Category Archive

Wake up time this morning, a major legal holiday?

AM: 6:24. That was after some middle of the night negotiation (read: temper tantrum) about where he was going to sleep and whether or not he was going to nurse at that time.

Miss M: 6:45.

I mean, it’s like every other day of our lives,* but STILL. One of these days I am going to teach Miss M how to use the TV remote, just for times like this.

I hope everyone with little ones gets to grab a nap this weekend.

* Taxman goes to a 7:00 minyan on Shabbat morning. We used to go together, on time; now he goes by himself, 20 minutes late. But he still has to be vertical at approximately 7:00 am. So American holidays are truly the only chance to “sleep in.”

Family dinner last night; paint your own pottery fest this afternoon. (Don’t worry, only Miss M and three of her friends–all sweet four-year-old girls whose families we know well.)

I have a cold, and Miss M has a croupy cough and sounds like Darth Vader. At least she’s sleeping; that makes one of us.

Highlight of dinner? If you have the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook, open to page 414. Caramel layer cake.

OMG.

So good.

Totally my Paula Deen moment. My mother-in-law said, “Wait, you had half-and-half and butter in the house? At the same time?” Yes. And yes. And both were included. Whoa. So much for my rationale that if it’s in Moosewood it’s healthy.* My weight-conscious (though not dessert-skipping) stepmom had two pieces, even though she has a broken ankle and will not be able to exercise for another three weeks. Yeah. It was that good.

If I could breathe I so would have been at the gym this morning.

* Overall I think that’s a pretty true statement. Maybe not way back to the Enchanted Broccoli Forest (not the revised edition), which is liberally sprinkled with cheese. But taken as a whole.

Whenever the seasons change, or there are dramatic weather changes, my sinuses get, um, angry. They kind of kick the crap out of me.

So that’s happening now. I’ve basically had a headache since Saturday, a day that featured sunshine, clouds, and thunderstorms. I haven’t been able to sleep, really, since I have no idea how to make my head stop hurting. It’s worse at night. Caffeine makes me stay up and affects AM. Whatever’s in Sudafed gives me jitters and prevents me from sleeping–I discovered this last go-round, when I treated myself to one for the first time since 2003. Plain jane Tylenol or Advil cannot touch this kind of headache.

But seriously, this happens to me probably 10 times a year. And every time I am surprised, probably because I am just helpless in the face of it. Who wants to anticipate that?

Please send a decaf latte.

The past few days have been a whirlwind: Shabbat with friends who moved to the leafy suburbs, brunch with Ianqui, book club meeting to pick our next six books, and the local La Leche League meeting. The last three of those things were at my house, in a 24-hour period. So despite the fact that my achingly dull and stupidly frustrating freelance assignment was unfinished, all I could do last night was lie on the couch and watch House. (Last week’s was better, methinks, but still! The drama!)

But I digress.

At Target last week, with an eye toward the events of the weekend, I purchased a mini muffin tin. And it was fun. I made banana muffins and zucchini muffins for Shabbat, and a mess of downsized carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for everything else.

I highly recommend the carrot cakes. Yum. If you double the frosting you’ll have plenty to slather on the cakes. And extra to put on, say, some fresh strawberries. Or to eat with your fingers when you run out of strawberries because your children will!not!stop! pestering you in their quest to eat all the fruit in the universe house. (Yeah, I know about the dirty dozen. And yeah, we bought the organic strawberries. It’s going to be an expensive summer–and not just because of the gas prices.)

I have a lot of stuff swirling around in my head, but can’t act on most of it. To wit: it is too early to shop/cook for AM’s birthday dinner (next Sunday). It is too early to pack for Pesach. Or to even wrap my head around how tricky that will be, seeing as how it will be five days at my in-laws’ in New York (will we have even cracked 65 degrees?) and then 12 days in Israel, where I am sure it is already scorching. I will spare you my bathing suit crisis because it would make you all hate me.

