melt/breakdown

Yesterday was a very, very bad day - for all parties involved. For the past few weeks, the boy has been pulling himself up - everything - chairs, tables, people - everything is something to be explored and conquered. That's all fine and dandy - it shows that he's thriving, growing, hitting developmental milestones, blah blah blah. What I'm not digging is the pulling up in the crib. He pulls up and then just stands there and cries or yells until I show up - he's not horizontal, so there's no way he could accidentally fall asleep or gasp, put himself to sleep. It involves me picking him up and putting him back down - rubbing of the back and vigorous patting of the butt (it gets real vigorous by the 3rd time I go in). Yesterday we hit an all time high of one hour. It took me 57 minutes to put him down. I had to call the hubster to tell him that I was this close to shaking the boy. It was bad, the rage and steam coming out of the ears, the worry, all of it. I mean the boy was tired, rubbing his eyes out, grinding his head into the mattress, but stubborn as all hell. I was supposed to meet people for lunch but decided against it - he needed his sleep, since his afternoon naps have all but dissolved.

Just as I'm doing some deep breathing exercises, the little sweet boy WAKES UP. That's half an hour later!! But I took it all in stride - we'll go out for lunch. Of course he was the perfect little charmster at lunch, and when we all got up to leave, he started rubbing his eyes. Oh, great - we have a nice little walk to get home and then he'll fall asleep on his way home. No, not on the way, not once we got home. Fussy as all hell, but not sleeping. And that is when I started crying and called the hubster with the very subtle code "COME HOME NOW!" He was home within 10 minutes (bless his heart) and whisked the boy away and told me to sleep, which I gladly did for two hours.

During the two hours I am knocked out, the m-i-l comes over - they're all hanging out downstairs so I can sleep. Very thoughtful. In the two minutes E comes up to check on me, the little guy falls over and cuts his face on the stove. He's fine, I'm fine, we're all fine, but C'MON, lady, really?!! I know accidents happen, but c'mon. He's lucky he didn't poke his eye out. SHE'S lucky. Anyway, I was too tired to be whatever. And I have a free babysitter, and accidents happen. So enough about that.

I sat down at 10:00 this morning to start writing this. Last night I had the brilliant idea of putting him in his sleep sack for his nap - it restricts his movement (poor thing). So this morning, we nursed, then got in the sleep sack and put him down. Some crying for 5 minutes then some loud complaining and at 10:12 - silence. Out. Success. It really is all about learning by doing. I'll give LS that much - they were right about that.

By the way, no one is laughing, people:

There are no words to describe my disgust and sadness.