Restlessly Running

Thumper's down for a nap, now, and he only tried twice to escape before giving it up as a lost cause. Maybe he's starting to catch on. I had a poor night's sleep last night, though. He kept getting up through the evening, but finally fell asleep before we went to bed. He stayed asleep, too, except for that one time at 5:00 a.m. when he jolted us awake by standing next to our bed and saying, "Hi, Mama!"

But he didn't keep climbing out all night long, and he didn't wander the house looking for poisonous chemicals and steak knives, as I imagined him doing while we slept. Aerie said if he did get up in the night, he'd immediately come looking for us because he's not too fond of darkness, and she was right. She usually is.

Even though he didn't keep us up with his escape artistry all night, he might as well have, because I dreamed restlessly of him escaping, then woke up to listen to the silence for signs that he had actually escaped. Oh yeah, I also dreamed that a junkie stabbed me in the bicep with his needle. Odd. Plus, of course, I had this song stuck in my head all night, which didn't help my rest either:



Despite poor rest, though, I did get up and go to the gym. I think my plan to motivate myself by signing up for a 10K is working: I actually ran for an entire hour, without stopping or walking! I felt pretty good, too! I don't think I got anywhere near what anyone would call a "runner's high," but I didn't feel like I was going to die, so that's a good thing. Maybe, just maybe, a 10K isn't as far out of my reach as I thought it would be. 6.2 miles sounds much easier than 10 kilometers. I think the U.S. should stick to its anti-metric guns.

It Had to Happen Eventually

Last night, after I'd already read him his books, sang him his song, and gave him his kisses, Thumper suddenly appeared in the living room, unannounced. He was a teary, panicked mess, sobbing, "I dropped my cloth!"

When he was a tiny baby, we used old-fashioned organic cloth diapers as spit-up rags; he became very attached to them, and to this day snuggles with them when he is tired or anxious. I don't think his panic was entirely about the cloth, because he had 4 of them in his bed with him, and though he lost one, there was still an armload of them left for him to cuddle with. I suspect he had some kind of bad dream, and when he woke and tried to recover from it, he dropped a cloth out of reach behind his crib, lost his mind, and climbed right out of his crib for help.

So I calmed him, rocked him, and when he was ready, put him back to bed, and he was just fine for the rest of the night. Now, though, it's nap time, and I'm kind of jumpy. I knew that some day he would figure out that he was capable of leaving his bed any time that he wanted, and part of me is surprised that, with his climbing skills, it took him this long. The other part of me thinks it's too soon. Now, every sound I hear makes me stop and listen. Is it him? I just know I'm going to be working away and jump out of my skin when from directly behind me he suddenly says, "I want my milk!"

And it's just my opinion here, but I think 2 1/2 is much too soon for me to have to have the "Mama and Daddy were just wrestling" conversation with him.

High Anxiety

I guess YouTube is not a foolproof method of finding any and every little bit of video you can ever think of, after all. I wanted just a short video of Mel Brooks falling over a spinning optical illusion, and I couldn't find it. Oh well.

Not that I've been suffering from vertigo, or been harassed by incontinent birds. But I've felt a bit anxious this week. And the anxiety is twofold: lawyers, guns, and money. No wait, that would be threefold. And there haven't actually been any problems with lawyers or guns. Naps and money. That's it. Naps and money.

Naps

It turns out I'm rigid and prefer predictability. For many, many months now, Thumper's been on a set nap schedule: 10-12, and 4-6. Every day. Like clockwork. I stuck to it; he stuck to it. Everyone was happy. But I always felt this nagging sensation that kids his age don't still nap twice a day. I mean, do they? I don't know. The Austin Stay-at-Home Dads have 10am playdates every weekday; if that's the case, how could their kids possibly nap twice a day? They can't, that's how.

Consequently, I always watched carefully for signs that he was ready to give up that morning nap. Recently, I thought (again) that maybe he was ready. He was taking longer to fall asleep, during both his naps and after evening bedtime. And since Meals on Wheels screws up that nap schedule on Tuesdays, I thought now was the time. So this week, we experimented. 11:30, 11. Today 1:45. He's fine, but the not knowing is giving me strange sensations in my chest. Will he go to bed earlier in the evening? Will he wake up earlier in the morning? Will he totally lose his shit if we go to lunch with Uggy Buggy? At every turn, he's been fine, or pretty close to it, but me, I'm a nervous wreck.