But anyway, the thing that is stressing me out the most is not how the kids will acclimate to a totally foreign climate, a seven-hour time difference, new foods, and being hauled all over the country to see people and sights. Rather, it is how we will survive the plane ride. When chichimama returned from London, I did not ask her about the charms of London or how the kids did with traveling in general. No. I rather breathlessly emailed to ask about the plane flights–a mere 15 hours worth of her entire vacation.

Usually when I have things tumbling around in my brain it manifests as insomnia. I toss and turn; I can’t get comfortable. Hours pass. Sometimes I just can’t bring myself to go to bed, although I am physically exhausted, because I don’t want to just lie there waiting for sleep to arrive.

But I am so crazed about one aspect of the trip that it’s invaded my dreams. I had a vivid one a few weeks ago. The four of us were in the airport, taking one of those peoplemover cart thingies to the gate. Taxman took the kids on to the plane, leaving me with AM’s carseat and, seemingly, dozens of small bags, spilling over with toys and books. I somehow managed to gather everything and haul it on to the plane, which looked oddly like a conference room. I dropped everything at Taxman’s feet and started ticking off what we had…then realized that in our obsessive race to get everything done for the kids, we had forgotten to pack our clothes. The true crux of the dream, however, was when I turned to him and said, ”Oh, oh, oh!!!!! I don’t have snacks!”

Yes, we are an army that travels on its stomach. AM expects a snack in the car from the second he’s strapped in. I have an array of relatively healthy snacks that travel well: Cheerios, raisins, dried cranberries, pretzels, crackers, string cheese, steamed baby carrots, grapes (although I have been trying not to buy the imported ones), apple slices, bananas, popcorn, animal crackers, and even slices of bread. That would be plenty for a 12-hour plane flight.

Let us edit that list for Pesach, however: Cheerios, raisins, dried cranberries, pretzels, crackers, string cheese, steamed baby carrots, grapes, apple slices, bananas, popcorn, animal crackers, and even slices of bread. Not so good. Perhaps New Yorkers have read of the Tam Tam travesty?  No?  It was covered in the Times! Tam Tams are matzah crackers with additions of salt and (I’m guessing) palm oil. The makers of Tam Tams were waiting on a new piece of baking equipment that did not arrive in a timely way…so now we’re all screwed, essentially. We’re also taking my Pesach brownies and small bags of Pesach potato chips. And macaroons, which probably only I will eat. But really, this will gnaw at me until we are safely on the other side of the ocean.

Because I can assure you that, just as in my dream, shelves full of peanut M&Ms in the airport newsstand will not be able to save us.

• We’ve reached that lovely point in the toddler life cycle in which 5, 5:30, 6 in the morning equals an acceptable, nay, perfect time to get up for the day. No matter that it is pitch dark, that others are sleeping. Well, why not play with trains before dawn? You only live once.
• The advantage of having an older child is knowing that as much as stage x sucks, it’s not forever. (There are many days when Miss M sleeps until 6:45 or even 7.) It will be replaced by a stage even less likeable. But maybe not as exhausting.
• I almost screwed myself over in the most idiotic way ever this morning. I was in the bathroom. (Again! I know!) AM came to visit. He brought Wolfie, his little stuffed wolf that he snuggles in bed and generally drags around. And kisses and nurses from his belly button. “You brought Wolfie?” I said, jokingly. ”Does Wolfie need to go potty?” “Yah!” he exclaimed. And turned on his heel and ran top speed to the other bathroom. Ohhhh, this was not good. “AM! AM! Come back!” I heard the toilet flip up and the sound of the potty ring.  “No no no no no!” I got there just in time. But really? Still kicking myself over the potential Wolfie crisis.
• I haven’t talked about speech therapy in a while. It’s going. Slowly. But it’s going. To my ears, AM is more imitative of speech, and will even do at home, when he thinks nobody is watching, what he refuses to do at therapy. He’s even starting to ‘fill in the blank’ of some of his favorite Laurie Berkner tunes, along the lines of…”The elephant sneezed…Ah, ah, ah-choo!” Mucho cuteness.
• I am pretty lazy when it comes to housekeeping, but when it comes to doing right by my children I try to step it up. Because they are my kids and need my advocacy and support. So I am totally confused by another mom at preschool. Her little one is about two months younger than AM and does not speak at all. I offered her my Signing Time videos a few months ago, but she said no. She told me today that he qualified for speech therapy and was going to start in a few weeks, and it was a good thing because he spends a lot of the day crying, she assumes, out of frustration. I re-offered my video collection–he is at an age when he has the fine motor skills to pick up signing really quickly–and she said that he wouldn’t watch on his own and she was “too lazy to watch with him.” Too lazy to watch TV? I can’t even imagine. I also can’t imagine just being ok with waiting when he is obviously in such distress.* My heart just aches for this little boy when I think about how much we all “talk” with AM. Really from the second he wakes up in the darkness and tells me he wants to nurse. Then he wants to play with trains. Then he wants a glass of milk. And cereal. And an orange. What if he couldn’t?
• [Update!] SQUEEEEE! Rachel Coleman (or someone writing her emails) left a comment on this post. THE Rachel Coleman, creator and star of Signing Time. I feel the burning need to tell Amalah, because she would fully appreciate my starstruck babbling, although she has like 40,000 readers and probably would filter me out as spam. All I need now is Laurie Berkner to pop in and say hi and I will rule the toddler universe!

