A Light at the End of the Tunnel

It's been rough week. Jake still isn't sleeping well, and I had multiple nights this past week where I was up for an hour to an hour and a half at a time, trying to help Jake sleep. One night it was 12:30-2:00 a.m., and I was so tired that next day. At first I'd go in and give him his pacifier and go back to bed, but then 10 minutes later he'd be crying again, so I'd be up again. Eventually I decided it was just harder to get in and out of bed, so I just sat outside Jake's room at the top of the stairs, waiting for the next cry. Finally, around 1:45, I decided to feed him, and he went back to sleep and slept for a few hours. The thing is, I really don't think he's hungry, because he's happy to just get the binky back, although he struggles to keep it in his mouth, which is why he keeps waking up. And when I do feed him, he doesn't eat too long before falling dead asleep. I know he needs to learn how to soothe himself back to sleep, because I don't want to be plugging him in multiple times a night forever. However, I am not ready to leave him to cry it out, and I hope it doesn't come today. We ended up doing that with Drew, and I hated it, even though it only took a few days. Still, I just really am hoping that as he gets older he will develop the ability to sleep in longer stretches without waking so much, and without all those tears (from both of us!).

And finally, after 15 weeks, a small glimmer of hope: last night we had to plug Jake in once, at about 9:00, and then we didn't hear from him until 3:40 or so. I got up and fed him, and he went back to sleep. Zach came in and woke me up at 7:15, saying, "Mom, Jake's awake. I tried to give him his binky, but he just smiled at me." Such a sweet big brother. And I felt great having slept so well and so much. Now, I just hope it wasn't a fluke night, and that many more of these come my way!

I have a bunch of random pictures. Zach asked Mike the other day who his favorite kid was, and when Mike said he loved all three of them, Zach confessed that he loves Jake best. He forgets the fact that Jake is only fun for short bursts, but he and Drew can play for hours and have a blast. It's ok, though. I am glad Zach and Drew both have accepted Jake and love him as much as they do. It's obvious that Jake loves them, too, as he is started to really track them and watch their every move. The other day on the way to pick Zach up from school, Jake was kinda fussy in his car seat. Once Zach got in the car and Jake could look at him (Zach sits in the way back of our van), Jake totally quit fussing. Zach has suddenly become an expert on parenting, too. This last week he said to me, "Mom, when Jake makes noises, we need to make the same noises back, so he knows we're communicating with him." There was some other tip he gave me, too, but I can't remember it now.

Jake is just changing so much. He rolls over all the time now. That may be the key to getting him to sleep better. It's kind of a crap-shoot, though. He flips to his tummy a lot to sleep, but sometimes he has a hard time getting his head comfortable, so he wakes up and is upset. At other times he seems to be very comfortable and sleeps well. A couple of times he has taken hour-long naps in his crib (once or twice is all), and both times he's been on his tummy. Knowing he's on his tummy is a catch-22, also. On the one hand, I worry about SIDS, but on the other hand I think it helps him sleep better and I know I can't stop it, anyway.

Jake is also grabbing at things now. It's so fun to watch him lay under his activity gym and reach for the toys that are hanging, or to see him in his car seat, trying to get a toy into his mouth.

Jake's newest vocal trick is making the hard g sound. He'll look right at me and go, "guh," and when I repeat it back to him (like Zach has suggested), he grins big grins. He also is getting pretty ticklish, and there's really nothing better than hearing his laugh and seeing his big smile with it.

Jake is being a real stinker about taking a bottle. We were successful a couple of months ago with a couple of bottles, and then we just were not good about trying once a week. We went for many weeks without giving him a bottle, and now we can't get him to take one. We tried 4 times this last week- Mike tried 3 times and Grandma Linda tried once, all without much success. Actually, they were all complete failures until today, when Jake took about half an ounce from a bottle Mike was giving him. We've tried about 5 or 6 different kinds of bottles, too. It's not a huge deal if he doesn't take a bottle because it's not like he will be going to daycare or anything, but I would like to be able to have a little more freedom and not have to be there every single time he needs to eat. I guess if we never are successful with the bottle, we'll introduce a sippy cup early on.

Now for some other random photos. Drew always likes to say that he and Zach are "messy mans," which is kind of funny, because Drew's always been one to want his hands wiped off and clean. Anyway, here he is being unintentionally messy on a recent movie night when I made smoothies.

And yesterday the boys decided to play with their changing color cars (they change color based on being in hot or cold water), and they decided that since they usually get pretty wet doing this, they'd just strip down.

Last night we had our friends BJ, Carey, and Charlie over for dinner. After eating pizza and grapes, Drew had some chocolate cake that Carey made, and once again, he was a proud messy man.

It was great to hang out with the Supples again, and their little boy Charlie had a lot of fun petting the dogs and playing with Zach and Drew. I think his favorite thing was wrestling with Zach. Charlie's only 15 months old, but he's a solid little guy! Zach just loved playing with him.

So it was a rough week, but dinner with friends last night, last night's decent sleep, a good 6 mile run today with Foudy (my longest run since I found out I was pregnant almost a year ago, I think) with lots of cardinals (I really like cardinals- must be something my Grandpa Art instilled in me, or maybe my sister Sandy), and dinner tonight with friends all made for a great weekend. I hope the rest of the week is good, too. Now I better get to bed, just in case it's not a great night!