Angel Kisses

One tradition I love to do with my son is what I call “angel kisses.” Just before I go to bed at night, after he’s been asleep for quite a while, I tiptoe into his room and give him a kiss on the forehead. He’s a pretty heavy sleeper so he rarely even stirs, but he knows that I do it. If my husband and I are going out for the night and a babysitter will be putting him to bed, I can often quash his protests by reminding him that I will come in and give him an angel kiss when I get home, while he’s asleep. So even if he doesn’t wake up to feel it, he knows I’ll check on him before morning.

One of the reasons I love angel kisses is that they give me the chance to see my son when he is quiet and peaceful. At the age of three, he is often rebellious and petulant and disobedient and frustrating to be around. But seeing him asleep lets me imagine him as his most perfect self: calm, unresisting, and sweet. It reminds me of his potential, and it reassures me that he has that calm, sweet boy inside him who someday will once again emerge from the rebellious tot. After a particularly frustrating day, I look at his sleeping face and think, “Why aren’t you like this all the time? Why can’t you stop fighting against me and obey? Why can’t you trust that I’m doing what’s best for you? Why can’t you just submit your stubborn little will to my greater wisdom?”

And then I realize that God must look at me and think the same thing. But then I also remember that He always sees me through the blood of Christ as that peaceful, obedient servant that I could – and should – be. And I forgive my son for his stubborn spirit, just as God forgives me for mine. And I thank my Father above that He loves me infinitely more than I am humanly capable of loving my own dear children.

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:9-11)

 

Sniff, Snort, Slurp

I have the noisiest sleeping baby on the face of the earth.

You look at the sleeping angel face with the long lashes, soft skin, fluffy downy blond hair, and rosebud lips, and cannot even comprehend that those phlegmy, vulgar, unladylike sounds could possibly be coming from such a perfect cherub. It’s my own fault, I suppose. She seems to have inherited her snoring, sleep slurping, general sniffiness from me. It’s a bit less noticeable in an adult, but in a small baby, large noises like that are somewhat incongruous.

I was particularly aware of her sleep sounds last night, as she had yet another fussy night and I spent most of it sleeping on the couch downstairs with her in my arms. Or rather, NOT sleeping on the couch downstairs with her in my arms. I can sometimes get her to fall asleep just enough that as long as I don’t move (or breathe too deeply), she’ll stay asleep. But the slightest movement will cause her to wiggle or cough or cry. So I lie in the dark, wide awake, every muscle tensed, listening to her breathing to see when she might be sleeping deeply enough that I can move my arm which has currently fallen asleep pinned underneath my body. And instead of quiet, calm, measured breathing, I hear slurping, snoring, wheezing, and sniffling.

She’s not a pretty sleeper.

And yet, when she sounds so uncomfortable is when my mothering instinct kicks in the most. One tiny cough, and I’m propping her into a more comfortable spot to clear her congestion. A few slurps and my finger is in her mouth to ease those sore gums. A sniffle or two and I’m wiping her button nose with a tissue. A slight wheeze and I’m making sure her head isn’t cocked at an awkward angle. General wiggling will buy her rocking and a series of lullabies. And as much as I don’t like it, I like it. In fact, I love it.

How can you not love the chance to calm an uncomfortable baby? How little of a sacrifice is your own sleep when it means your baby is peacefully slumbering? And what is more wonderful than watching a beautiful sunrise with a finally sleeping baby breathing slowly and deeply on your shoulder? Those few moments of quiet serenity are worth every hour of wakefulness listening to gurgling and mewling and tired, sad whines.

And when that sleepy baby wakes up and looks at you with a big “good morning” smile? Priceless.

Sleeping Angels

This is probably true of most parents, but I love to watch my children sleep. There’s something incredibly peaceful about how fully they relax when they sleep. I often refer to it as “full body sleep”. I’ve commented in the past that my daughter seems to double in weight when she falls asleep – that’s how completely and utterly relaxed she gets.

I also like to watch them sleep because they’re both such funny sleepers. My son tends to sleep on top of his pillows and stuffed animals, sometimes with his blanket bundled into a lump underneath him, or with a pillow on top of his face. He’s usually in some odd, contorted position, as if he fell asleep in the middle of doing something. Arms over his head, legs in a running position, head tipped at some strange angle. And my daughter, in common baby fashion, falls asleep with her backside sticking up in midair, or her thumb in her mouth, or contorted into some awkward position that no-one but a baby could ever be comfortable in. Despite their relaxed state, both of them occasionally even fall asleep with one hand up in the air, hovering a few inches off the bed as if levitating as part of a magician’s show.