* I am totally down with Caramama’s idea of being less judgmental of other moms. But really, when a mom says she can’t be bothered about something that I personally feel could turn this kid’s entire world around? What if he hadn’t qualified for speech therapy? What then? I am not trying to hold myself up as Ideal Mother, not at all. We found something that works. But if my child was reduced to tears over something as basic as not being able to communicate at an age appropriate level? I’d be trying to find a way. Mind reading, tea leaves, anything! And you’d think she knows because he is in physical therapy, but speech therapy is not a panacea. Progress is slow at best and measured over a course of months. So that’s a long time to have such an unhappy little one.

AM’s new DST schedule is wreaking havoc with my life. (By the time he goes to sleep I am too useless to do anything but watch the second half of The Biggest Loser: Couples. And then go to bed too late and hungry because I am too tired to make anything decent.) Therefore, an edict has come down–from me, because I am the Queen–that the 20 minutes that he napped in the car on the way to speech therapy will be the only nap he takes today.

Good news: He should go to bed at the “normal” time.

Bad news: He will be an enormous crank starting at 3:00. And 3:00 to 7:00 is a long time.

Update! Everyone was sleeping by 7:10.

I had a brainstorm–to take the kids out for Chinese food, at a kosher place 20 minutes away. Would kill time, get us all fed. My brilliant idea was threatened by the fact that I had a FreshDirect delivery scheduled from 4 to 6. But my buzzer rang at 3:35, so off we went! Of course, we were the only people at the restaurant 4:20. Did not care. AM got rice everywhere. Did not care. Miss M had to be bribed to eat the chicken. Did not care–she ate plenty of brown rice without complaint. Overpaid for truly mediocre chicken with mixed vegetables. But an entire afternoon’s activity? Priceless.

I was going to write about the wedding we went to yesterday, but I realized that probably a lot of my readership has never been to an Orthodox wedding and there is so much explaining that it made me want to lie down and take a nap. (Or maybe I want to lie down because AM is cutting two more teeth, and Miss M has a nighttime cough that doesn’t bother her in the slightest, but keeps me awake for hours.)

(Although I cannot resist for those in the know. Chuppah: about an hour and ten minutes. I kid you not.)

Anyway. niobe tagged me for a book meme. Pick up your nearest book, turn to page 123, count 5 sentences in and reveal the next three to the world. Here goes:

We are about halfway through the crossword. My attention has drifted.

“Read that one again, child,” says Grandma.*

I have to say this is not the best representation of this book, which I love so much I put it down so that I would not read it yesterday–Taxman was at work and I had to take care of the kids, plus go to a birthday party before the wedding.

This is pretty much the least stressful meme in existence; if anyone cares to participate–I tag thee.

