Sleep!

The past three days I've woken to light streaming through the window. My first instinct has been to race to Tate's room to check on him, only to find him slumbering peacefully in his crib. Yes, our baby is SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. Since this marks the first time I've gotten more than 3-4 hours of sleep in a row in 2011, it definitely calls for the use of all caps. I'd love to say it was the result of one of the sleep books I've been slowly ploughing my way through, but it's actually due to one that hasn't been written yet called "Hey Mom, Did You Ever Think Maybe I'm Just Hungry?" Seriously. I was in the middle of an internal struggle about whether to employ the popular (and apparently effective) cry-it-out method of sleep training when I came across a feeding chart my sister had given to me. Even accounting for the fact that Tate started solids a little later than some, he wasn't eating nearly what the chart indicated he should be for his age. So I doubled up the cereal at his next meals and added an additional cube of fruit and bingo, sleeping through the night! I've been reading a little more about attachment parenting (which surprisingly seems to be a philosophy that appeals to me), and one of the things that stood out was that crying is viewed as communication, not manipulation. In this case Tate was apparently trying to tell us that he needed more food!

Family photo day

So sometime right around 8 months I decided that if I couldn't make time stand still I could at least capture this stage of Tate's life by having some photos taken of him. We got a referral to a really great photographer named Jen Soares from someone in my new moms group. Jen was so awesome! You can see a preview of the photos she took on her blog. I love the shots of Tate, and it was so nice to get some pics of all three of us together. The photos also commemorated one of the few times the three of us were showered and wearing clean clothes at the same time. Even our house was clean. It was a good day.

8 Months!

Tate just keeps getting more and more fun--and more and more mobile! We put a quilt down over our living room rug and he loves to roll around on it. We can't turn away for a minute, because he's really fast at rolling under the couch now. He also loves to grab things. Anything within his reach is fair game. He especially loves things he's not supposed to have, such as the TV remote, cell phones, and Brad's computer. He also has a special fondness for zippers and tags. And Brad's baseball hats. He loves to chew on the brims of those. He also says da-da-da-da-da, especially when he first wakes up in the morning. A couple of times we've sworn he's said "hi" to Brad (ha da-da). We're torn between being excited to watch him grow and develop and wanting to hold onto each stage just a little longer.

Lights out, uh-huh!

Remember our nice tall windows? The ones that make our smallish condo seem a bit more spacious? The other night Brad and I were up at 11:00 at night covering them with superclassy black plastic garbage bags because our baby WILL NOT NAP! Ok, it's not that he won't at all. It's just that his naps are too short according to the sleep books. Apparently the sleep experts think his short naps are bad and will cause him to...well, I don't remember why they are bad because I'm now too sleep deprived to retain new information. But until now Tate would only nap in his bouncer in the living room (bad) after first being nursed by me (also bad). So Brad perched precariously on a ladder while I handed him garbage bags and tape until we got the job done. The next day we put Tate down in his nice dark room for his nap and he napped a whole 5 minutes. But today he napped in there for at least 45 minutes. Progress!

7 months!

I've pretty much decided that Tate is the perfect man. He likes to do everything I like to do, hangs on my every word, and laughs at all my jokes. The other day me saying "cool mist vaporizer" over and over got a huge laugh every time. I have no idea why.

Love hurts

Tate got his first kiss from a girl today. We were in mommy/baby pilates class and a little girl about Tate's age named Danica crawled over to where he was lying on his back and pressed her mouth to his face for a little kiss. Then she hit him on the forehead a couple of times before her mom and I could intervene. He just squinted and looked confused. Later in class she was off kissing some other baby boy. I told him that's just the way love goes sometimes.

Spring forward, fall asleep

Brad and I used to be notorious night owls. And we used to love to sleep in on the weekends. Back in our pre-Tate days I used to joke that we needed to add a morning person to our relationship to help us get up and be more productive on Saturdays and Sundays. Little did we know how much our 2-foot-tall morning person would shake things up.

In addition to being a morning person, Tate also plans ahead. He decided to spring forward a few weeks before the rest of the country and he now wakes up at 6 am every day instead of 7. Like clockwork. And he's also started waking up several times during the night. He seems legitimately hungry (growth spurt?) so I don't want to try letting him cry it out. Brad and I are both exhausted and looking pretty rough these days. I'm seriously thinking of blowing off the change to Daylight Savings Time this weekend and just operating on Sandra Time until we fall back in October. That's how much I want to hold onto that extra hour of sleep.