Money

And after the middle of March, when basketball season is over, the ushering shifts pretty much dry up. And it's only going to get worse over the summer. And the company that was giving me copywriting work is "re-organizing" and won't have much or any work for me for months. Aerie read the emails I received and said it didn't sound so much like a brush-off to her, so maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe they really will come back to me in a few months. Either way, that's still a few months. And there's not much database work for me. And babysitting was my biggest money maker, and I walked away from it. On purpose. And yeah, money's kind of tight. And I'm out there trying to solicit some work, but I have a fundamental lack of confidence in my ability to convince anyone to pay me money because I have no specific education or training I can point to that says I'm qualified. And... Well... And... I don't know. I lost my train of thought. What was I talking about again?

Now I Lay Me Down Not To Sleep

This should be classified as a rant and I'm not sure what the purpose of it is, other than if I can't sleep, why should anyone else? The hours I've slept over the last few weeks have been shrinking progressively.

Typically, I'm In Bed for 6 to 7 hours per night. In Bed does not necessarily equate with sleep, but on good nights, I get close to 6 hours of sleep. Lately, I'm lucky if it's 5 hours. This morning? Awake at 3:30 with maybe 4 hours of sleep.

Back in my college days, going to school full time and working the equivalent of a full time job (bouncing around with 2 to 3 part time jobs), I did just fine on 4 hours of sleep. A smidge over a decade and a toddler later, not as fine...or at least more pissed off about it.

I should Go To Bed. I'm tired, but I'm wired and I know sleep ain't happening yet. And, when it does happen, I just pray I don't have to pee in the middle of the night...if I do, it's a precarious journey to the bathroom on tiptoes to not set off 1 of the minimum 5 brains that Rodius insists I have crammed into my skull. (Not suggesting that I'm as smart as 5 brains, but rather that I have at least 5 things going on in my head at any given moment...)

Rodius went to Bed a while ago. I'm sure he was Out in less than 5 minutes. Both he and Thumper know how to sleep. I could use some lessons. I do what I'm supposed to....I don't watch the late night news....I don't drink caffeine in the evening...I have something to write down things that pop up on my To Do list overnight...it just isn't always enough. Maybe I need to bust out the Ambien, but I'm not so keen on pharmaceutical induced sleep. It is a necessary evil once or twice a year, though, when the insomnia lasts a week or longer. Too late for it tonight. I can't be comatosed in the morning...I have my T-Day assignments to attend to.

Yeah, so...in the words of Barenaked Ladies

Now I lay me down not to sleep
I just get tangled in the sheets
I swim in sweat three inches deep
I just lay back and claim defeat

My hands are locked up tight in fists
My mind is racing filled with lists
of things to do and things I've done
Another sleepless night's begun

Lids down, I count sheep
I count heartbeats
The only thing that counts is
that I won't sleep
I countdown, I look around

Who needs sleep?
(well you're never gonna get it)
Who needs sleep?
(tell me what's that for)
Who needs sleep?
(be happy with what you're getting)
There's a guy who's been awake
since the Second World War

Time Keeps on Slipping, Probably on Thumper's Cars

Almost every day this week, Thumper's only had one nap. One nap. That's two hours of time that just no longer exist. It's like when Mr. Dark is tempting Jason Robards in Something Wicked This Way Comes.

"Second nap? Two more hours every day to write blogs and to read them. To write copy. To do laundry and dishes. Second nap? Speak now. Going... Gone."

I'm dreading the day when he tears the page on that first nap.



(Jump to about 5:40 to see the moment without watching the whole scene.)

I'm getting caught behind. I haven't worked out all week because now that my pneumonia is resolved, I'm having bronchitis problems. Of course! I'm behind on a copywriting project. I'm behind on a database project. And I haven't posted anything to my silly blog in almost a week. I'm already sick of my new header up there, but I haven't had time to make a new one.

