then a couple of days ago, mommy fed baby at 1am just before she went to bed. just like always.  but instead of putting baby in the co-sleeper, mommy but baby to sleep in her crib!  you’d think that mommy would finally get a good night’s sleep, right?  wrong.  mommy couldn’t sleep.  she knew that she would have to get up every 3 hours to feed baby, and she was worried that she wouldn’t hear her when she woke up (even though she was in the next room and the baby monitor was on).  so mommy half-slept while she waited for baby to wake up.  she waited… and waited… and kept waiting.  she barely slept all night because she kept thinking that baby was going to wake up any minute.  but baby sister slept til 7:30am!  well, that’s mommy’s story.  the rest of us think that mommy just doesn’t know how to sleep without a baby right next to her.

the next night, mommy washed both of baby’s crib sheets.  and she accidentally forgot to dry them.  yeah, right.  so baby sister had to sleep in the co-sleeper that night.

last night, baby sister was back in her crib.  she was on her way to sleeping through the night, and mommy was facing another whole night by herself.  well, dada was with her, but you know what i mean.  i didn’t want mommy to be lonely, so at 4:00am i ran toward her room calling “mama?  mama?”.  she happily carried me back to my room and laid down with me in my race car bed.  i just laid there in silence with my eyes wide open.  after 30 minutes, mommy brought me to her room and let me sleep with her and daddy.  she said that she was worried that baby was going to wake up, cry, and disturb dada.  but i know the truth — she just wanted to cuddle with me because she was having separation anxiety.

see, mommy told everyone that baby and i were conspiring to keep her from sleeping through the night.  but actually, we are trying to gently wean her away from holding a baby while she sleeps.  we are sleep training mommy

after i woke up from my nap, there used to be plenty of sunlight so that i could take koda out, or play baseball (tee ball) in the backyard, or do something fun outdoors.  lately, i have been skating a lot.  i love skating. check out my video (below) and/or watch the outtakes on youtube.

but all that changed last weekend. now, when i wake up from my nap, it’s pitch dark outside. i guess the sun is getting old and going to sleep earlier these days. that’s what happened to mama and dada. they used to stay up until really late, but now they go to bed between 12-1am. they are getting old. just like the sun.

i hope that mama will still take me out on my skates during the day, in between her meetings. but i’ll probably have to do most of my rollerblading on the weekends. unless… do you think mama and dada will let me go skating at night? that sounds fun! anyone want to join me?

• they were scared that their mommy or daddy would roll over in their sleep and squish them
• they didn’t want to bother their mommy or daddy when they moved around in their sleep
• they were worried that they would roll into a blanket or pillow and suffocate

i was never afraid of those things.  i loved sleeping with mama and dada.  here’s why:

• it was great family bonding time
• when i got hungry in the middle of the night, mama didn’t have to get out of bed to feed me

i am a big boy now, and i haven’t slept with mama and dada for a long time.  but baby sister is just over 2 months old, so she still sleeps with them.  and it’s a good thing she does.  unlike me, baby is very patient.  when she gets hungry, she looks at mama with hungry eyes.  if that doesn’t work, then she makes hungry hippo mouth.  but if waiting patiently doesn’t work, then baby gets upset.  and when she gets upset, she cries.  LOUD.  (this happens in the car when mama is driving.)

so it’s a good thing that baby sleeps right next to mama because when she wakes up to eat, mama feels her moving.  if baby was sleeping by herself, then mama wouldn’t know that she was  hungry until she was upset and screaming.  and if she was screaming, she would wake me and koda up.  dada would sleep through it, but mama would wake him up to put me back to bed.  and then everyone would be sleepy and grouchy.  see?  that’s just one more reason to sleep with your mommy and daddy:  more  sleep and peace for the whole family.

after that exhausting day, i could have napped until dinnertime. but mama recently figured out that if i only sleep 10-11 hours per day (including my nap), i sleep through the night. and when i sleep through the night, that means that mama and dada get to sleep through the night. so, mama interrupted my nap and woke me up from a deep sleep. how rude.

after dinner, mama let me stay up until 10pm. she said that it was a special occasion and that she wanted to let me see fireworks. but i know the truth — she just wanted me to be tired enough to sleep through the night. we looked out the window for a long time, but we didn’t see anything other than a few stars and an airplane. we sure heard a lot of fireworks exploding around our house, though. oh well. maybe next year

happy 4th of july, everyone! hope your holiday was safe and fun and that you got to see more fireworks than i did.

for one thing, i’ve been working on my photography skills.  mama is so disappointed that she doesn’t have more photos of me (iphone photos don’t count) from when i was a baby.  but mama and dada were just too tired to take too many newborn shots.   so i’m going to be the family photographer and i will take lots of photos of the new baby.  my first goal is to be able to lift the heavy camera and lens so i can take pictures of something other than the tabletop.  one step at a time.

