stalled

Sorry for another incident of Mama MIA. You can probably safely assume that if I suddenly stop posting, something "bad" (but not catastrophic) has happened, and I can't think of anything good to say. I struggle with that here on the old blog, as you know. On one hand, I want to say it like it is, and on the other, I just can't stand to feel like post after post I'm just whining about my life, you know?

So anyway, after my big "yay, we've succeeded" post, things went swiftly downhill, as the boys and my sister all got a stomach virus and I got a respiratory virus. Sis got better swiftly, but the boys remained sick for 6 days, and then progressed to the respiratory thing, which the 3 of us still have. I haven't been sick for this long (8 days, now) for a very long time... in fact, I don't think ever. I guess the lack of sleep has broken me down a bit.

Max's sleep really went downhill with his illness, but now he's doing better, and is back to pretty much sleeping through the night. I still give him an early morning feeding, and the little guys are still waking me up between 5:15 and 6 in the morning for the day, but at least he's doing better overall. I was certainly afraid that all the progress I had made with him would be lost with an interruption coming so soon after sleep training.

Shoghi is still co-sleeping with me, although he's doing a little better, too, despite not having any real training to speak of. He's started being able to go back to sleep if I just lie next to him some of the time, rather than having to get him up and bounce him back to sleep on the yoga ball. Some nights he's actually sleeping for a few hours at a stretch without nursing, which is a dramatic improvement.

The incredible thing about this time is that there's so much dramatic change happening, all the time. They're making moves toward being able to sit up completely unassisted, Max has started making a symphony of hilarious consonant sounds, while Shoghi is the master of his musculature, rolling, jumping in the exersaucer, shaking his head, and crossing rooms with his funny hop/crawl moves. Really, it's lovely. I'll talk more about this soon. For now, I've got to get in a little down time and then head off to bed. Here are a couple of recent photos:

Happy Maxy

Shoghi leafing through one of the favorite books.
Both boys love photos of baby faces right now.

Max sitting up in the boppy.

I love this photo - it's a very typical moment in our day.