While I am at it, I had wanted my Leap Day post to be a tally of all the books I’ve read so far this year. May as well do it; better late than never.

The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud**

The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan

The Double Bindby Chris Bojhalian**

Mister Posterior and the Genius Child by Emily Jenkins

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

An Unfinished Season by Ward Just**

* from The Time Traveler’s Wife  

** = For a book club

AM hasn’t let me sleep in three nights. Or four?

But also:

• How is it acceptable that the candidates have essentially deserted their jobs in their quest to have another? I can’t think of another type of job where this would be ok, but apparently it’s fine in politics. But only at the highest level: When someone we know ran for city council, he took a leave of absence from his job. Senators? Eh, who really needs them to be on Capitol Hill anyway? For 18 or so months of a six-year term they are allowed to seek other employment? Again, why are we paying them?
• I can’t even talk about politics with people, not that I would really want to, but I seem to be surrounded by single-issue voters. “How is Candidate X for Israel?”
• Not that I want to dismiss the importance of that, being a religious Jew and all, but for the time being I live here, in the US. And on the earth at large. (Um, Kyoto?) And vote accordingly.
• The comparisons of Obama to JFK. I don’t get it.
• The fact that Romney actually has to defend himself in Massachusetts. Excellent. But shouldn’t that TELL people something? Like “he was so disliked that even in a primary he has to really campaign”? Romney, as far as I can tell, is the ultimate in job desertion–apparently halfway through his term he decided he was SO OVER Massachusetts. Or so my friends from Massachusetts tell me. They are all Democrats, as far as I know, but apparently the Republicans are also feeling snitty.
• I thought I had more to say on this. But I haven’t really slept since last Thursday.
• Go vote if today’s your day. Duh.

And:

• I know it takes time to print the ballot cards and whatever. But my choices included Biden, Kucinich, and Richardson. Even though I mostly get my news from Mamapop, I knew they were already out of the race.
• I have been a registered voter for almost 15 years. I hope this is why I don’t recall ever presenting proof of identity, age, or citizenship in order to vote. But at some point I must have, right? All I have to do now is give my name and sign the register–I assume the signatures are supposed to match. But let me say that when I originally became a NY voter, I had just changed my name and the signature was really new. So now, eight years later, I do a lot more of the “scrawl.” Nobody says a word.
• Madeleine 4 Prez! You’ve got my vote.

On AM’s potential speech therapy: Visit from the case worker was a big to-do about nothing. It was basically signing his life away. Ok, not really, just agreeing that All the Important Professionals can share information about him. The case worker looked like she was about 18,* but she’s been calling every couple of days with updates as events warrant, so I can’t complain. Although she seemed pretty flustered when I told him that we don’t call him “J” (his legal name, but the one that we use for things like health insurance, medical records, etc.) but rather a-cute-Hebrew-nickname-for-AM. I had to repeat myself twice. But she might have been making sure that we did not need to redo all the paperwork registering him under “J TiredFamily.” Why is the idea of a nickname so hard to understand? No idea. To be honest, though, I thought that the case worker was going to have some minimal evaluation of him, in which case it would have been important to know that he does not respond to the name “J”–this is why I brought it up in the first place.

On nightweaning: Still a dumbass. But the beginning of the end is December 21st. I mean it.

On hats: No progress. I went hat shopping in upscale-New-Jersey-hotbed-of-religious-Jews and could not bring myself to spend $130 on a hat. And that was cheap. I tried on a brown felt (felt! not, like, mink or something) for $351. I kid you not. Maybe Brooklyn is cheaper, but going there requires a great deal of planning. Maybe berets are truly the way to go, so we can continue to, you know, eat.

On division of labor: As I was driving, singing along to Laurie Berkner, a voice piped up from the back, “Ema, stop singing! That’s Laurie’s job!” Perhaps LB would like to trade…just for a little while.

On excellent big brother potential: When our nephew (who is almost four and a half) met his little sister, he kept remarking about how little she is. But then he said he’d love her even when she gets big. Seriously, is that not the cutest?

