I saw on the news yesterday that yesterday, January 25th is considered the most depressing day of the year. Interesting. The sun DID come out yesterday and we DID go for a nice walk around the Chambers Bay golf course. A 4 mile loop with a killer hill. With a little vitamin D, the day turned out to quite lovely.Just to update on the "Sleep Situation", I put Michelle down in her crib last night at 7:00. She cried for 1 minute and then passed out. How did we get there you may ask? I resorted to the last thing on earth I ever said I would EVER do. I did something I frowned upon that I thought only heartless, selfish parents with no empathy for their baby did. That's right. I can't believe I'm saying it. I let her CRY IT OUT. Saturday night we got off the routine by going to a dinner party which meant bedtime was pushed to almost 8:45 which meant someone was overtired which meant SOMEONE was not gonna give up the ghost and go to sleep. Pick-up put-down was just pissing her off even more so I nursed her and tried again. Again with the screaming. So I gave up. Remember? I was not in the best spirits on Saturday. So I turned the lights out, shut the door, walked upstairs and listened to her wailing on the monitor. I looked at Barry "I don't know what else to do! I've tried everything!". We decided to give it 20 minutes and if she was still screaming, we'd go get her. One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. Four minutes. Five minutes. Six minutes. Seven minutes. Eight minutes. Nine minutes. Ten minutes. Eleven min-...what's that? What's that I hear? That's right. I don't HEAR anything. Ten minutes and she was passed out. Asleep.
Now Sunday rolls around and I must preface this by saying I have been trying to get Barry on board with winding her down with QUIET activities before bed for quite sometime. Like, for the past 6 months or something. The problem is Barry's expensive surround-sound entertainment system. I say Barry's because while it lives in OUR house, I know nothing about it except how to operate the universal remote. It is HIS baby, and Barry likes his Boom-boom, bang-bang in Dolby 5.0 as much as possible. But this night, Barry happens to pick up my Parents magazine which HAPPENS to have an article about getting your baby to sleep better. He starts reading aloud to me and says "You know, we should really establish a QUIET bedtime routine for her." Really? I mean, Wow! Because I never thought of that. For the past 6 months, I thought turning up the subwoofer was the surefire way to get-your-baby-to-sleep-through-the-night! Even though Barry's preferred method of reading how-to-baby-books is for ME to read them and TELL him what I read, I think part of him thought I was just making this shit up. Granted, there are MANY different sleep methods out there, but I'm pretty sure that none of them include facing your baby towards a large flat screen high-def television surrounded by the ultra-resolution 5 point speaker system with the bass cranked up just before bed. With the combination of Barry's own sleep deprivation and actually READING the words himself I think it finally sank in. So Sunday came, we did a quiet bedtime routine, put her to bed, turned out the lights, and she cried for 14 minutes and passed out. And last night, for ONE minute. I haven't figured out how to tackle the night wakings yet and I still end up bringing her to bed at some point during the night, but to have her fall asleep and stay asleep so that Barry and I can enjoy an evening alone together is HUGE. I think much of the night waking won't be solved until she has her own room because I swear she can SMELL my boobs the moment I walk in the door. But for now, I'll take it. Whatever sleep I can get, I'll take it.
Watching a chick flick while Io enjoys much needed mommy cuddles after Michelle went to bed last night. He didn't move. Totally blissed out.
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