One of my favorite parts of watching my kids sleep isn’t even the watching, it’s the listening. Like their parents, they both tend to be snorers. Not heavy-duty, sawing-wood, set-your-teeth-on-edge kind of snoring, just a gentle, soothing gurgle. We’d given some thought as to how and when we could move my daughter’s crib out of our bedroom, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I’ll miss listening to her quiet breathing, her occasional sleeping coos and laughs, her soft sighs, and her little snurfly gurgle. And when I sit in my son’s room waiting for him to fall asleep during naptime, I love listening to his breathing slow down and become regular, and finally turning into his contented little whistling snore.
But I think the best part of all about watching my babies sleep is that I know I won’t have to do any scolding or punishing or comforting. Watching a peacefully sleeping child involves none of the hard parts of parenting. Just enjoying the fruits of your labors.

Snuggling to Sleep

Every once in a while, Ryan goes through a bout of insomnia, or at least restless, light sleep. He goes to bed at his usual time, but at around midnight he gets restless and whines or cries a bit. Most of the time he settles himself down fairly quickly, but every once in a while I have to go in and snuggle him for a few minutes to get him back to sleep. And last night was one of those nights.

When I went in, he was flopping around like he just couldn’t get comfortable, so I picked him up and sat in the rocking chair with him. He snuggled right up against my neck and clung to me tightly, as if to say, “Thank goodness you’re here. Now I can sleep.” He still wriggled a bit, trying his head on this side and then that, tucking his legs up under him and then stretching them out, but after a few minutes he settled in to a comfortable spot. He was still awake, but I could feel his body relaxing as he calmed down. I stroked his hair and his back, and sang to him very quietly until I could hear his breathing fall into a slow, rhythmic pattern and I felt him grow heavy on my shoulder as he fell back to sleep. I carefully put him back in his crib and tiptoed back into bed.

For the past few days, I’ve been a bit of a restless sleeper myself, since Herb was out of town visiting his daughter at college. I never sleep as well when he’s not there. So when I got back into bed, I was happy to snuggle up to him and as he sleepily stroked my back and I listened to his quiet breathing, it occurred to me that Ryan and I both prefer having a bit of company when we’re trying to sleep. I guess there’s something deeply, primally comforting about having someone you trust completely by your side when you sleep. The human body instinctively feels safety in numbers, especially when it’s vulnerable and sleeping. There’s someone else to sense danger, and to help protect you if attacked. There’s warmth to be shared when two bodies are close together. It’s natural to be more relaxed and secure when there’s someone sleeping beside you.

So as much as I want Ryan to be able to get to sleep (and get back to sleep) on his own, I can hardly complain if he needs me to snuggle him to sleep every now and then. After all, he apparently gets it from his mother.

Go to Sleepy, Little Baby

For the most part, Ryan has always been a good sleeper. He slept through the night at 10 weeks and never looked back. He goes to bed at 8 or 8:30pm and doesn’t yell for us to come get him until 8:30 or 9am. (He does wake up considerably earlier, but he’s usually happy to play in his crib and sometimes even goes back to sleep for a while.) But every now and then he has a restless night, and last night was one of those nights.

He went to bed at his usual time, playing in the tub then falling asleep as soon as he finished his bottle. I was watching his crib on the monitor and he was completely out cold when Herb tucked him in. So I was very surprised a few hours later when I checked on him as I was getting ready for bed, and I found him restlessly rolling around the crib (although apparently still asleep). I tucked the blanket around him again and rubbed his back for a bit until he relaxed, but after I’d been in bed for a little while I heard him talking to himself, and then he started crying. I let him be for a while, since he’s usually good about calming himself down and going back to sleep on his own, but when he seemed to be getting more worked up instead of quieter, I went to check on him.

As soon as I came in the room, he stood up and reached out for me. I saw that he’d kicked off his blankets again and his legs felt a little cool, so I settled him in my lap and wrapped the warm blanket around him. I offered him the bottle I’d brought, but he wasn’t particularly interested. He was very content to just snuggle in my lap and rock. That’s kind of unusual, because most of the time when he has trouble sleeping and I go in, he just wants to get up and play! I thought that maybe he’d had a bad dream and would fall right back asleep. So I snuggled him close, sang him a few lullabies, and laid my cheek against his soft head. He got very quiet and relaxed, and I thought he might have fallen back to sleep so I peeked at his face and was surprised to see a pair of very wide-awake eyes gazing back at me! So I kept on rocking and singing, and soon a warm little hand was patting mine and another warm little hand was reaching up to pat my hair. He began humming quietly to himself, which is usually a sign that he’s drifting off, and I figured that in a few more minutes he’d be out cold again.

