There’s a point in any dive, when you change directions. You pedal your legs hard, and finally, at some great point, you break the surface.
Air, sunlight, relief.
I’m hesitant to write it (for fear of cursing myself), but I finally feel a rhythm to this baby thing. I’m still not sure if its me who turned the corner or the baby who turned the corner, but someone turned a corner. Perhaps, it was both of us simultaneously.
It took 3 full months, but we’re here.
Sleeping
After many nights and days containing a million rounds of shhhhh-pats, (we did 5 minutes of crying, 5 minutes of shhh-ing and patting), he can now go down for naps and bedtime without assistance. I never thought this would happen. And then one day, it just did. I almost bought a bottle of champaign to celebrate.
To be fair, he does still need a shhh-pat here and there. But this is the exception, and they are usually pretty short lived.
We’re still working on sleeping through the night, but we’ll get there. I’m defiantly buying a bottle of champaign at that point. Not the cheap kind, either.
Although, still not a fan of the pacifier, he will consistently take a bottle, which was also once a battle. He also occasionally finds his little fingers and sucks on them for comfort.
I now can leave for bible study and not worry about getting a text from the boy, like this one, “he cried it out for 2.5 hours, can’t get him to take the bottle, almost brought him to you at church, but did 54 laps around the dining room table carrying him instead.”
54 laps, y’all.
He later told me each lap was approximately 17 seconds long.
Engineer mind. Thats all I have to say.
Playing
Now, the baby will play by himself in his play gym, for almost an hour sometimes. Often just talking and laughing to himself. His laughs are the best. He has the most joyful cackle.
Oh, and there’s this mobile we ordered from Amazon which he is perpetually mesmerized by. For only $5.30, I’d recommend it to any one with little ones.
He also is much more interactive. He’ll coo while I make up conversation back and forth. He loves looking in the mirror and finds almost anything we say or do just hilarious. Such a needed i-can-do-this-mom-thing boost.
Me
And finally, I feel better!
I haven’t been running much lately due to the insane heat and humidity in south Louisiana, but I’ve been doing lots of YouTube yoga, which is both free and convenient.
If only my whole maternity leave could’ve been like this. It just started getting good! All the same, I’m grateful for the time I had to learn from, cuddle and play with sweet baby Ray.
The baby and I even made it to Texas together. We went during the week, so the boy wasn’t able to join us. It was a 5 and half hour drive, which was pretty ambitious.
I can’t say the whole drive went well, but it was totally worth it for him to meet his great granny.
Best granny/great granny there ever was.
When we were little she never let us leave her house without a little baggy of candy, or a “goody bag.” To this day she doesn’t let me leave her house without snacks!
Our next challenge:
Our next big challenge, coming faster than I’d like to admit, is day care and me going back to work.
Unfortunately, and fortunately, I had to quit one of my jobs. The boy made excel spread sheets for every option possible and it made more finical sense for me to just go back part time. While having more time with the baby will be wonderful, quitting my job was tough. I LOVE what I do as an occupational therapist. I will definitely miss my job and especially my co-workers.
Say a little prayer for us, as I’ve had daycare anxieties since we began searching back in January. I keep telling myself that I might be pleasantly surprised. And who knows…maybe thats true?
I would LOVE a nanny, but the boy, who crunches the numbers which speak painful truth, says a nanny doesn’t make much sense. So daycare it is for now.
Life is all about adjusting only to readjust, I suppose. This is just another corner to turn and I’ll be looking forward to the air, sunlight and relief, when we finally get to the other side.
Jess says
Such a sweet boy! We need to get together soon.
thegingerlifeblog@gmail.com says
Thanks Jess!! I’m up for a get together anytime 🙂