I’ve borrowed my blog-naming convention from Hola Isabel today, because ever since I started reading her I’ve always have about a thousand blog titles starting with “in which” running through my head. I rarely succumb to the temptation to post one, but this just seemed fitting.
So let’s just start with the fact that yesterday was a very good/very bad day. It was very good in the way that my husband stayed awake to take me and the Bubbs to Albany to do our Saturday shopping. In case I’ve never told you, I live in the boonies. Well, not really. But boony enough that we don’t have a Borders, a Super Walmart, a Babies R Us, a Target with actual selection, an Apple Store, a Costco, the list goes on and on. So after Camper’s morning nap, we packed ourselves up and went to Albany. The mall there was really nice (except for the domestic dispute outside as we were leaving, and just two days ago I was talking about how the Bubbs had never heard real, angry yelling, and how I’d like to keep it that way. Well he’s heard the F-word now. About 400 times) and it was a gorgeous day, 90 degrees! John and I wandered around, got some things off our list of things we needed to get, some things not on our list, and just enjoyed being together. Bonus: They had an Arby’s. I used to hate Arby’s, but have you ever tried their Club Sandwich? Very yum.
We ran by Target, at which we took a cue from TurleyBensen and found ourselves a nice, cozy dog bed for Bubbs for the flight to Utah. He actually seemed to dig it. Some people gave us weird looks when we ran through her “choosing routine” of grabbing the beds and trying them out in the office chair section. But hey. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Then we went to the Super Walmart. SUPER WALMART. I was just running in to grab some lightbulbs, baby gas medicine, etc. Boring, I know, but sometimes a change of scenery is more important than doing anything out of the ordinary. As I walked into the store, I realized that I was out of my league. This store had an elevator. An escalator. AND A CART ESCALATOR. I took a picture with my cellphone, trying to appear all noncholant, like, “No, I’m not a hick taking a picture of this escalator designed specifically for carts.” I felt overwhelmed by the whole thing, but think I might want to try it again one day. Maybe…
Yes. That’s my cart.
Sometime after the Super Walmart and before the Babies R Us (looking for travel bottles, didn’t find any) Camper became DONE. Turns out, he was just starting to feel the discomfort of what I’d like to call…NOT POOPING. He didn’t eat a whole lot, and even my best efforts to get him to take some water (because it was so hot) were failing. When we finally got home, he took the opportunity to tell us how uncomfortable he really was. For hours. Poor kid. He was overheated and had gassy cramps, never a good combo. Especially because the only thing that helps the gassy cramps is the heating pad. Then, he had his first encounter with a hot light bulb. Nothing serious, just scary and uncomfortable and sad. He grabbed it while John was trying to open the window, and I think we felt worse about it than he did, poor kid. As I said before, things are bound to happen.
We had our friends Amy and Sean over to visit late in the evening, and Camper just sat on Amy’s lap, practically comatose like, “I just can’t sleep until I poo…..” He was a willing visitor though, and has ALWAYS loved Amy for some reason. He cuddles her just like he does family. They are moving soon, and we are really really sad to see them go. At least we had some pie, right? (Oh yeah Mom, we ate one of your pies.)
So cut to the late evening/early morning hours, during which Camper slept, woke up, and finally…pooed. He stilled seemed…off…so we stayed home from church today to let him rest a bit. He’s had a wee fever, on and off, and just seems rather unhappy with everything. Being held, not being held, sleeping eating, everything’s a chore. John put the air conditioner in his room before he went to bed this afternoon, and Bubbs and I laid on the floor and looked at books and played with toys for an hour or so just cooling off.
So, on to the real reason I want to kick myself in the head. We finally let him cry it out today. It’s gotten to the point that he’s unhappy being rocked to sleep, unhappy being laid down, unhappy in general. Once he’s sleeping he’s ace…but getting him there is DIFFICULT. The kid desperately needs to learn how to calm himself down and relax. So…it took 25 minutes. 25 minutes of non-hysterical but still unpleasant screaming this morning to get him down for a good, 1.5 hour nap. It helped that John was there telling me, “Don’t worry. Just wait, he’ll fall asleep.” And he did, he was just fine. Even woke up smiley. So cut to this afternoon’s nap. I changed his diaper, sang him 1 song, kissed him, laid him down, and left the room.
He talked to himself for 15 minutes and then passed out. No crying whatsoever. I swear he even flashed me a little smile as I left the room.
Seriously? Two weeks of rapidly decreasing sleep behavior…and then 25 minutes of cry it out and then he’s super napper? We shall see people. We shall see.