It's a good thing my main job contains a large concentration of fun and smiling and laughing, or I'd be feeling stressed out. I had a pulse of 64 and a blood pressure of 110/70 at the doctor today. That doesn't sound like a stressed out man, and I think it's mostly because Thumper consistently makes things easier than I expect them to be.

Exception: after a long day yesterday that started on campus picking up my new "Supervisor" uniform, then our first Austin-SAHDs playdate in almost a year, then a nap in the car, then babysitting the cousins, he was pretty much an emotional and exhausted wreck by the time we got home. I'm having trouble working on the timing of snacks and lunch these days when his one nap falls right across the meridian line between morning and afternoon. But on the plus side, an exhausted baby means: he fell asleep in the 10-minute car ride home from the doctor this morning. An early nap! So I have a pretty good chance of getting a second nap out of him this afternoon! Time! To work! And I'm squandering it on my silly blog! I best get to being all productive and whatnot...

10: The New 9?

I've begun to suspect that Thumper's napping patterns may be in flux. It's hard to tell, because he's had a cold since Friday, and having a stuffed up nose can mess with your sleep. But for a long time, he had been as regular as clockwork: 9am-11am, 2pm-4pm, 8pm-7am. Lately, though, he's been fighting it. I can't recall if it's just this week, because a week with a sick baby can seem so much longer. I think it may have been before he got sick, too. He fights it. He complains for sometimes a good half hour, then he wakes up a good half hour earlier than he used to. So he's only getting an hour or a little more per nap instead of his usual two.

So today I thought I'd see if he was ready for a change. I took him for a jog at 9am to see if you would stay awake or doze off. He stayed awake! As I jogged, I thought about the blog post I would write: "The long-feared day has come! Not the end of oil, but almost as dire: the end of morning nap!" How am I going to shower? How am I going to get anything done? I pictured how we'd share a little mid-morning snack of yogurt and a cereal bar, and how he'd probably have a nice long nap after lunch, during which I could blog and screw around on the internet write some copy and clean the house. And you know what else this means? Playdates with the SAHDs! He'll actually be awake for 10am playdates now!

But he fell asleep about a block from home. He even stayed asleep as I got him out of the stroller and carried him to his room. His eyes popped open when I laid him down, though, and he complained bitterly for about ten minutes. He's quiet now. I guess 10 is the new 9. This is good, though. If I can exercise while he's awake, I can do other things while he's asleep, like write some copy and clean the house blog and screw around on the internet.

Persistence

I know, when compared to deaths in the family, or kids with much bigger obstacles in their way, my troubles are pretty tiny. I've been trying not to write about it, because who wants to hear a guy whine about his baby all the time? But since it's all I'm thinking about, if I don't write about that, then I don't write about anything.

Is a four-month-old baby supposed to have this strong a will? He will NOT put up with this tummy time business. He will NOT put up with this silly self-soothing experiment. He has scabs on his face from rending his flesh. If he had teeth, he'd gnash them. And I probably shouldn't tell you all this when there are social workers in the audience, but yesterday, when moments before he couldn't keep his eyes open long enough to finish his bottle, within minutes of me reading him a book and laying him gently in his crib, he screamed so hard that now he has a blood spot in his right eye. He definitely his mother's boy. She didn't do it by screaming, but I've twice seen her, the morning after violent bouts of vomiting, looking like she'd been strangled, both eyes filled with blood. I haven't strangled the boy, I swear. Please don't take him away. But if you do, could you teach him to put himself to sleep before you give him back? And maybe to crawl? Thanks!

Oh, and four naps a day? Does that seem excessive to anyone else? The books say two, but he was taking four when I'd let him sleep on me, and he gets cranky and rubs his eyes, so he wants sleep, right? Until I put him down. So maybe I should work towards two? But he still acts like he wants to sleep every hour and a half to two hours. I tried to keep him up this morning through nap #1 so that maybe he'd sleep in the crib more easily for nap #2, but he actually fell asleep after five minutes of crying when I put him in the playpen for tummy time. I guess that means crib naps should be on the tummy, too, since it wears him out faster. When does he start speaking English, so we can discuss this?

