That was fun

The beast side of my lovely little bundle of joy came out in full force Friday. And into Saturday morning. Out of nowhere, Alex decided he doesn't want to sleep. EVER. I got a message from daycare at 1pm that he had only slept for 30 mins since I dropped him off at 7:45am. Not enough sleep for that little guy. When I got there to pick him up, I looked at his little daily report card only to see that he only took one more 30min nap all day. And shockingly, he was fussy most the day. Weird right?

So last night we went about our normal business. And then bed time came along. And the world ended. He was good for about 10 minutes in his crib by himself. But then he got pissed. I think it took him that long to realize that I hadn't just left him in there to play for a bit. After several failed attempts of getting him asleep without picking him up, I caved. I gave in. Not the right move, but the move that needed to happen at the time. So with about 15 mins of holding him swaying in the living room, he finally passed out. Until 1am. And then t was like de ja vu. Nothing was making him happy as long as it involved him sleeping. A lot of rocking and some teething tablets later, back in the crib he went. He woke up at 4:30 and ate an entire bottle and passed back out, but was up to play at 6:30am. Which is fine, I suppose. That is his normal wake up time. I still do not understand why children refuse to sleep later than a rooster on a farm but whatever.

So we played for a while and around 8 he was just starting to look sleepy so I thought, Aha! We will have a bottle and then drift off to sleepy town. Perfect! Yeah right. So nice of you to think you had a good plan there Mom. You are so smart.

The bottle went well. He ate the entire thing. But then all of a sudden the curtain was the coolest thing ever. And when I laid him in his crib he started flailing like a fish on the deck of a boat and laughing this maniacal laugh. Shit. So I did it. I gave him his blanket and his nuk and I left the room. Once again the End of Days arrived in the Julius house. But this time, this morning, February 20th, 2010...I stood my ground. I knew he was tired. I knew he needed a nap. I knew I couldn't continued down the road of always rocking him to sleep. I knew I had to let him figure it out. Which is a really nice way of saying I let him screaming like a trapped hyena until he fell asleep. 35 minutes later.

35 minutes of constant screaming. Every now and then it would dull to a low roar and I would think, At last! He's going to fall asleep. HA! Within a half of a second he would rev right back up to full hyena. For 35 minutes. And then all of sudden, he stopped and was totally asleep. It was glorious.

The thing is, I knew letting him cry was going to be hard. But I thought it was going to make me sad. I thought it was going to break my heart to listen to my baby cry knowing I could stop it at any time. But it didn't make me sad. It made me frustrated and mad. The whole time I was in the kitchen, listening to him cry, cutting some grapefruit and making some food for him. And I was just getting more and more frustrated the more he cried. I am guessing when I yelled, "Just fucking go to sleep!" it wasn't the most helpful advice I could yell to my baby, but shit! It was making me nuts! When he finally fell asleep I wanted to run in his room and be like See? SEE?! I knew you were tired! Because that is super mature. Nice that I can't get beyond proving an infant that he was wrong and I was right.

And now the slimy tentacles of guilt that it didn't make me sad that he was sad is creeping in and grabbing on to my brain like a giant squid. What kind of a mom am I that it did nothing but frustrate me that he was crying for so long? A tired mom I guess.

So yeah, "Cry It Out"? Super fun.