Learning to let go

Jonathan has always slept on his back at night. I have been super paranoid about SIDS and we have been lucky that even once he figured out how to flip over, he stayed put at night.

No longer.

Now, even when we place him on his back, he flips over within a couple of hours and sleeps on his tummy til morning.

Time to let go of the fear and just realize that he is getting to be a big boy, and it's ok for him to sleep on his tummy now.

::Deep breaths::

Here is how I found him Wednesday morning.

Switching Gears

Ok, so my last post was pretty "complain"y, so now that I've calmed down and Jonathan is in the middle of a nice long afternoon nap (that I successfully put him down for - woo), I would like to share some fun and happy new things in the world of Jonathan:

- He shakes his head now - I don't think he means "no" exactly, but he does it when he is annoyed or doesn't want to do something. I think it is super cute.

- He loves to give raspberries, both spontaneously and imitating us. Spit flies everywhere. Also quite cute.

- He "woofs" like a dog. It sounds like "Ah, ah, ah!" But he is definitely trying to woof.

- Sometimes when I am holding him and he gets really happy - sees Jeremy or a daycare teacher he loves - he sort of plunges his head into my chest with a big grin on his face and says "eeeeeeeee," his little "I'm so happy I can't even stand it" sound.

- He FINALLY is getting one of his top teeth in. After four months of nothing, tooth-wise.

- He loves swings and makes the cutest faces when he is on them. See below.

- He is so affectionate. He'll be in the middle of playing on the floor, come over to me, climb on my legs, pull on my shirt to stand up and squeeze my neck with all his little 11 month old might. LOVE.

Nap Nightmare

I am soooo frustrated with Jonathan's naps.

It's gotten to the point that I dread the weekends because I don't know how his napping is going to be. Which, frankly, sucks, because the weekend is our time with our baby and I don't want to dread what is basically the only time I get to spend with him.

At daycare, they are fully on the one nap schedule now. They claimed that if he was showing signs of exhaustion in the morning, they would let him sleep, but at daycare, he is so distracted by the other children and all the fun they are having that he doesn't act sleepy. He seems to be doing ok with the one nap, actually. During the week that is.

But on the weekends, he is just at home, with boring old mom and dad. He shows signs of being sleepy at 9ish, but I CANNOT get him to sleep. Jer has better luck, but even still, it is such a battle now compared with only a few weeks ago, when he was predictably sleepy at 9 and 1:30PM.

Yesterday we tried one nap but it was an utter failure. He fell asleep three times for five minute naplets in the morning as we tried in vain to keep him up. Then at 12, which is daycare's naptime, I couldn't get him to sleep, even after 30 minutes of trying. Of course Jer swept in and got him asleep in 15 minutes. How long did he sleep? 30 minutes.

All this on top of Jonathan waking up more frequently in the night and earlier and earlier in the morning lately. Plus, last night we had another episode of croup which kept the whole family up until midnight.

Now I have no idea what the right thing to do is - should we try to keep him up until 12 every day, to be consistent with daycare, even though he is clearly exhausted by then? Or should we try to put him down for a morning nap, inconsistent with the weekdays, which he is fighting off anyway?

I am angry at daycare for forcing this on us. I am annoyed that Jeremy can get Jonathan to sleep and lately I can't. And with the exception of learning to breastfeed in the early weeks, I have never been so frustrated with motherhood.

Bye-Bye to the first 11 months

Jonathan waved bye-bye for the first time today - to one of his favorite daycare teachers, Miss Debra. :)

And as of yesterday, he is 11 months old. Here are some pics we took of him to commemorate this occasion. We have a silly, silly little goose on our hands.

Weekend Recap

I hate when Jeremy goes out of town.

I never sleep as well - every little creak of the house makes me jump out of my already light sleep. Add to that a wrong number call at 5:47am and Jeremy's alarm going off at 6:25am on Saturday, followed by Jonathan waking up crying at 5am this morning and we have a weekend of crappy sleep.

We had some fun times this weekend though.

Saturday I had a great time with Lani at The Sound of Music, which was my birthday present from Jer. Conveniently, his fantasy football drafts were scheduled for this weekend in Jacksonville, so he was, sadly, unable to go with me. That's ok, I would much rather go with Lani, who can appreciate a little "Doe a Deer."

Today was a little rougher. After a morning with no nap, not for lack of (me) trying, we went to the sprayground with Jodi and Noah (friends from my Mom and Me group). We had a great time - definitely the highlight of the day. But as the day wore on, he pretty much melted down at the drop of a hat from lack of sleep.

We are in an awkward phase right now where he is transitioning from two naps to one - thanks to daycare and their ridiculous one-nap policy. After today's battles, I am thinking it is time to give in to the inevitable and move him to one nap on the weekends too.

Jer's home now and I'm looking forward to a better night's sleep. Here's hoping...

Quick Photo Update

No time to blog much tonight, but suffice it to say that we had a GREAT weekend of Jack Johnson (thanks, Jennifer and Graham!!!), lunch with Jer's family, dinner with Jodi, Justin and Sydney (4.5 months) and lunch with Nancy, Mark and Sammy (15 months).

A couple of cute photos from this week -

Bitten!

Jonathan was bitten at daycare today.

They called me to let me know and sent him home with an incident report sheet detailing the procedures when a child is bitten/scratched/spat upon. Ah the things we can look forward to with toddlerhood.

Monkey man has two nasty little red marks on his arm. :(













Of course, it couldn't have left too much of an impression (well, other than the physical one) because he was in a great mood when I picked him up, babbling and giggling to himself the whole way home.