getting there

I'm sitting in a quiet, peaceful house right now, at 7:34pm on a Sunday evening. It's been a quiet, peaceful house for about 20 minutes now, after Maxy boy fell asleep with his bedtime bottle in Auntie's arms, and Shoghi fell asleep on his own, in his crib (I still get a bitter little pang, saying that) after only about 8 minutes of wind-down. Sleep training is going well.

I wanted to wait a few days before posting. Unlike my last attempts at getting one or both of my babies to sleep at night, I felt more protective of the experience, perhaps knowing that this was it: the last baby I was going to have to train, and perhaps the harder one of the two. As it turns out, Shoghi was actually easier to train than Max, much to our deep and delighted surprise. He is taking less time to fall asleep with each passing night, and now it has been three nights already of no wakings between feedings.

Let me repeat that: no wakings between feedings!

Shoghi was waking up every 20 to 40 minutes all night long just a week ago, and now he wakes up twice: once at about 10, and again at 2am, and when I put him back down to sleep after he eats, he is going down with hardly a fuss most of the time. He has been sleeping until 6:30 or 7 in the morning. He wakes up happy.

Meanwhile, Max has maybe had a bit of regression, and falling asleep is a little harder for him right now... but he only wakes once during the night, and I'm already in the process of reducing and eventually eliminating this middle-of-the-night feeding. I hope that by switching his feeding to more like 5am, I will be able to get him to sleep in a bit, because that little guy is waking up for the day between 5 and 6 in the morning... not a welcome hour in any way. They might be sleeping better (let the partying commense!) but I still have to get up to feed them, which means that I am up for about an hour two times between midnight and wakeing for the day. Naps continue to be disasterous (we're starting to work on naps this week), so the chances of mama getting to take a nap during the day are zero.

OK, so now that all that sleep talk is out of the way, sorry for having now photos to share recently! We've had a combination of bad light in the house, busy, busy days, and a little boy Max with terrible, terrible eczema all over his dear face. I broke down and brought him to the doctor this week, where we got this official diagnosis. Since I've already switched him from milk to soy-based formula, and goat is NOT an option I am going to entertain, I think the eczema stemming from an allergy is probably not likely. Poor little nugget. It's getting better, though. I'll be able to post some new pics soon, but if you need a fix now, you can click over to my sister's blog, where she's also got a post up about sleep training, and has a bunch of gorgeous pictures of the boys. OK, I have to steal one of them, simply because I think it's such a fabulous shot of Maxy:

I have to say, life with the boys right now is, with the exception of our chaotic napping "schedule", really fun. They are opening up so much, and are exploring our toys and living room with great attention. This means I can step away sometimes for a minute or two for the first time since they were teeny tiny... if I could even do that then. They are also all over each other, which at first was pretty dangerous, what with all the reaching for the ears and eyes, but now they seem to have figured it out a little more and are remarkably gentle with each other. Still, mama has to keep a watchful eye because of course they don't really know what they're doing, and are likely to try to teethe on the others foot or head or something.

Their antics have become funnier and more delightful, too... Shoghi with his crazy poses and gymnast-like body, and Max with his own verbal acrobatics - they make us laugh all day long, as long as we are present enough to the moment to realize what they are doing. The minutes and hours are so packed full of need, and that need can be so exhausting that we do need to be brought to attention many times a day. Maybe I shouldn't say "we" - maybe I should just say "I need to be brought to attention many times a day". I am one tired lady! Auntie is usually my call to the moment - I will be sitting on the floor or doing something in the kitchen, and her laughter will break through and bring me to find Shoghi balancing on the toes of one foot and his hand, with the other arm up in the air and other leg kicked out in front, or she will call me to hear Max's new "th" sound or his funny "deet" or "gook" noises.

It's nice to realize that things have changed, and in some ways are easier now. We were really having a tough time of it for a few months, with a lot of constant fussing. I really do love this stage of babyhood, love watching them discover and learn and comprehend what we have so thoughtfully and deliberately placed around them as their early learning experiences.

This week, we'll be working hard on breaking the 30-minute nap cycle that has me going a bit batty. I'll keep you posted on how that goes, as well as maybe give you the long, long overdue nursing/eating post I have been meaning to do for months, now. Until then, sleep well, fair friends!