SLEEP TRAINING

(snuggling close to your giant teddy)

Remember when I said you were sleeping 10pm-7am? Shortly after writing that, things changed. It became harder and harder for you to stay awake late, sounds great for momma right? Wrong. You did indeed start going to sleep earlier, around 8pm, but would only nap for an hour and want to play for another three before dozing off for the night.

At first it didn't bother me too much. It made putting Gage to bed at 8:30pm a lot easier when you are not pulling at his face or trying to eat the bedtime book. So, for about a week you were sleeping 12am-7am. And then things changed, again. Next thing I know you are waking up at 5am. So we went from 10pm-7am to 12am-5am? I don't think so!

Sleep training an almost 6 month old in the same room as a 2 year old is nearly impossible. For a few night momma and daddy brought you in our room to cry it out. But two nights of absolutely no sleep and a baby that was losing his voice from so much crying seemed worse than having to stay up late and get back up early.

So, we had a sleepover in mom and dad's room and sadly you were not invited. We brought Gage's mattress in our room, turned off the monitors  and three nights later you were sleeping 12 hours straight, 8pm-8am like a champ. On the rare occasion you wake up in the middle of the night you no longer whine and cry, you just talk to yourself back to sleep. Loving that you are a good sleeper.

THE DAY THE CARSEAT SAVED YOUR LIFE

I have always questioned the actual ability a plastic carseat would have to save your life in an accident. I can proudly say our infant carseat did the job in the Smith's parking lot. More than a week later and I still can't shake the nerves that come with recalling the horrific event. And as hard as I try to remember the details, I can't understand for the life of me exactly how it even happened in the first place, but I will do my best.

Costco trips happen every 2 weeks. You see we only ever venture to Costco when you run out of formula, otherwise we find ourselves spending WAY too much money WAY too often on pointless stuff. Lucky for us you are a pretty consistent baby and go through exactly one case of formula every seven days. It was time to restock on 2 more cases but unfortunately daddy was not working a schedule that would allow him to join  us. It was the weekend following Thanksgiving, and you can imagine how ridiculously busy it was with Christmas shopping. After our cart was hit 3 times by aggressive shoppers and Gage ran away once to see a giant train set, Momma decided there was no way we were going to enjoy Costco, so we grabbed your formula and decided to finish up the remainder of our grocery shopping at Smiths. We spent an unnecessarily long time at Smiths because somewhere between Costco and SMiths mom lost the shopping list. Finally, after looking for curry powder for a half hour, making you and Gage both wait for naps, and then realizing they were out of curry powder, I was anxious to just get out of there and finish shopping another day.

Upon exiting Smiths we had a 10 yard walk to the car, it was simply a matter of waiting for the cars to pass, walking across the street to the second parking stall. If only it happened like that, and like every other time we had been to Smiths before that. Instead, I had two cranky babies, and a ton of traffic in this small parking lot. We patiently waited for the cars to pass, then got the ok to go ahead and cross. I  grabbed Gage's hand and began to push you in the cart. At that moment Gage lifted his feet so I was dragging him, we hit a crack in the road with our cart and next thing i know your carseat is no longer in the cart it is rolling the remaining 5 yards to the car. In a panic I ditch the cart, make the polite car wait, drag your brother and scream chasing down your carseat. I couldn't seem to get you unstrapped fast enough. Now that I was holding you my tears begin to stream perfusely, Gage is scraped up and screaming and yet the only one to actually get into a life threatening accident is calm in momma's arms.

A nice lady came running to our rescue and pushed our cart to the car and helped unload it. After getting both of you boys in the car I stayed in that parking lot for another 10 minutes crying and thanking my Heavenly Father. In hindsight the thought of you rolling makes your dad chuckle but all I can think about is the number of times that I have unstrapped you while shopping and if that had been the case today my sweet baby may have had some serious injuries.

SO grateful for carseats, and for babies that can peacefully dose off on the car ride home following a traumatic experience. Here are the battle wounds that followed your first accident.