Christmas came early

When you are sleep-training your child, the days can drag by in one exhausting haze. But in between each little struggle for naptime or bedtime, I've actually had some really great things happen this week. It's almost like Santa stopped by our house a few months early this year!

Bean me up, Scotty. My favorite Seattle coffee chain (no, not THAT one) opened a drive-thru near our house. A DRIVE THRU. Do you know what that means? I can wear my sweats and slippers and I don't have to haul the baby in and out and in and out of the car every time I need my 16 oz. iced mocha nonfat decaf no whip. A DRIVE THRU. Seriously the best coffee ever, and I don't even have to leave the comfort of my heated seats. Laziness at it's finest. I feel like I just hit it big in the lottery! A DRIVE THRU!

"Nerdy Joe not included." Obviously if you've been reading my blog with any amount of attention, you know that I love movies. I see many of them, but I hardly ever remember the plots or the characters or the actors. It's more the act of watching that I enjoy, a little escape into an alternate reality for a couple of hours. But of course I have my favorites, whether it be for a quality plot, abundance of laughs, or interesting characters (I love you, Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy!). One of the hits on my list is Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. Don't scoff until you see it, I had no interest either until my brother convinced me to watch it with him. Anyway, the DVD format was rare (meaning it sold expensively on eBay), and after several failed attempts to copy my old VHS version into DVD (curses on anti-piracy measures), I had given up. Well, Universal just answered the prayers of geeks everywhere and re-released it! So I ordered two copies -- one for me, one for my brother -- on Amazon.com for a mere $13 each. Yet another reason to look forward to the mail! Also in movie news, this week Netflix sent me Spaced, which is a British TV show by the "Hot Fuzz" and "Shaun of the Dead" guys. It's been at the top of my queue for weeks and it's been marked long wait since it's release, so even if the show stinks, I consider it a major victory that it came to me.

Look ma, no hands! My LLL group leader, who also teaches a babywearing class, compared baby carriers to potato chips -- you can't have just one. I think of it more as carrier envy myself. I see the other moms toting their kids around in these awesome contraptions, and I can't help but think, I want that! I have had the Moby wrap since Bean was a newborn, you may remember the picture from this post. Recently I asked DH to buy me the Calyx as a belated Mother's Day gift, since my spa day never materialized for various reasons. It arrived on Monday, as did the Slinglings baby sling I mentioned a couple of posts ago. I've been using them both all week, and it really is addicting. For example, Bean doesn't like the seats in the shopping carts (he's a bit too small yet), so this way I can actually get some things accomplished while still snuggling with my little buddy. In fact, he's actually sleeping on my back right now as I type this. Genius!

Retail therapy. Surprisingly, my strategy of doing absolutely nothing to lose the last 10-15 lbs of baby weight has not resulted in a slimmer waistline. Imagine that! And as a result, I don't have any winter clothes that fit me that don't have Motherhood Maternity tags on them. (It's funny, before I got pregnant, I hated everything in my closet. Why is it now, when nothing fits me, that everything looks so cute?) Anyway, I literally have ONE pair of jeans in my new mommy size. Against my better judgement, I decided to schlep my sleep-deprived, teething six-month-old all the way across town to the Gates's mall yesterday to get a few items. Fortunately, both Bean and the mall cooperated, and I came away with two new pairs of jeans and five tops. Bringing my grand total for my winter wardrobe up to... three pairs of jeans and five tops. Well, it's a start.

The whole tooth. Drumroll please... we have a tooth! Bean's bottom left bitey has poked through the gumline and is on it's way up. I'm actually kinda sad, I adore his gummy smile. This is just another reminder that he's really growing up. Plus, I'm worried about biting. Yeeouch.

By golly, I think he's got it! Yes, it's true, the Bean Man seems to be understanding this whole fall-asleep-in-the-crib routine. After much agonizing and the unsuccessful application of techniques in the no-cry book, I decided to commit to the cry-it-out routine. While the no-cry book has many great suggestions and has obviously worked for many people, it just wasn't cutting it in our house. Not only was I exhausted from spending hours each naptime and bedtime trying to sooth him, the kid was crying anyway because he was getting over-tired as I struggled. I became convinced of two things: 1) Bean was in dire need of more sleep, and 2) The situation was growing serious enough to require a strong, intermediate intervention. So the author of the no-cry book calls moms like me heartless for listening to their children cry without running to them. But for me, I feel that it requires strength for a mom to be willing to endure the crying (which is absolutely heartbreaking, of course) so a child can learn to fall asleep on his own, when nothing else in her power can do it for him. I am mainly following the techniques of this book. I highly recommend it, especially before your child is born to prepare for what's coming. The author has wonderful information on the sleep patterns of children at various ages, so hopefully you can avoid the problems we have had. I plan on referring to it right from the start if we ever get pregnant again. Bean is actually sleeping in his own crib now, and he went from waking up every 2.5 - 3 hours all night to sleeping for up 8 hours straight. AMAZING! The nap times are slower to improve. He's getting good at falling asleep in the crib, but I can't get him to stay asleep in there for more than about 30 minutes at a time. I'm hoping that just comes with consistency. Anyway, it hasn't been easy, and even though Bean is sleeping at night, I'm still learning to rest soundly myself. But it's obviously helping him, and the benefits of having him in his crib at a proper bedtime have been vital to my sanity (and DH's as well).

So you see it's been a week of many blessings. I just hope the weekend can live up to it!