* She also didn’t seem to know all that much about babies. When I said that I was concerned about AM’s drooling, given his age, I also said, “But he doesn’t have all his teeth yet, so who knows.” And she looked kind of confused.

Some middle-of-the-night conversations.

Starring AM, self, and other self.*

AM (grunting, trying to hoist himself up onto my bed by pulling on my pillow): Ehhhhh!
Me (reaching over to help): C’mere.

Self: WHAT are you DOING?
Other self: Wha? Whozat?
Self: You are TRYING to NIGHTWEAN him, you DUMBASS!
Other self: Well, it could be 4:30 in the morning. Or even five! That would be ok.
Self: And what time is it?
Other self (propping on an elbow to look at the clock): 2:30.
Self: Put him back in his bed right now!
Other self: I am so tired. I am just going to lie right here. He will settle down.
Self: Whoa, are you stupid!
Other self to AM, who is signing to nurse: Honey, we’re not going to nurse right now. We’ll nurse later.
AM: Waaaaah!
Other self: Shhh….ok, you can nurse, but only for one minute. Ema is going to count to 10 and then you will be all done.
Self: I can’t even talk to you anymore!
Other self: Ok, AM, you’re finished.
AM: Waaaaah!

AM stops fussing, but proceeds to do his usual “I am a honeybee, and I have the pollen 411″ dance in bed.

Other self: All right, let’s go back to your bed.
AM: Waaah!
Self: It’s about time. Although waiting 30 minutes? Bad idea.

Twenty minutes after that.

AM: Eh!
Self/Other self: Lie down, AM! Stay in your bed, please.
AM: Waaahhh!

Ten minutes later, AM is climbing my pillow. Again.

Other self: I give up. AM, you can nurse.
Self: You know, you try to be all smart and read Ask Moxie, but at your very core, you are a dumbass!
Other self: Shut up! I am just!so!tired!
Self: So this is really helping you out.
Other self: Did I ask for your opinion?

At 4, I take AM back to his bed, where he sleeps until 5 and rejoins me.

At 6:44, I hear thud, thud, thud in the hallway.

Miss M: Ema, I want to nurse, please!
Me: Go use the potty. Now. And please whisper–I don’t want you to wake AM.
Miss M (crying): I want to nurse!
Me: Just go to the bathroom!
AM: Ehhh.

Some day, I will spend a night in a hotel. With an Ambien. I will wake up and be a human being.

I look forward to that day.

* Taxman would help if he could, but AM + Taxman at night = unearthly shrieks of displeasure. But when we really go for the nightweaning, I think that is how it’s going to have to be for a few nights. Just trying to find the time to schedule it.

Monday

The La Leche League meeting I hosted was really fun. Sometimes there are so many moms and babies in my not-so-big living room, or some really serious issues–newborn not latching, 3-week-old not gaining weight, etc.–but this one was comparatively loose and carefree. The youngest attendee was six weeks and already nursing like an old hand, so we wound up talking about strategies for nursing in public and comparing nursing bras and tanks (yes, by lifting our shirts). It was very Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, but for grownups. And way cooler.

Tuesday

My attempt to get a “younger siblings of 3 yr old classmates playgroup” off the ground was, yet again, partially stymied by people who I think don’t like me very much because they can’t be bothered to remember dates or write them down or act the slightest bit interested after the initial contact. But honestly? The three kids who were here (AM, a neighbor, and one other) had a good time and the adults were actually able to have a conversation because there were plenty of toys to go around.

Wednesday

Miss M’s favorite school day of the week was subverted by pre-Thanksgiving festivities. Turkey for lunch (boo!), but also sweet potatoes (yay!). Topped off with the arrival of Taxman at 5:15 pm–just an hour after dark! So we kicked up our heels and went out for mediocre pizza. Well, we had just had pizza days before so I had a greek salad. But it was the principle of the thing.

Thursday

Do I sound like I am about 80 years old if I say that one of the highlights of Thanksgiving was parking my behind in a chair at the kitchen table, talking with whomever happened to be in the kitchen at the time, and not getting up? For an entire hour, just sitting? (The kids were, naturally, not present.)

