Barnabas Monkeypants

There are a lot of scary things happening in the world. The swine flu has arrived. The economy is still in the crapper. And it looks like the Yankees are going to miss the playoffs again.

But all of those troubles are washed away because last night Henry slept for 7 1/2 consecutive hours. Let’s all take a moment here and wrap our minds around such a wonderful event. Seven and one-half hours. In a row.

Kristen and I woke up this morning refreshed. I think, although I may have been delirious from over-sleep, that I actually skipped down the hallway. As we both have mentioned, the only difficult thing about Henry (and probably the biggest problem any parent has) is trying to find a way for both their child and themselves to get as much sleep as everyone allows it and, more importantly, for the most consecutive hours. (You may be in bed for 10 straight hours, but if you’re waking up every 3 for feeding or playing, it’s not 10 hours. Believe me.)

I don’t know why last night was so much better than previous ones. He didn’t have his third nap, but he’s missed that before and still woken up several times during the night. (I think he’s nearly done with that third daytime snooze. Again today he didn’t have the nap.) He didn’t finish his fourth bottle, but he made up for it with extra sweet potato. (Yuck.) And he didn’t go outside in the sun (which tends to make him sleepy) because, well, there was no sun. (It’s spring in Chicago. We’re lucky if we even see 50 degrees half the time.)

And, frankly, it doesn’t matter why he did it. We’re just happy that he did.

Of course tonight he’ll be up 5 times and Kristen and I will be a wreck.

So, other than Henry giving his parents a break, what else have we learned these past two weeks.

We learned that while Henry hasn’t learned to crawl yet, he’s really, really trying. A couple of crawl-related points. One, we’re trying to help him learn, but that education seems a little cruel. What we do is put him on the ground on his stomach and then place some of his favorite toys just out of his reach. He stretches and grunts and wiggles and generally seems pretty unhappy about the whole situation. It’s almost like baby torture. I feel so conflicted, and it’s not long before I pick him up and move him or bring his toys to him. Two, he seems totally out of sorts when he’s trying to crawl. He usually ends up on his side, with both his arms splayed behind his back and one leg in the air. And then he’ll look up at you and smile, as if to say, “Look at me, daddy! I’m really movin’ now!” Of course, there are moments when he starts pumping his legs and moving his arms, and you know he’s real close. (And not to worry; as soon as he does, there will be video evidence.)

We learned that we cannot forget to pack an extra pair of pants when Henry goes off to the family’s house who we share our nanny with Tuesday through Thursday. You see, while he’s cut his poop frequency to only 3 or 4 a week (instead of 3 or 4 a day), when it does happen, it usually involves a breach of the diaper and a necessary change of pants. There were a couple times in the past two weeks (when I remember to pack the pants) when I picked up Henry wearing a different pair of pants than what he was dressed in. Last week (when I forgot to pack them), I brought a baby back home with me that was wearing only a t-shirt and diaper (and bunting, of course). Good times.

We learned that Henry, when sleepy, will now rest his head on your shoulder and fall asleep. I like that.

And we learned that having my sister and brother-in-law out here was a lot of fun. It was a long time coming (even though Michael, my brother-in-law, thought we had only lived here for 3 years), and we can’t wait to have them come back.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 8:08 pm and is filed under What We've Learned. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.