The Last Act

I'm not sure what's happening here, but I think it's a good thing? It's eerily odd though, like I'm sitting here dum-de-dum, enjoying this peacefulness, completely oblivious to the disaster that is just around the corner. Jacob has been pretty much perfect since Sunday. The last time he 'acted out' was Saturday night, and I'm sorry about Danielle's ears because she was on the other end of the phone when I discovered this:

That's Jacob after having emptied the entire bottle of baby powder on the floor. Then he got some water - I'm not sure how he actually transferred it to the bedroom floor - and dumped it all over the baby powder. Then he rubbed it in with his hand, and that's what he's doing in the picture. I'm not sure why I ran and got my camera instead of stopping Jacob from doing that. I guess I thought the worst had already happened so why not capture the visual image? After that, Jacob was either dumped into the bathtub with a few drops of lavender oil, or just changed into PJ's and tossed into bed. I can't remember, the nights have been a blur.

Ahh, but they've been a different kind of blur. These blur of nights have been defined by all the nice book time we've had, the hugs and kisses, gentle petting, rocking, etc. We've been leaving him to fall asleep on his own after he tells us, "It's ok, you can go now." On Tuesday night Jacob decided that he wanted to go to sleep in the Little Bed. He made it all up cozy for himself and even put a couple layers of blankets under himself incase he leaked through! I sat up there and kept him company and then he just fell asleep. Just like that. Weird. Then, like a bazillion hours later I went to bed. I've been doing that again, I think I'm shutting down from all this long-term house stress. I just sit up at night, mostly here, on the computer, sometimes just starting at it. I was pretty fried after two nights of that so hopefully I've got it out of my system now.

Anyway, that night, Tuesday night, Jacob stayed in that bed for eight hours without waking up! I don't think he knew where he was when he did wake up so I sent Zach in to retrieve him. It was 6am so we got another couple hours of sleep and the rest of the day was so pleasant.

Naptime, or the lack of it has been improving too. I think Jacob's had maybe two or three real naps in the last week and a half, and only fallen asleep prematurely twice. I was feeling really low about the whole nap thing last week because it was hard keeping him awake. Past a certain point in the middle of the day, Jacob just got crazy and stayed that way til the end of the night. I was asking myself, "What kind of life is this for him? If he's so tired and we're just getting through the day, killing time, is that really living?" I think it's kind of evening out this week though.

It's always a trade-off though, whatever way you spin it, something doesn't get done. I'm concentrating all my efforts on this sleep thing and the house is staying messy, dinner isn't getting cooked. No meals are getting prepared really, I just keep feeding Jacob snacks throughout the day. It's the later half of the week now, I can tell because I'm feeling so much more optimistic about things...if it were a day before I have to work, or a day I'm working, then things would feel shitty. This feels so much better. Three days in a row now I've played with Jacob and tickled him and been silly. In the evenings for three days in a row I've taken him for a walk in the real stroller that's on loan to me. This is nice stuff for us to do. I've gotten upset a few times, but then I am able to cool off...I forgot that was an option, that I didn't have to go over the edge each time something little happened.

Oh yeah, there's the thing with Jacob not wanting to leave my side. I was all set to have half a day to myself in Vermont last week, but then Jacob decided he wanted to go with me. Since I never really want to be away from him I didn't care. And it happened again on Sunday, then it was really bad Tuesday when I was going to leave him at my mom's so he didn't have to come to work with me for 5+ hours. It was so bad that even though I really needed the time that I day, I conceded. I felt really good about myself then though, it didn't feel natural to leave him like that, so I didn't. That's me as a mom in a nutshell. And he was great after that, really appreciative I think. That was probably the defining moment that brought us to this happy place again. I offered Jacob this huge slice of trust and now he's trying to earn my trust back. Even though my mom is back in town now, I've still only had one time away from Jacob and that was the birthday party I worked last weekend. It's not that I need to be away from him, I just need the alone time. I think that's why I'm staying up so late...I'm tired, but I'm alone for God's sake! I'm trying to to get too neurotic about him not wanting to leave my side. I'm pushing back the questions that come from my own mind about if this is leading to a problem. Instead of over-analyzing it like I usually do I just really trying to enjoy being friends again.