  At 1:30 I finally came to my senses and brought Drew back to the pack and play that is still up in our room.  If I was going to get up hourly I was going to take as few steps as possible.

 About 3:30, I came to realizing I was hearing him.  But he wasn't crying.  Oh no.  He was going through every vocal sound his little vocal chords can make.  Vowels, consonants, cooing, laughing, and his newest favorite, gargling.  It was quite cute, but I wasn't sure 3:30AM was the time for this!  I let him talk for awhile, then stuck the paci back into his mouth and he went back to sleep. 

Until 5:30, when he remembered how much fun he was having at 3:30 and started right back where he left off.  I let him talk until 6, when I got up to feed him.

Outside of the poor timing, last night was precious.  But I do hope he decides that he wants to sleep tonight!

Well Rested

I woke up to this

this morning.


He slept through the night.

It shall be a day of celebration around our house.

New Boss!

As of today, I have a brand spanking new boss.  He is pretty demanding (He needed me from 3-6:30 this morning!!), but he is pretty cute.  Check him out in his new executive chair!

Exactly 3 years after I started, my time at the Attorney General's office came to an end last Friday.  I will miss my time there dearly.  As I told so many, it is strange to walk away from a job where you honestly can say you love your boss, your co-workers, and what you do day-to-day.  I had been working on the same case since the moment I started (yes, only one.  It was that big) and I hate not seeing it to completion.

But I am thrilled to have the time (and the financial ability) to take this time to be with my family.  As I left my office with my boxes and my diplomas on Friday, I had several (female) co-workers tell me they totally supported me and that I would never get this time back.  It was so nice to hear and have that kind of support.

I will probably re-enter the workforce one day, but I'm not set on when or in what capacity yet.  I'm just going to see what opportunities arise and when the time seems right.  But for now it's just me and Drewbie, taking on the world.

Now I just need to find a spot for my diploma and my law license....

The Baby Whisperer

I didn't read ANY books about pregnancy or child rearing while I was pregnant.  I didn't have the desire early on, and I thought eventually I would have some strong desire to read the entire "Parenting" section of Barnes and Nobles, just like I had a strong desire to clean out every. last. inch. of my kitchen.  That never happened (well, the Barnes and Nobles part.  Rob did come home to find me laying on my side at 36 weeks pregnant trying to clean the very back of the bottom shelf under the stove).

Then Drew was born and no one was sleeping and I figured we had to do something.  Here was the problem.  Dinners were spent like this:

If I was slow on a bottle, I was met with this:

It wasn't a good way to live.

Then Candace suggested reading "The Baby Whisperer" and by golly, it WORKED.  Last night when he was crying after being fed and hanging out for a little while, I scooped him up and put in him his bed in a dark room and the kid went RIGHT TO SLEEP.  Rob and I celebrated with brownies with ice cream on top.

Moral of the story: Read one book.  It might save you 4 weeks of completely sleepless nights.

Goodbye, Sleep!

I have no trouble saying I'm an "8-hour-a-night" kind of girl.  I cherish the days where I can get in bed in the 9PM hour.  I've gone through more sets of bedding in my 28 years than many people would go through in a lifetime.  My bed is my refuge.

Except when it isn't.

Like now.

The going to sleep still isn't a problem.  Oh, I can get in bed and fall asleep 5 minutes later watching a show.  Rob has had to remove the glasses from my face on more than one occasion recently (and tell me about the end of "The Rachel Zoe Project.")

But then I wake up.  Usually at midnight, 2:30, and somewhere between 4 and 5:15.  If I'm lucky I pee and go back to sleep.  If I'm unlucky I toss an turn and ultimately fall back asleep about 15 minutes before my next pee break, where I wake up again.  This has lead to significantly less than than the necessary 8 hours of sleep a night.  For too many nights in a row.  And I don't expect it to change for, what, 6-8 months?  If I'm lucky?

But I want to go on record that I think it is completely unfair that OB/GYNs limit your caffeine intake exactly at the time when it seems like the only way to make it through the day is with cups and cups of Starbucks.  A coffee pot may be on my Christmas list this year.....

And then there are the dreams.  Crazy, wild dreams.  VIVID dreams.  Last night I birthed a teddy bear with a pulse.  The good news was it was an easy delivery.  The bad news was it didn't phase me AT ALL that it was a teddy bear.  I really should start journaling the dreams.  Maybe there is deep hidden meaning in there somewhere. :)