so this is what it's like...

i have always said that we were spoiled that madelyn was such a great sleeper. and now i can start to really understand just how spoiled we were. mason did not have a great sleep night last night. and it continued right into today. needless to say, i am exhausted.

since mason has been sleeping 7-8 hours at night for a few weeks, we have started to put he and madelyn down together (at 8) so that we can have some down time ourselves before going to bed. it also makes it that mason wakes up to eat early enough in the morning that i am able to get some more sleep as opposed to when he would wake up at 5 or 6 and i would feel like it was easier to just get to work instead of sleeping for another hour or so.


last night i put him down at 8:15. he was up and screaming at around 9. i went in a burped him for a while and nothing. so i fed him some more and put him back down. he was up again less than an hour later. that time i got a burp that was so big it really woke him up. after another full feed it was back down for him. i don't think he slept more than 2 hours at a time all night. and i think he only slept that long once. after rocking him, patting his back, and feeding him for 2 hours (i think it was from 12 to 2) i woke matt up when mason started crying for the millionth time less than 10 minutes after i had put him down to let him have a try at getting that burp out. i could hear the gas in his belly, but he wasn't bothered by it until we laid him back down. matt got a burp out but he was still up within an hour of matt coming back to bed. that time i patted his back, low, with my fist to see if i could help him get something out the other end. i just felt that it was gas. i had even tried putting him down on his belly at one point because that usually helps him work things out. he finally filled his diaper in a way that made my skin crawl from pure force and duration. he instantly fell asleep and stayed that way until he woke up happy around 7am. so i waited to face the diaper until we were all up for the day. we got our money's worth out of that one.

the sleeping for 45 minutes at a time continued all morning and into the afternoon. the odd thing was that he was totally content all day. at least there was that. when matt woke up i asked him to make me coffee too. i don't drink a lot of coffee because caffeine leads to migraines, but today was worth the risk. and i needed it! i was hoping to take a little nap while madelyn was napping and i actually got them both down by 1:15 and thought that i was going to get some time to rest. nope. not only did mason wake up after 45 minutes, his crying woke madelyn up too! ugh!

the good news is that madelyn was still in a wonderful mood and i had two happy kiddos all day. it could have been so much worse. so much worse. madelyn was so understanding when we had to come in from the sandbox twice because mason started to cry (over the monitor) as soon as we got downstairs. she had asked to play while our lunch was cooking so i told her that we could go down for just a few minutes. there was no crying or whining about wanting to play. she just understood that it was important to go and take care of mason and i was extremely grateful.

after lunch she asked for her keys, got her purse, kissed mason and i good-bye, told us that she would miss us and that she was heading to school. i tried to get her to do it again after she got her shoes, but she wouldn't say the part about seeing us later again.


around 3 i put mason on his belly in front of his mirror to take advantage of his great mood and maybe get some gas out. he fell asleep - and stayed that way! once 5:00 rolled around i was starting to drag. matt was going to have a later night at work so i told madelyn that we could go to the park before dinner. i put mason into the moby wrap and he kept right on sleeping the whole time. he stayed asleep the hour we were at the park and for almost 20 minutes after we got home and i had put him in his swing. it was just shy of a 4 hour nap! i am hoping that it is a positive sign for tonight.

in order to go to the park i had to get madelyn dressed because she had spent the day in her pjs. when i put my hat on madelyn asked for one too and picked her pink "florida" hat from grandma and big pop. then she got her baby strapped into her stroller, got her purse, and was ready to head to the park. (she willingly posed for these pictures. i was so thankful because she looked cute in all her pink - and i am not a fan of pink.) it took us a long time to walk to the park today and i think madelyn was a little surprised at how much harder it was to push the stroller up the hill than around the house.

our fun at the park ended when madelyn declared that she had to "go poopie" (she still calls everything "poopie"). she said good bye to her friends and the other mom explaining that she needed to go home to sit on the little potty and go poopie. i didn't think that we were going to make it home in time because the stroller was really slowing us down and she had mentioned needing to go about a half hour earlier before changing her mind. she got in the house, took off her shoes and hat, and headed straight to the bathroom. i was so glad that we made it home dry.

i mentioned that mason was totally content and happy despite the long night and morning. in fact he laughed for the first time and did so many times through out the day. i also discovered that the sides of his belly are ticklish enough to make him squirm and laugh! i was trying to massage out some gas bubbles with a tickle squeeze and that is how i managed to discover this fun way to make him laugh. lastly i wanted to note that mason has started to drool lightly and blow spit bubbles; he started doing this last week.

after going over every detail of last night again and again trying to come up with what made last night so different than every other night. tonight i went back to the miracle blanket because it works. i just moved it really low on his arms so that there would be enough room for his legs. he has been down for an hour thus far and not a peep. i am hoping to get some sleep - mainly for my brain function on work projects this week.

i survived the day. love.