Friday

I did my shopping for Shabbat at 11:00, returning home at 12:00. Shabbat started at 4:14. I made mushroom barley soup, honey orange chicken, baked chicken for the fusspot Miss M, roasted potatoes, and grilled zucchini & eggplant for dinner. (Making up for subpar Thanksgiving eats? Why yes, I was.) And then baked ziti for lunch. I got it all done, plus left the kitchen in decent shape.

I never, ever want to do that again. The time pressure, it makes me unpleasant. Ask anyone.

Saturday

Miss M woke with a raging case of pink eye.* Treated with multiple courses of breastmilk in the eyes. (PSA: breastmilk is antibacterial, gentle, free, and does not require a prescription. Handy for holiday weekends. Am I already worried about a time when it will not be in my house? Yes, since I had trouble expressing an ounce to use. Nursing two older kids doesn’t demand on the body quite like an infant.) Praying she can go to school Monday.  Taxman and I scraped by with a minimum of childcare duties in favor of reading Harry Potter (6 for me, 7 for him).

Sunday

Skipped a bris in favor of a funeral. My grandmother’s. (The funeral, not the bris.) It was sufficiently non-traditional that Taxman, a kohain (descendant of Temple priests–not allowed to be in the presence of a dead body or human remains), could attend. So that was weird, for me but especially for him. My mom and my aunt gave amazing eulogies, considering that my grandma was a difficult spirit. In many ways. But holy moly could she cook.

All week long

Insomnia, why do you torture me so?

Just 26 days until the next four-day weekend…

* It should go without saying that she smeared it from one eye to the other, despite our almost literally tailing her with a squirt bottle of hand sanitizer all day Saturday. It should also go without saying that AM, also known as “the boy in my bed (sharing my pillow),” has it now as well.

After an exciting!night! full of small visitors to the side of my bed…

…11:45 nursing request from the girl (ha! no really! why is it that every midnight pee has to turn into a debate over this–she’s been nightweaned for almost TWO YEARS!). I had actually been sleeping and was so comfortable. Sigh.

…1:45 nursing request from the boy (granted), followed by wiggling and general harassment to my pillow and person. Attempts to replace boy to his bed rejected. Loudly. Cough/cold + 30 min of screaming = hoarse.  Sore throat? Possibly? Tylenol administered. Finally consented to lie down with Abba. Sleeping regained after 3 am.

…5:00 the boy returns. Nurses and falls into a deep sleep.

…6:20 the girl returns. Nurses for one minute and is threatened with the loss of Curious George viewing after school if she wakes the boy.

…7:30 while in the shower, I explain to Taxman that really, if we manage to live through the next couple of years–and come through with everyone’s psyche and physical being intact–we really might consider not doing this again.

* This is the religious way of saying you can’t hold me to anything–it’s not a promise. Just a deep thought.

Just tired.

You’d think with all the hours I am awake in a day/week/month I’d have more to show for it.

I had a couple of real posts in the hopper.

But my night ended at 4 am.

I got up to go to the bathroom–ah, the lasting legacy of pregnancy!–and then Taxman got called out by the Rescuers. Before I got back to sleep, AM was up to nurse. (Actually, it was kind of a relief; he’s been skipping his late afternoon nursings and my body isn’t quite up to speed.) He wiggled his way back to sleep, finally, and then Miss M roused me with a shriek–for no apparent reason–at 5:15. Clearly we had been lulled into complacency with her sleeping straight through until at least 6. The adrenaline charge from that lasted until Taxman returned at nearly 6:00. Miss M hadn’t gone back to sleep, but at least she was mellow, so AM was peaceful.

“It was a long call,” he explained; 90 minutes is average, but sometimes in the dead of night they go faster.

“You should have gotten breakfast,” I told him. “At least coffee.”

“I know. I am seriously considering going to Dunkin’ Donuts on my way to work.”

“But what about me?” I groused. “I’ve been up since you left, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn’t, actually.”

