Sweet Dreams

Tonight for the first time I let Tate fuss himself to sleep.  Ok cry himself to sleep.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be thank goodness.  Perhaps it's because he didn't scream and cry incessantly.  It also helped immensely for my psyche that I know he can put himself to sleep, because he has done it so very many times.  At least 3 days per week I lay him in the crib with his loveys and his pacifier pretty much awake after our bedtime/bathtime ritual of books, prayers and rocking.  He will just drift off to sleep on those nights.  The other 4 he either stands up and cries his little heart out for 3-4 minutes before I go up to rock him to sleep or he piddles around and piddles around then cries for me.  So this little boy just wants his mama some nights, and I've been more than happy to oblige because I love the extra cuddle time.


But tonight I was tired.  And I know he's tired.  We are up every morning before 6am.  He needs some quality snooze time.  I laid him in the crib at 7:22pm, 22 minutes past his bedtime.  Told him I loved him and I left the room.  No sooner  I had gotten downstairs that he started wailing.  Then he stopped.  A few sniffles and whimpers.  I saw him standing in the crib leaning on the rail sucking his pacifier, clutching his loveys head on his arms.  Such a tired baby.  5 minutes later more crying for about 2-3 minutes.  And so forth for about 35 minutes.  Sometimes he waited longer between fussing and crying jags and the jags were no more than 3-4 minutes long.  I felt bad to an extent, but also realized that I let him cry when I brush his teeth because he HAS to do it.  I let him cry when I put sunscreen on him because he HAS to have it.  I let him cry in the car when he has thrown everything because he HAS to be still and cooperate.  And those crying spells are atrocious.  This crying was much less intense, so I decided to go with it.  Until he started hollering, and I mean hollering.  I knew something was wrong, wrong as in I bet he had dropped his hippo, his most cherished lovey.  I went upstairs, eased open the door and saw hippo on the floor and an extremely upset, sad, emotionally spent Tate standing in the crib just looking pitiful.  I picked up hippo and returned him to Tate, laid Tate back down with hippo and his Corduroy and pacifier, told him I loved him and left the room.  


He went straight to sleep.


We'll see what tomorrow night brings.  Then we leave on Thursday for Virginia, so that will make for interesting bedtime as well.


Oh and Christian arrives tomorrow.  You know...Tate's known donor.  We have lots to talk about and plans to try to make for all of our futures.  


Now if I could just find some time for myself to sleep.