Walking and Talking

In milestone reports . . . Joseph (a couple days shy of 13 months) has now taken twelve consecutive steps! Of course, babies have a way of delaying as long as possible their parents catching their steps on video tapes. Every time I pull out the camera, Joseph keeps plopping to his bottom. And when the camera is nowhere near, he calmly walks across the room like he's a Big Kid.

He's also speaking a bit more. Not only is he saying his second word, "Mama," but today he strung it together with his first word, to say, "Mama, down! Mama, down!"

It's a good thing he's so cute, as "Mama, down!" was being commanded repeatedly while he bopped me on the head at four in the morning. I lay there, half conscious, thinking how joyous it was to witness his first command (for me to take him downstairs) and how desperately I wanted him to be asleep instead.

There are pros and cons to cosleeping with babies and I don't deny it's a mixed bag. But all kinds of baby sleep are a mixed bag, in my opinion! One of the cons of cosleeping that I don't deny is that I'm pretty bad at sleep-training. Joseph is entering what I've experienced as that dreadful transition from two daily naps to one. For the last two weeks, almost daily he's taken only one nap, but he really needs two. I try and try to get him to fall asleep mid-morning and he doesn't. Finally around 11:30, he crashes to sleep for two hours. Then he wakes in the early afternoon and lasts happily until seven at night. I try (and try!) to get him to take a late afternoon nap, but his having woken around 1:30, he just isn't tired yet.

But if he falls asleep at 7:00 p.m., guess when he wakes up? Five o'clock in the morning! Every day for the last two weeks!

And today it was four in the morning. I managed to ignore him ("Mama, down!") and after a whole hour of his climbing over me and batting my head, he fell asleep again for two hours--thank you, Jesus.

Each time I yawn today, I will try to remind myself how cute the little rascal is! One day there will be no babies crawling all over me and batting me on the head, and I will miss it desperately.