No such luck. Instead of slowly drifting to sleep, he seemed to be slowly coming back to life. The soft patting on my hand became a playful smacking, the patting of my hair became a teasing tug, and the humming became a mischievous chortle. Before I knew it, the calm bundle in my lap was squirming around, trying to climb over the back of the chair, reach over to the closet doors, and clamber down to the floor. I frustrated all those intentions by standing up and swaying, and I turned on the lullaby CD. I started to lay him in the crib, even though he was still awake, and not surprisingly I got an immediate bawl of protest. But I tucked in his fleecy blankets, gave him a few of his rags to cuddle, and rubbed his back while I sang along with the CD.

And then I used those sneaky moves that have been used by mothers immemorial. I kept singing and stayed next to the crib, but I stopped rubbing his back. Then I stopped singing, but I stayed next to the crib. And finally, I slipped silently out the door. He was still awake, but drowsy enough that he didn’t notice when I left. I slid back under the covers of my own bed without even taking off my bathrobe, figuring I’d probably be up again shortly. But no more wails were forthcoming, and eventually I relaxed and drifted back to sleep myself.

I figured that with that big “sleep gap”, he might sleep a little later this morning. Ha! Not a chance. He was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed bright and early, and didn’t even go down for a nap as early as he sometimes does. So I guess his insomnia was a lot tougher on Mom than it was on him. But I’m not complaining. Any time I get to sit and snuggle with my little boy is time well spent.

The Life of the Party

Every year some dear friends of ours host a fabulous Bastille Day party. That’s right, Bastille Day. Don’t you go to a Bastille Day party every year? OK, so you probably don’t. Very few people do. Apparently this party began a number of years ago when the host had a new co-worker who was French, and in an attempt to make him feel at home, they decided to throw a Bastille Day party. It was a big hit, so even though the co-worker left shortly thereafter, they decided to continue the tradition, and over the years it has grown into quite the event. There’s great music, tons of food, lots of fun people, and of course, a guillotine in the front yard. And Marie Antoinette herself is always in attendance.

(Before and after, of course)

This was Ryan’s first Bastille Day party (on the outside, anyway), and many of the guests hadn’t met him yet – although, as many people commented, they all felt like they’d known him forever because of all the photos we post on Facebook and in my blog. Fortunately, Ryan is still in his very social phase and was happy to be passed around from person to person, checking out this person’s jewelry or that person’s beverage or another person’s sunglasses or napkin or plastic dinosaur or Batman action figure.

He “helped” Daddy and Uncle Ed (aka “Dog Boy” and “Burger Boy”) man the grills.

He spent quite a bit of time playing with new buddy Ephraim (who is a year older, about an inch taller, and 5 pounds lighter), who was a good enough sport to share the above-mentioned dinosaur and Batman, and Ryan was happy to share his stacking rings and jingle ball.

He got serenaded by an impromptu bowl-and-spoon band, and later tried out his own mad drum skillz on a conveniently placed lawn chair.

Naturally, after such a long day of socializing and playing, he needed a snack and a nap. And yes, both took place in the middle of the loud, chaotic party. Proof positive that when he finally gives in to the power of the nap, he can do it absolutely anywhere.

Mom took advantage of the nap for a photo op or two of her own.

All in all, it was a wonderful day full of making new friends, catching up with old ones, and just generally enjoying ourselves. We’re already looking forward to next year’s party!

The Calm After the Storm

Ryan doesn’t have meltdowns very often (although since he’s been teething, it does happen just a bit more frequently), but when he does I always feel terribly helpless. There’s not much I can do to calm the storm, I just have to wait until it passes. Usually it passes because he’s fallen into an exhausted sleep. And I must admit, the sleep after a meltdown is the most beautiful, most peaceful, calmest thing I have ever seen.


I love watching Ryan sleep at any time, because either he’s being funny and singing to himself or making faces or wiggling like a puppy, or he’s out cold and as limp as a rag doll. But when I see his tear-streaked face relax into peaceful slumber – ahhh, there’s nothing more wonderful than that.

