Ups and Downs

The last few days have been a bit of a roller coaster. I've experienced such sweetness and joy and such frustration and anxiety. Let's start with the joy...

Little Man is really growing up. I've spent a lot of time with him the last few days and every moment I realize a little more what a sweet little person my life has been blessed with. I love it when he reaches for me to pick him up and then wraps his tiny little arm around me and holds me. I love it when he laughs at the funny face I'm pulling or at the silly song I'm making up. There's even a small part of me that secretly loves the fact that the only thing he wants in the middle of the night is for him mom to hold him.

And he's getting so smart! Watching him play has become one of my favorite things. He's really mastered the "cause and effect" thing. He'll push the buttons on his toys on purpose now. I didn't even realize he'd learned it, but then one day, he pushed the button of a toy and when the little animal popped up, he pushed it back down, then pushed the button to make it pop up again. I couldn't be more proud.

And so strong! He's "this close" to crawling. We keep practicing with him and he gets better and better every day. Tonight, he was sitting on the floor, then he leaned over and got on his knees, rotated himself to point the direction he wanted, put one hand out in front of himself, and scooted one knee. And then he fell down. But he is so close! Even though he's not crawling, he can still pretty much get into anything he wants. When he's on him tummy, he can use his hands to turn himself any direction, then he'll scoot or roll to get the object of his desires. Today, he got himself into the basket of baby care items (mostly, its full of diapers and wipes) and I found him with the bugger sucker in him mouth. It was yucky, but I was impressed that he'd made it that far across the room to get it.

Tonight, we were practicing his crawling before the bath. I stripped him down, then set him on his knees to try one more time. We were playing and having fun, then he grunted. I knew what that meant, so I quickly grabbed him. But I was too late. He had already pooped on the floor. When I picked him up, his foot got in the mess. He was very intrigued by the poop on his foot, so he reached down to grab it. Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out the best way to clean this up. James was still at work, so I was on my own. I didn't want to leave him while I went to grab something to clean it up, because I knew he'd make a bigger mess. But I couldn't carry him either, because he was covered. Luckily, there were some wipes in the hallway from this morning, so I grabbed those. But while I was wiping him bum, he continued to play with the poop. I looked up just in time to see the poop covered fingers headed for his mouth. I yelled at him, then picked him up and put him in the tub (which, luckily, I'd already ran). I no longer cared about the mess carrying him would be. When James got home and saw the scene, he was totally grossed out by the pile on the floor and my stained clothes. We were laughing pretty hard about the situation by the time it was all over. Only a mother could still laugh when she was covered in baby poop.

And the frustrations... First of all, if you've seen me lately, you may have noticed that I have lost a lot of weight. I've barely noticed it myself; I only know that my pants are barely staying up these days. But I stepped on a scale at a friend's house and realized how much weight I had actually lost. I weigh almost 15 pounds less than my pre-pregnancy weight, which is a lot on my short body. My sister convinced me that I needed to see my doctor and make sure my thyroid was normal, especially given the fact that I've been consuming over 2000 calories per day. So I took the day off Monday to go see my midwife. She did order a thyroid test, but thinks that it's probably just because I'm breastfeeding. She put me on a 3000 calorie per day diet. I know, I know. Poor Tiffany... But it's not as cool as it sounds. I feel like all I do is eat now. It's not even fun. My blood pressure was also incredibly low (85 over 50), which probably explains the lightheadedness I've been experiencing. Hopefully, I'll feel better soon.

And the biggest frustration has been Little Man's sleeping habits. I'm pretty sure he was having a growth spurt last week. He was eating like crazy, getting up in the night to nurse, and taking marathon naps (his morning nap on Saturday was 3 1/2 hours!). I think he got a little too used to having mommy time in the night, however. Monday night, he was essentially awake from 11 until almost 3. I nursed him, gave him Motrin, rocked him, and nothing was good enough. The only way he'd sleep was if I would stand and hold him. When the alarm went off at 5 the next morning, I knew there was no way I was going to make it to work on only 3 hours of sleep, so I stayed home again. Last night, Little Man started doing the same thing. Whenever I would lay him down, he would start screaming. I decided that he was going to have to "cry it out." I am generally very opposed to "Ferberizing" but I didn't see any other choice. I convinced myself that it's only really bad for tiny babies, but not so bad for older babies that have learned to expect Mommy to come running at the smallest whimper. I still don't know if I really believe myself, though. So we let him cry. He was crying so hard that he was having a hard time breathing. He did that for about 10 minutes and then... he stopped! He went to sleep! He woke up once in the night, but before I could even get to him, he'd found his binky and was quiet again. He did get up very early this morning (5:15), but I'll take it if he sleeps through the night.

I promise this is my last story... This one is very scary! One day last week, when I got home from work, there was a strange man sitting at the top of the steps in front of my door. I thought it was weird, but I thought maybe he was waiting for someone to get home or something. On Saturday night, though, when we got home from our friends' house, he was sitting there again. This time, though, he was surrounded by beer cans and was listening to a little radio very loudly and muttering to himself. Once I got in the house, I called 911 to report him, but before the officer could get here, he took off. Later that night, James got up to use the bathroom and could hear him (and his radio) outside again. I called 911 again, and this time they were able to get him. They knocked on our door a minute later, so they could get our info to file a complaint, and told us that he's a notorious burgler in our neighborhood and also a know pedofile. Isn't that so scary! I was totally freaked out. It makes me a little nervous to be here alone in the evenings.

Ok, I promise I'm done. Here are some pictures from the week...

Here is my cute baby, cuddling with Daddy. (Please ignore the dirty house and the camera strap)
Family time before bed.

My boys, all cleaned up for church.