Relief

Last night John woke at least four times to call for us. Now I know that the pod people haven't taken the real John away. What a relief.

Two Nights in a Row!

For the second night in a row, John slept without calling for us from about 9:30 p.m. to 6:20 a.m. Have pod people come? Does going to bed so late (because we're shifting him to West Coast time) help? He's not sleeping any longer than usual. It's a mystery--a wonderful mystery!

Mark Your Calendars

Last night John slept all night alone without need for parenting (without crying, without calling for us), from about 9:30 p.m. to 7:15 a.m. (That is later than usual on both ends because we are shifting him to West Coast time in advance.)

Our sweet boy has always been a difficult sleeper and still usually requires at least three parentings-back-to-sleep per night. Often more. A couple of months ago, Chris was on a business trip and I had to get up twelve times in one night for John.

We hope last night represents a trend!

Sleeping Boy

Back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .

These days, John naps on a comforter on the floor surrounded by my pregnancy pillow. That way I can nurse him to sleep and sneak away easily so the days of repeatedly trying to trick him into transitioning into the crib are over. I'd rather spend 10 minutes getting him down than 30 or more! Here is my sweet, snoozing babe:

Domestic Matters: So, did everybody know about the wonders of parchment paper except me? I have parchment paper in the house because the occasional recipe calls for its use as a tool. Last night I baked chocolate chip cookies and decided to try using parchment paper to line the baking sheets. The cookies formed beautifully. When I removed them from the oven, I simply slid the entire sheet of parchment onto my cooling racks, so the hot cookies were not mangled by my trying to remove them with a spatula, nor did they cool on the cookie sheet such that they adhered to it. When the cookies were cool, I pulled them off the parchment paper easily: not one crumb got stuck. I crumpled up the parchment paper and threw it away. I didn't have to scrub baked-on cookies from the baking sheets or cooling racks. They were totally clean, so I just put them away. Why doesn't everybody always use parchment paper when baking? It seems like a miracle to me! Is it releasing poisonous toxins into my cookies? Is it extremely expensive? Does it never biodegrade? Or does everybody use parchment paper and I'm just the last one to know?

A Sleep Shift

Four times since the eve of Mother's Day, I have been able to simply walk into the bedroom, lay John on the bed, and walk away, successfully resulting in John falling asleep peacefully and quickly by himself.

What I want to know is: who took our baby and have the pod people been here?

Two Nights in a Row!

On Wednesday night, I managed for the second night in a row to cook dinner! I wore John in my Maya Wrap and made braised pork chops with apples (for Chris), a soy burger (what Chris calls my "hockey pucks" for me), roasted red potatoes, and broccoli and red bell peppers with butter breadcrumb sauce. I'm on a roll!

John has doubled his birth weight in eight weeks. Here is a photo of our chubby boy sleeping:



Chris put a thermometer in the master bedroom to prove to me what temperature it is at any given time. During pregnancy, I knew that I felt artificially overheated all the time. Now, I still am plagued by hot flashes, apparently because of lactation hormones. I usually think the master bedroom is extremely and unpleasantly warm. Sometimes I've even accused Chris of turning up the thermostat beyond 68 to 80-something!

A Wide Awake Day

The day started out well enough. John must have heard me complaining about his latest habit of being wide awake each night from 2:00 to 3:00 a.m. because this early morning he stayed awake from 2:00 till 4:00! That is in addition to his wakings every two hours or so. Nonetheless, it was not so bad.

And this morning was great because John took a deep nap from around 8:30 till 11:30 during which time I got two loads of laundry washed, birthday cards mailed, and ordered several rooms of the house.

Then John awoke. He even sat happily in one of his bouncy seats for an entire half hour next to my desk while I did office work! See evidence below:



Unfortunately, John stayed wide awake from 11:30 a.m. till 7:00 p.m.! Seven and a half hours at an age when he is supposedly only able to stay awake two to three hours at a stretch! He must have been exhausted. (I know his mama was.) I repeatedly got him to fall asleep but he'd awaken five minutes later. At least he wasn't screaming the entire time, but at only eight weeks old, he's not exactly good at entertaining himself so my afternoon was shot.

As I write this, John is finally asleep and I am about to be asleep. I am quite curious to see how this overnight portends after such a strange day!

Precious Sleeping Baby

Today my brother Tim brought his wife Holly and family over to meet the new baby for the first time. Holly snapped this photo with her new Nikon Digital SLR (birthday gift).

The Requisite Sleeping-on-Daddy Photo