And the best part is that when he wakes from a post-meltdown sleep, it’s as if the meltdown never even happened: he’s happy and cheerful and wants to play, and grins at whomever he sees when his eyes open. It’s as if that peaceful slumber has purged all the unhappiness from his mind and body, and he has a completely fresh start.

Even as an adult, every once in a while I have a really, REALLY good night’s sleep and I feel like the woes of the world are all washed away, and I have a completely clean slate. Waking up in the morning after sleep like that is one of the most joyous sensations I’ve felt. And Ryan gets that nearly every day! Babyhood has some rough moments, but there are benefits. Boy, are there ever benefits. And joy every morning is one of the best benefits of all.

I Hab a Code

Last week Herb caught a miserable cold, and despite our best efforts, Ryan caught it on Friday night. He was fine during the day, but he was crankier than usual during the evening, and he woke up at 10:30pm with an unpleasant cough, a stuffy, runny nose, and that awful “misery” cry that says he’s horribly uncomfortable. We gave him some Tylenol for the sore throat, put the humidifier on for the stuffy nose, and gave him a small bottle for general comfort, and he fell back asleep for a few hours. But when he woke up at midnight, he was inconsolable. I snuggled him, bounced him, fed him, patted his back, and sang to him for over an hour until finally he fell asleep on my chest from pure exhaustion. He slept restlessly for a few hours than woke in misery again. We repeated the cycle all night: crying, Tylenol, bottle, more crying, exhausted sleep, wake, lather, rinse, repeat.

I think what must be most miserable for a baby who’s sick is that he has no idea that he’ll get better. Children have very little comprehension of time, or of things that change over the course of time. All they understand is the here and now, so when they have trouble breathing because of a stuffy nose, or their throats hurt, or their tummy is upset, in their minds this is how it will be forever. Remember that viral YouTube “David After the Dentist” video? The little boy is recovering from anesthesia and is disoriented and seeing double, and asks his daddy despairingly, “Will I feel like this forever?”

Fortunately, even if Ryan doesn’t know he won’t feel like this forever, Mommy and Daddy know. So we do our best to keep him comfortable and distracted, we wipe his nose and pat his back and crank the humidifier. We walk him, we bounce him, we sing all three hundred variations of “Old McDonald Had a Farm”, we even reassure him that he’ll feel better soon. Sometimes it feels like nothing we can do will help, but just holding him when he finally drops from exhaustion and misery makes me feel like I’m doing something. I may not be able to make him better, but at least I can reassure him that Mommy is here. He won’t feel like this forever, but Mommy and Daddy will be here for him forever.

The Privileges of Childhood

Have you ever been in a long boring meeting and wished you could just put your head down on the conference table and do this?

Ah, the privileges of childhood. You don’t have to force yourself into a particular schedule, eat at a certain time, even go to sleep at a certain time. When you’re hungry, you eat. When you’re tired, you sleep. And if you’re lucky, you can even do both at the same time.

Life is pretty tough for a baby. You can’t tell anyone what you need, most of the time you can’t get it for yourself, you’re dependent on others to feed you, clothe you, take you places, and change your diapers. There’s not much freedom there. But you are free to obey your body’s impulses. That’s not a bad tradeoff, when you think about it. How often have you thought to yourself, “I would love to take a nap right now, but I can’t”? Or, “I’m hungry, but I shouldn’t eat because it’s not lunchtime yet”? Or even, “I really have to pee, but I’d better finish this project before I take a bathroom break”? Babies never have to worry about that. Hungry? Cry and someone will generally feed you on the spot. Have to pee? That’s what diapers are for, go ahead and let loose. Tired? Doesn’t matter where you are, just lay down your head and off to sleepy-land. And believe me, kids can sleep anywhere. A friend of mine told me his son had once fallen asleep on horseback. No, not a merry-go-round horse, an actual horse.

What a fabulous privilege!

Off-Duty Time

As much as I love being a mom, even being a stay-at-home mom, there are definitely times when I need a little break. You can’t do anything 24/7 without losing your mind eventually. So those hours when I get to put up the mental “Off Duty” sign are just wonderful.

Take last night, for example. I went out to dinner with a girlfriend and Herb took baby duty for the evening. Now, I don’t want to make it sound like he never does this, or that I’m usually in charge in the evening. As a matter of fact, most of the time as soon as he comes home from work, he takes charge of Ryan and I get to make dinner unencumbered, or work at the computer, or run a load of laundry or dishes. Any he always does tubby time and bedtime. But I feel like I’m still on call, simply because I’m there. And of course, the mom-radar never shuts off, so I’m still on alert. But getting to be out of the house, blissfully unaware of any fidgeting or crankiness or lack of cooperation, now that’s being off duty.

