Baby Steps

So you want an update? Well, my mother came over on Sunday night to help with the bedtime thing. I don't really know what I hoped to accomplish at the time with her being here and all. Actually, no, I wanted to go running with Zach. It would remove us from the house so bedtime could take place and get us some alone time, something healthy to boot. We used to run together all the time when we were dating. Occassionally someone will suggest we go to a movie or go to dinner; a movie is nice, but it's not what we need, and dinner, well we've never been 'dinner' people. Sometime in the mid-late winter it occurred to me that a good run together is what we need to connect. I haven't managed to make it happen once since then, but that's a whole other story about how we're just too damn busy.

Oh look, another tangent...anyway, we did go for a five minute walk with Mango. My mom stayed much later than she should have in order to get home for the show she wanted to watch, but by God that child was going to be asleep when she left here if it killed her. She handed him off to me and he opened his eyes just long enough to mumble, "Mommy..." and fell back asleep. Zach and I watched The Celestine Prophecy and he stayed awake the whole time. I read the book years ago, and it's one of my top 5 favorites. Zach really liked the movie, but of course it could never do the book justice. I've been wanting to re-read it lately so I finally picked it up last night and read maybe two pages before I fell asleep. I think my fast-paced life this last year and audio books have ruined me for reading. My whole life I've been a book worm, but lately I haven't been able to slow down enough to read an entire book. As you can see from my constant and lengthy posts, I'm more in 'output' mode now.

Looking back a day later, I think what my mom's visit did was give us a clean break, a chance for a fresh start with the bedtime thing. There was just so much stress for all of us involved with bedtime, that to have a brief respite from that reduced the tension a great deal. I'm not saying that one day solved everything, but I think I was able to step back and regain some of that lost perspective. Obviously change takes place best when it's enacted slowly, so baby steps it is. I moved the rocker back upstairs into the bedroom this afternoon while Jacob was napping. I think for now Zach is going to be the main player in bedtime because, well, Jacob needs to be around him more. As the time stretches away from that worst of all nights, it's becoming more clear that the root of it was Jacob needing some time with Zach. And so the first rule will be that Jacob is rocked to sleep and then placed in the bed. I think it will be easier for him to sleep in the vaste expanse of bed without one of us there, if one of us was not there to begin with.

Another thing I've got to work on is picking up on Jacob's tired cues. The behavior has gotten out of control and I guess tiredness is to blame? Today he actually admitted to being tired at one point. He took a two hour nap, from which he was easily woken, so maybe the napping will continue but we'll play it by ear from day-to-day whether he needs one or not.

So it took about an hour for Jacob to fall asleep tonight, but there was no crying. Zach came downstairs to spend time with me and even though he was tired, he listened to me go on for 30 minutes about how horrible Jacob was today and we brainstormed some ideas. I hate that I am talking about Jacob that way though. I want to only love him. I think that part of the blame of all of this lies with me. I certainly don't make things easier by being so emotionally involved...if I could just step back and chill, things might go more smoothly. I think that Jacob and I were definitely on edge with each other today. We've got some healing to do this week.

Thanks, everyone, for your concern and kind words.