I Bet I Can Make Your Baby Cry

It occurred to me today that that's my job these days: making the baby cry. I put him in his crib when he's still awake. I ruin a perfectly good play session by rolling him onto his belly. I pull his hair while making him wear a silly Santa hat. Maybe I can make some extra money that way. Is there a market for that kind of thing? I'll start my own show and sell it to The National Geographic Channel: "The Baby Cryer." No, that doesn't sound right. Baby Torturer? That sounds a little too graphic. Hassler? The Baby Hassler?

Anyway, do you want me to come over and make your baby cry for you? I'm just starting out, so I'll do it cheap. I bet I could do it with small children, too. Maybe teenagers. Maybe. They might be more likely to make me cry, though.

All in all, we are making progress on all fronts. Only 7 minutes of crying to prelude his current nap. No screaming! And he can go almost a minute and a half on his tummy before he gets mad now. And I'm learning 50 Giggly Wiggly Silly Songs so I don't have to sing him Christmas carols year round, though "Silent Night" does work pretty well as a lullaby, if I was, you know, putting him to sleep in my arms still. I'd write something interesting that has nothing to do with the Thumpity-Thump, but I haven't gone anywhere or done anything or talked to anyone in awhile. You're all still out there, right? Right? Or Am I Legend?

So Tired

The Thumpster and I wore each other out today. I'm glad NaBloPoMo is nearly over, because I'm just not in the best frame of mind. I'm tired. I'm not confident about the new stages we're entering. We went with the theory that the first part of his life was the time to build his trust in us, but now I can't put him down without him fussing. He can't be by himself. We've ruined him! And the tummy time. Lord, the instantaneous, sustained, pure rage. He hates it and will never learn to crawl. Does he have to learn to crawl, or can he go straight to walking? And the self-soothe. I chickened out on the self-soothe thing the past few nights. I told myself it was because we've increased tummy time, we've increased bottle volume, we don't want to introduce too many changes at once. But mostly it's because I'm afraid I'll never sleep again. I like sleep. In fact, I'm going to sleep now. Nighty night!

Oh Yeah, and the Self-Soothing Thing, Too

I forgot about the other item on our Action Plan: self-soothing. We've been putting him to bed when he's asleep, not when he's sleepy. Doc thinks it's time to start letting him learn to put himself to sleep.

So to that end, this morning, about the time he would usually be falling asleep in the jogging stroller on our morning walk-jog-walk, I put him in the playpen, surrounded him with toys, wheeled it into the spare room where the treadmill is, and proceeded to work out. For his part, he proceeded to scream. I periodically told him it was OK, and suggested he practice rolling over before he flattened his skull out any more. At twelve minutes, he stopped screaming and examined his hands. At thirteen and a half minutes, he resumed screaming. At half an hour, I gave up, conveniently using the screaming as an excuse to stop huffing and puffing.

When I picked him up, he continued screaming, but after about a minute and a half of forced pacifier usage, he was asleep. He stayed asleep long enough for me to shower, but now he's awake and staring off into space with the haunted look of someone with post-traumatic stress disorder. I'm really not looking forward to this self-soothing project.

So here's what I'm thinking. He now gets six five-ounce bottles a day, usually around every three hours, give or take from about 7:30am to 8 or 9:30pm. So that's thirty ounces. I wonder if we do four eight-ounce bottles a day, if we can get him the last one early enough in the evening to give us a few hours to work on the self-soothe thing before it's the wee hours and we're all resentful-like.

What do you/did you guys do and/or think about the different sleep theories? Cry it out? Co-sleep (that one's not gonna happen)? Let him work it out, but go in and soothe him every now and then, briefly and boringly? I imagine we'll be doing the last one. But putting him to bed after he's fallen asleep on us is so temptingly easy.

That Went Well

Thumper's first overnight travel experience went well. He slept all the way there and all the way back, he was a charming party guest, and he handled his first night in a hotel with great courtesy for the neighbors. But I think we should have given him a different nickname, like maybe "Shhh." He took his Thumper appellation a little too much to heart. He slept in a portable playpen, the mattress of which is a hard plastic sheet with a thin layer of padding over it. So while he was gracious enough not to cry and wake the neighbors, he spent the entire night slurping on his fists, talking quietly to himself, and thump thump thumping his legs on that plastic mattress. All night. Thump thump thump. By 7:00 a.m., it was clear he'd travelled some distance in the night that way. I wonder how many laps he did?