mama and daddy have been doing lots of things to prepare me for the baby, but nobody has really been preparing them.  so i thought i’d help out.  i have been sleeping in my race car bed in my new room for almost two weeks now.  i was napping well and sleeping my usual 9-10 hours at night.  but since this past weekend, i started climbing out of bed and waking up mama and dada (and koda) at 3:30am… 5am… all hours of the night.  in preparation for the new baby, i want to make sure that nobody gets used to sleeping more than a few hours at a time.  just like earthquake or fire drills, i’m running baby-preparedness drills for the whole family.  isn’t that nice of me?

i think we’re all ready for the baby to arrive!

1st NIGHT

i took a bath and went through my beauty routine like usual, and then i went to my room to change into my pajamas.  but then, instead of sitting with me in the glider, mama brought me to my car bed in my new room.  she laid down next to me and told me my usual bedtime stories and sang me my usual nighttime songs.  then she kissed me goodnight and went downstairs.

about 5 minutes later, i needed my diaper changed.  (stomach flu.  you get the picture without me having to go into details, right?)  so i climbed out of bed and was planning to sneak downstairs to find mama, but koda busted me.  by the time i reached the top of the stairs, koda was already standing at the bottom, barking loudly.  koda is such a tattletale!  mama didn’t know what koda was barking at, so she was telling him to be quiet.  she didn’t want him to wake me up.  she obviously didn’t know that i was waiting for her upstairs, so i called for her.  “mama!  mama!”  mama came upstairs, changed my diaper, then put me back to bed.  then she kissed me goodnight and went back downstairs.

about 10 minutes later, i climbed out of bed again.  “mama!  mama!”  mama came upstairs and put me back to bed.  i told her that i was thirsty, but she didn’t believe me.  she figured that i was just faking it to have an excuse to get out of bed.  she laid down with me again, told me my story again, sang me my songs again, kissed me goodnight again, and then went back downstairs… again.

mama was preparing herself for a very long night, expecting me to climb out of bed many more times.  but that was it.  i slept through the night in my new room, in my new bed.  not too bad for my first night in a new bed — especially being sick, and all.

2nd NIGHT

same nighttime routine.  but this time mama didn’t lay down with me — she just sat next to my bed.  she got up and left the room after my story and songs, even though i was still awake and kicking around.  and guess what.  i slept through ’til morning and didn’t get up one time.  i figured that even if i tried to sneak out of bed, koda would just bust me again.

mama says that i’m going to get cool car sheets and decorations for my new room soon.  she is going to move my clothes, books, and toys into my new room, too, but i’m in no rush.  i like having two rooms all to myself

so when mama got home, she was very surprised to see me running toward her yelling “mama!  mama!”  naturally, she asked what the heck happened.  well, lemme tell you.  when mama called to check on us, and daddy told her that we were doing just fine, he had spoken too soon.  we were NOT doing fine!  daddy didn’t do my bedtime routine right, so i was very upset.  after he put me in my crib, i screamed for 15 minutes and refused to sleep (which is very unusual because i go down very easily and quietly with mama).  it’s not daddy’s fault, though.  my bedtime routine is a constantly evolving and mama must have forgotten to tell him.  through a combination of words, signs, and pointing/grunting, i was mostly able to tell him about my beauty regimen, but i just didn’t know how to communicate “sit with me on the glider and practice ABC’s”.

so for future reference, i made a nighttime checklist.  it’s current as of today, but who knows when it’ll change again.  (and this is only for days that i don’t take a bath/shower.)

~8:40pm: head upstairs to my room

• help me smear up the wall using the door jamb as an arête so that i can turn on the light
• change my diaper and put on my pj’s
• read books while i’m drinking milk from my spill-proof cup

~8:50pm: head to the bathroom

• help me smear up the wall using the door jamb as an arête so that i can turn on the light
• help me wash my hands (pull up my sleeves, let me turn on the water, pump liquid soap on my hands, let me wash my hands, let me turn off the water, let me dry my hands)
• help me brush my teeth (put toothpaste on my toothbrush, let me turn on and off the water to wet the bristles, then let me brush.  when i’m done, help me brush the spots i missed, then let me turn on and off the water to rinse my toothbrush.)
• wash my face (let me turn on/off the water to wet the washcloth)
• floss my teeth (i tried doing this my myself today but wasn’t very good at it)
• help me moisturize my face (squeeze a tiny dab of baby lotion onto my finger and i will spread it on my face)
• put baby powder on my neck
• carry me out of the bathroom and let me turn off the light on the way out

