standard issue
I think everyone should be issued a little boy like Will. Someone so full of joy and love. He is such a sweetie. Last night my little moth came in and asked if I would rub his back and sing him a song about a jelly bear. Since I don’t know a song about a jelly bear he had to settle for other songs. But it made me remember being a little girl and loving having my back rubbed. (or being a grown up and loving it, too!) There was just nothing better than falling asleep while someone you loved and trusted rubbed your back.
We have a new little nighttime routine lately. They seem to change every few weeks (determined by Nic’s work schedule and Ellie’s sleep moves), but right now Ellie’s going to bed either before, during, or immediately after dinner. And Nic’s been getting home late, so after dinner Nic and Will have some play time. And then I do the bedtime stories with Will. We do three stories (and it’s amazing to see him totally understand exactly how many 3 is now) and then snuggle time. He always asks for me to lie down with him, but last week I started doing it for a few minutes after story time and I’m hooked. He is just sooooo cute and sweet and loving. We play little games like “I’m going to snuggle you so hard your arms will fall off!” and then we have to use sticky tape and glue and staples to put the arms back on. Or we look out the window and talk about the birds and the trees and the frogs and the crickets. Or we sing 88 verses of “old mcdonald had a farm.”
Bedtime used to be my least favorite part of the day. Such hard work to get him down, and knowing that it wouldn’t last and it was only a matter of hours before he was up again…well, I still have that with Ellie. But bedtime is my favorite part of the day with Will these days. Sharing 10 or 15 minutes with him where it’s just us and no other distractions is so special. I hope he won’t mind if I show up at his dorm room when he’s 19 and insist on snuggling him until his arms fall off and using imaginary glue to put them back on.
our little moth
We call Willie a moth because at night, if he’s not 100% sure about going to bed, lights attract him like…well…a moth. If we keep the office light on, he’s up and down and up and down with “I just want to talk to you”s and various other stalling techniques. If we turn out all the lights upstairs? He stays put. All the moth mommies must have to use the same tricks.
conversation with will
I walked into Will’s room tonight after the official good night. His little head bopped up.
“Whachyou need, Mom?”
“I just came in to give you a kiss.”
“Oh. Can I just talk to you for a little while?”
“Sure!”
“I just like you, Mom. I don’t hate you.” [this is a newish thing–the “I like you” followed by “I don’t hate you” thing]
“I like you too, buddy. I don’t hate you–I love you.”
“Awww, sucks.” [“shucks” more often than not comes out “sucks”]
And then he told me about the pictures of me on the wall and asked if I’d seen the animals he brought into his bed. (He doesn’t normally sleep with stuffed animals, but four were in bed next to him tonight.)
she cries, he cries.
If you tell Will that he has either endangered or upset Ellie, it’s the meanest thing you can tell him. He’s DEVASTATED when that happens.
Like this afternoon Ellie woke up from her nap. Will and I both heard her and moved toward her room. Will rushed ahead, and in what he clearly thought was going to be the best most hilarious game of awesomeness ever, he ran to her crib and made a silly roaring noise at her.
She paused and then let out this sad terrified scream. Will’s eyes got big, the lower lip started to quiver, and then he lost it, too.
He had made her cry. He was devastated. “I made her upset!” he sobbed into my lap. “But I was just being a silly dragon!”
Last week when I dropped him off for preschool it was crazy windy. Ellie had finally fallen asleep in the car and I was desperate to make it into the building and back out without waking her. In the crazy wind. I told Will to hurry, but when I looked back at the car (with Ellie now outside in the wind) he was still buckled inside, not even attempting to get out. I was FURIOUS. “What is WRONG with you?!” I yelled at him as I stomped to his side of the car, unbuckled him, and pulled him out. “Ellie’s going to wake up and cry now and it’s ALL YOUR FAULT.” As I stomped him inside I couldn’t see his face, but he hadn’t said sorry and I was furious with him. But when we got to the front desk the owner said “Will, what’s wrong?” and he burst into tears. He sobbed and sobbed. I felt awful–me yelling at him never affects him like that. Me telling him that he will be the cause of Ellie’s tears? Cut his sweet little heart in two.
I felt horrible. It was awful. I had to bring him a chocolate doughnut when I picked him up.
the night nazi, day 2
She made it from 7:45 to 10:45, which is an improvement. But I know she can go 5 hours so I’ve been doing the “do some online window shopping and proofing and ignore the cries” for the last half hour (with the standard visits in to check on her at increasing intervals). 25 minutes and she’s done. Hopefully she won’t wake up until after midnight, at which point she’ll get what she wants–milk truck time.
And to think that at 2 months she was totally doing the 7-12 stretch no problem. Hate that it is taking tears and screams to get back to that point.
30 minutes later
she seems to be done.
the sad part is this could all start again in an hour.
and go on for days.
yep. i hate this.
what i lost in the surgery.
Perhaps more important than the ovary and tube I lost in my surgery last month is the SLEEP I lost. In the days immediately after the surgery I took Ellie into bed with me. I couldn’t bop up and down to her crib in the night, so she was with us for the week or so after surgery.
And I broke her.
It changed the baby who went 5 hours in a stretch every night into a baby who can barely make it two hours without waking and demanding to nurse back to sleep.
I’m listening to her cry right now and feeling furious that I’m exactly where I was with Will at this point in spite of alllllll the work I did to keep us from having to make the choice between sleep training screaming and nursing constantly.
I hate this.