Today's Privilege is Tomorrow's Right

I told myself not to count on it, but sometime in the last three or four weeks, I guess I kind of did. My crankiness did spill forth when the boy woke up not once, but twice, in the wee hours last night. Sorry, Mrs. Rodius.

Weekend Update, Without Norm MacDonald

Does that date me? The Norm MacDonald thing? I almost said that other guy that would've dated me even more, that smarmy, sarcastic, superior jerk with the vocabulary that's better than yours and whose name I can't think of. You know, he's played the bearded friend who gets killed in a couple of movies, like Sandra Bullock's The Net, and something else I can't think of. What's his name? Hang on a sec, I'm going to have to IMDB it. Oh, yeah. Dennis Miller. Maybe it was Murder at 1600 that was the other movie where he was the bearded friend that got killed. I don't remember. I watch way too many movies. Or I used to. Since the Coming of Thumper, my Netflix traffic is way down. Maybe I should downgrade to the "two at a time" membership level, instead of the three.

Wait, what was I talking about again?

Oh yeah, the weekend. We had a great weekend! Well, Texas got beat (again) by Kansas State, so that was bad. Poor Colt; if he never wanted to play again, I'd understand. He was bouncing off the grass like a quarter off a Marine's bed. I'm surprised he kept getting up again. But Oklahoma lost, too, so that was good! But not by as much, so that's bad. But by a heartbreaking, last-minute field goal, so that's good! Go, Buffs!

Wait, what was I talking about again?

Oh yeah, the weekend. And how well-rested I am. I'm well-rested, but I've still had three cups of coffee out of habit. Last week, I needed the three cups just to keep from collapsing in a heap on the floor under my desk, but when I'm well-rested and in a good mood, the coffee kind of makes me a little wired. Can you tell? Do I seem wired? I feel a little wired. I bet I'm coming across as a little wired here.

Wait, what was I talking about again?

Oh yeah, Thumper. He slept. At night. A lot. Saturday night, he ate at 9, 1:30, and 6:30. And he slept everywhere in between! Huzzah! And even better, he ate at 10 last night and 5 this morning, and he slept everywhere in between! And Mrs. Rodius got up for the 5 a.m. feeding, so I slept! Thanks, Mrs. Rodius!

She's been very kind and allowed me to sleep most of the night every night last week so I wouldn't wreck the car on the way to work. So this weekend, I tried to return the favor and give her as much peace and rest as I could. I cooked, I cleaned, I swept, I vacuumed, I did laundry. The best part was SWSIL (Social Worker Sister-in-Law). She's made it clear that she's very interested in being involved in Thumper's life, and she's made repeated offers to help us out when we need it. During the first month or so after Thumper was born, she brought us loads of food, too. Three different times! We've always loved SWSIL and Big Brother, and their whole family; SWSIL has always been one of my favorite people in the world ever since Big Brother stole her away from his best friend when they were still in high school. But now, we're definitely writing her into the will.

SWSIL came over Saturday afternoon and took care of Thumper for a couple of hours while Mrs. Rodius relaxed and I got some work done. She wasn't even scared off when he decided that was the perfect two hours to spend doing some of his best fussin'. He even hit her a few times with that lip-quivering, losing-his-voice wail, and she still wasn't scared off. He even spewed some of his chunkiest cottage cheese formula vomit on her, and she still wasn't scared off. She walked him, bounced him, sang to him, rocked him, strolled him, and showed him ceiling fans and light fixtures to stare at. She was determined not to leave until he was happy, so that he wouldn't have any negative associations with her. She was so determined, she was late picking up her own kids, but she succeeded in the end. She's a keeper, that SWSIL.