~8:55pm: carry me to my room

• let me turn off the light
• let me turn on the stereo
• sit with me in the glider
• recite “goodnight moon”, practice saying ABC’s, sing ABC’s, sing “twinkle twinkle little star”, sing “never gonna let you down”
• carry me to my crib (make sure my blanket and bunny are in there)

it looks like a long list, but it’s actually very quick and easy.  if you follow this checklist, i’ll be asleep (with no protesting) by the time you get back downstairs

i love to ree-ree-ree (translation: read) books that are interactive.  they have textures to touch, flaps to open, and 3-D things that pop up!  well, my current favorite book is the alphabet book by matthew van fleet.  each letter of the alphabet is represented by a safari animal.  the (A)lligator has a green scaly tail.  the (B)ees have bristly yellow bodies.  the (C)ougars have scratchy pink tongues that feel like sandpaper.  you get the idea.  well, the wet wadding (W)arthog has a head that “shake shake shake”s when i push and pull the tab on the side of the page.  but before i figured out how to pull the tab, i tried to make his head shake by grabbing it with my hand.  and his head fell off!

mama told me that i broke the warthog   i gave her the saddest puppy dog eyes i could, but she didn’t fix it.  she told daddy she was trying to teach me a lesson about being more gentle.  for more than a week, the warthog’s head was just floating between the pages of the book.  now, that wouldn’t be so bad if i didn’t read that book 2+ times a day!  everytime, i read it, i had to see that headless warthog and its floating head staring at me.

then one day, i opened the book to the (W) page, and the warthog’s head jumped right out and attacked me!  don’t laugh!  i’m not joking — it landed right into my lap.  i SCREAMED in horror and buried my face in mama’s shirt.

mama immediately took me, the book, and the warthog’s head downstairs to glue it back together.  it’s all fixed now.  i now try to be gentler with my books and i have since learned to pull the tab to make the warthog’s head shake.  but that doesn’t mean that the headless warthog doesn’t still haunt me in my dreams.

and just when mommy thought she couldn’t love me more, guess what else i have been doing for the past week.  i have been… SLEEPING… say it with me… THROUGH… THE… NIGHT!!!  i didn’t mention it sooner because i didn’t want to jinx myself, but yup, i’m finally sleeping through the night (~8:30pm to ~7:00am).

it started last week when mommy came home from dallas.  at first, she thought that she was just so tired that she just didn’t hear me when i woke up.  but after a week, i think it’s official

mommy is so happy that she almost doesn’t mind that i am starting to move on from mama to dada.  (i’m actually trying to say “koda”, but don’t tell daddy that!)

• 6:00pm:  dinner
• 6:45pm:  bathtime (every other day)
• 7:00pm:  change into jammies, brush teeth
• 7:10pm:  bedtime stories
• 7:20pm:  nursing and singing
• 7:30pm:  zzzzz
• 12:30am:  midnight snack
• 6:00am:  rise with the sun

sure, i still wake up during the night sometimes, but mommy has learned that if she doesn’t come running, i almost always go back to sleep in less than a minute.

so this is great news, right?  well… sort of.  my predictable schedule works to mommy’s and daddy’s benefit most of the time, but it can also put a damper on their social life.  back in the day, i could go anywhere, anytime.  and if i got tired, i would just sleep — no matter where i was.  but now that i’m older, i’ve not only become set in my ways, but i’m also a party animal who doesn’t want to miss out on any action.

over the weekend, mommy and daddy brought me to a wedding reception.  they hoped that i would be so excited by all of the activities that i would be wide awake and wide-eyed with awe until i passed out from exhaustion — just like when we go to sharks games!  the wedding reception was beautiful and perfect, and it seemed like it was going to be a successful outing for us… until about 7:30pm.  i got sooo tired, but i refused to sleep.  where was my crib?  where was my bernie bear?  and why was i wearing slacks instead of my comfy footed sleeper?  plus, i didn’t want to go to sleep and miss out on the party!

i fought to stay awake for another hour and a half, but i was fussy and squirmy and very unhappy about not being allowed to climb and crawl around.  i think the only reasons why my aunties and uncles didn’t shove me into a closet are because (1) the music was almost loud enough to drown out my occasional screams and (2) i was pretty handsome in my fancy shirt and slacks.  daddy had to take me outside of the reception area (away from all of the fun festivities) before i finally fell asleep.

so…  what to do?  mommy and daddy think that i need to learn to adapt to different surroundings so that they can continue to take me places without causing a commotion.  i think that they need to adapt their social calendars (even more than they already have!) to revolve around my schedule.  i’m pretty sure that i’m gonna win this one.