“I can go while you’re getting ready for work.”

“Ok. You can take Miss M.”

“No, I can’t. I have to take your car [which lives in a spot in the garage, no carseats]; mine is on the right side for today.”*

Around this point AM snuffled awake. When it was clear that he was still satisfied from the 4:00 extra-full serving, I pulled some clothes out of the hamper, took Taxman’s keys, and piqued Miss M’s curiousity with the promise of an “extra-special breakfast.” I was full of determination: Taxman needed a Very Large cup of coffee; I wanted to continue my quest to experience the seasonal pumpkin line (this time with a donut).

But before I left, I accosted Taxman. “If I put your sweatshirt over what I’m wearing, do I have to put on a bra?” (As if I could find a clean one the one I was wearing yesterday one.)

“No,” he said.

“Ok.”

“Was that the right answer?”

Of course, honey! Your training is very advanced!

* See, life in NYC is determined by alternate-side parking.

Ha! If I had listened to something other than Laurie Berkner this week, like, say, the news, I would have known that alternate was suspended today for Idul-Fitr. Not that I don’t love Laurie, though. 

• To 3daughters, in case my email was spammed: b”H, good. Extraordinary sleeper.
• To NSLS: See here. Debacle still in progress. September 24th? October 8? Um, yeah.
• To everyone:
• Computer was whacked out yesterday. (Taxman seems to have fixed it.)
• Miss M once again thinks that 5:30 is an acceptable time to start the day. Sweetie, just because you have to pee does NOT mean that it’s time for breakfast.
• But AM seems to be ok with going back to his own bed after his middle of the night nursing. Which is good. The fact that I cannot seem to get him to STOP the middle of the night nursing, well, that’s not so good. If it’s only comfort nursing it’s taking an awfully long time (15 minutes). Sigh.
• I am trying to figure out if I am brave enough to take both kids to the zoo by myself. We spent a wonderful day at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk last month–but the aquarium is much more self contained. Plus far enough away that everyone slept on the way home.
• Sleeping. Still, not so much.

I am, once again, Teh Tired because last night I had a typical night.

But really, you ask, what the heck does that mean? Shouldn’t I be over the baby-sleep issues by now? Well, it seems that the molars are taking their sweet time (3+ weeks so far).

Into bed around 11:30.

I toss and turn, because I am an insomniac through and through.

12:10 AM wakes up, stands up on his little mattress and starts trying to climb into bed with me. (He can’t. But he tries.) I get into bed with him, flip him over on his tummy and pat his back as he sucks his thumb.

12:15 He rolls over to face me, signs “more” and “please.” I say, “I’ll nurse you, but just for a minute.” He gets probably two minutes, I count to 10, he pops off and wriggles around in an attempt to get comfortable.

12:25? I sneak into my bed, trying not to breathe too loudly.

12:27? He stands up again. Crap. I bring him into my bed. (It’s a lot more comfortable than the crib-sized mattress.) He snuggles with my pillowcase and his thumb.

12:30 Conversation:

“Ema?”

“Yes, AM?”

(signing) “More, please.”

“You want to nurse?”

(big smile) “Eh!”

“No, sweetie. You just nursed. It’s time for night-night. Time for sleep.”

(crying)

“Shhh, honey. It’s ok. You’ll nurse later.”

Suck thumb.

Wriggle.

Roll over.

Sit up.

“Ehhhhhh!”

“AM, lie down. It’s time to sleep.”

By 1:15, he’s back in a deep sleep.* And then I can attempt to sleep myself. Until 4 whatever or 5 whatever, when he nurses again.

Sigh.

But, but! Miss M slept from 7 to 7! And woke up dry!

Maybe in two years, when AM is the age Miss M is now, I’ll sleep again. Please keep hoping. For me.

* Key: Nobody else in the house woke up during these shenanigans.

If I slept last night from 10:30 to 6:30 (with the customary “who knows how many?” nursings), instead of the usual midnight or later to 6, why do I feel even worse? Is it because we haven’t seen the sun since Saturday?

S.O.S.