So Thumper and I visited her and her family at their house Sunday, to give Mrs. Rodius some more time off. Thumper rewarded her for her perseverance by only spewing a tiny bit of non-chunky breastmilk vomit on her, smiling generously at her attempts to entertain him, and taking a bottle from her, burping, and falling asleep. Apparently you have to survive the trial by fire before he'll give you the good stuff.

So God bless you, SWSIL, and thanks for wanting to see more of our kid. Sorry I teased you on Sunday by saying I'd brought him over so you could make him cry again, since he slept so well Saturday night, after all that crying. I'm sorry, too, for the joy I received from the fact that Thumper immediately stopped crying when I took him from you for a few minutes Saturday afternoon and started crying again when I gave him back. Well, no, really I'm not sorry for that. That was actually pretty awesome. Thanks for that, too! You're the best!

Things I Think About As I Float Away to My Happy Place While Thumper Expresses His Displeasure with the Level of Customer Service I Provide

I've been wanting to add a feed to this site for awhile, but I didn't know how, or invest much effort into learning. Turns out this Blogger thingy makes it pretty easy. I think it's somewhere way down there at the bottom now. I've also wanted to learn how to link so it opens in a new window, but was too lazy and/or busy to investigate. I think Dooce's error this morning pointed the way. Did it work? It did! Well, there's that done, then.

I've also been thinking I should get my own non-blogspot domain name someday. I bought a domain name for an audio transcription/database consulting website. I need to figure out the income tax and sales tax and insurance implications of that whole idea, too. But if I do get my own domain name, I should, you know, do some actual web design and make this look like my own website and not a template. More stuff I don't know how to do. I used to, in the early to mid '90's, keep up with all the new and improved techie computer webbie stuff. But good God, it all changes so fast, it's hardly worth the time investment. Almost as soon as you really get to know it, it's no longer true. Who has the time? These kids today and their technology!

Now this stuff is somewhere on my to-do list just below committing to a workout program, though I did buy a $50 used Eddie Bauer jogging stroller yesterday. God, I love Craigslist! I don't really understand it, though. How does it survive? How does it make money? Is it some kind soul's or souls' gift to humanity? I should read the Wikipedia entry.

Also somewhere on that to-do list is cutting out some turf and laying out bricks for pads for my rain barrels, which have been sitting in my garage for about five months now. Oh yeah, and putting up actual rain gutters, too. It's just like me to start with the end and never finish the start.

And I need to finish painting the deck Pops and I screened in, uh, eleven months ago. And clean up the garden. And wage war on the fire ants. I've been trying not to lay out poisons all over the place for barefoot children and pets to stumble across, but sprinkling Cream O' Wheat on their mounds just makes them move, so I've spent the summer chasing the little buggers around my yard with a box of breakfast food, and I'm starting to imagine neighbors snickering behind curtains.

And when am I going to have time to set up a dog blind on the roof of my shed from which I can stalk and murder the little bastard that keeps making a special trip to my back yard to do all his runniest poopin'? I sprinkled cayenne pepper all over his favorite spots, and that worked for a couple of weeks, but within 24 hours of my nephew coming over and mowing it all up, the little bastard was back. And it looked like he'd been holding it in all this time, just waiting for his moment. I have visions of slingshots and web cams, and spring-loaded traps of varying degrees of lethality. Bamboo lined pit traps. Noose traps. Cayenne pepper bombs. Why am I cleaning up dog crap? I don't own a dog!

Anyway, these are the things I think about.

Or Not

OK, so maybe I've got him to sleep in his crib a couple of times, and maybe a couple of times he's resisted with every fiber of his tiny, fisty being. Maybe it's not a battle. Maybe it's just an experience we're all going through, all learning from. See, that way it's almost like we're not losing...

Milestone

Kicked the kid out into his own room today, so Mrs. Rodius could get some sleep without Grunty waking her up every minute and a half. Broke out the baby monitor from the closet, too. He got mad after about 5 minutes when he woke and realized he was not on one of his favorite mattresses (my chest or that of Mrs. Rodius), but I picked him up, walked him around on my shoulder until he fell asleep again, and put him back in bed. It's been about half an hour now. We will win. He will not. Though it might help if we got some light-blocking curtains.

Uh oh, I think he's figured out he's alone again. He hates that.