Even this morning I’m getting a bit of off-duty time. I heard Ryan fussing at 6 am (!!) this morning, and when I went in to check on him, he was flipped over on his back, turned sideways in the crib, with his blanket off him and mushed in the corner, and he was grinning exuberantly at me, absolutely wide awake. So I put him back on his belly where he could reach his toys, tucked his blanket back over him, and waited to see what he would do. Instead of turning to me or fussing, he very contentedly began chewing on his elephant’s ears, and as I headed back to bed for what I hoped would be 15 or 20 more minutes of peace, I heard him turn on his sunshine music box. I dropped off to sleep pretty quickly, so I’m not sure if he kept playing for a long time or if he dropped back to sleep pretty quickly himself, but I do know that when I got up at 8 to take a shower, he was sound asleep. And as I’m writing this, he’s just barely starting to stir. Which means that I had a wonderful leisurely breakfast all by myself (Daddy’s getting over a bad cold so he’s sleeping a bit late, too). I enjoy having company, but every now and then it’s nice to have a few minutes to myself without my “mommy” hat on.

And I find that those few minutes to myself rejuvenate me for another day of mommyhood. I’m glancing at the baby monitor as I write, and I feel a little thrill of excitement and joy as I see some stirring, a little hand squeezing his blanket, a fuzzy little head turning back and forth, hearing an occasional soft peep. I’m looking forward with renewed energy to another day of watching my little man explore and discover and learn. But for a few more minutes, I’ll enjoy being off duty and just watching him sleep.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Ryan has always been a good sleeper. He started sleeping through the night at 10 weeks and hasn’t looked back – he’s been sleeping 10 to 11 hours a night for weeks now. His morning nap is rarely less than two hours and his afternoon nap is often more than an hour. He sometimes fights those naps, but once he goes down he sleeps like a log, no matter where he is.

Lately, though, he’s been getting twitchy in his sleep, especially when he’s first falling asleep. The other night he was making noises in his sleep for a while. I went in to see what the trouble was and he was squirming and wriggling and even lifting his head, but his eyes were closed tight and he was very definitely not awake. I rubbed his back for a minute and he calmed down and relaxed back into a more “normal” sleep. I had to laugh because Herb occasionally talks or mumbles or squirms in his sleep, and I can often calm him down by rubbing his back as well. So was Ryan having a dream, just like Daddy does? And what is it that a baby would dream about?

He often plays in his crib when he wakes up, so I wonder if he’s dreaming that he’s awake and playing in his sleep.  

His little brain is continually busy these days, seeing and hearing and smelling new things all the time, learning new skills, processing everything that he takes in. It would be no surprise at all if his mind is taking advantage of sleep time to process more information! Maybe this is a sign that we have a very creative, imaginative, and thoughtful child on our hands.

Or maybe he’s just dreaming up all the different ways he’ll be able to get into trouble when he’s bigger.

Snuggle Bug

One of the best parts of having a baby is having a warm little person snuggle right into your arms. Whether he's wiggling and crying and snurfling and getting various bodily fluids all over your shoulder while he's doing it, or whether he's quietly nodding off and sleepily fading into you with a soft hug, it's the most wonderful feeling in the world.

One of the things that makes it feel so wonderful is how perfectly trusting the baby is. He can relax in the knowledge that you will protect and take care of him, and that he is completely safe in your arms. And doesn't it feel wonderful to be trusted like that? It's a heavy responsibility, but also a great honor. I want to do everything I can to live up to that trust.

So while Ryan is snuggling under my chin, I am thinking about his future. I am planning on how I will teach him skills, like walking and reading, and how I will teach him manners and courtesy. I am planning on how to answer his questions like, "Why is the sky blue?" and "Who is God?" and "Where did I come from?" and "Why do people have to die?" I am thinking about what I'll say if he doesn't make the team, or if he flunks a test, or if his best friend ditches him, or if his girlfriend breaks up with him. I am thinking about what I'll say when he does make the team, or ace a test, or make a new best friend, or introduce me to his girlfriend. I'm imagining what he'll be like on vacation this summer, and next summer, and endless summers to come. I'm picturing him at 6 months old, and 6 years old, and 16 years old.

And I am mentally promising him that I will be there for him for all of those moments, joys and sorrows, successes and failures, loves and losses. And some of them I'll be able to help, and some of them will see me standing helplessly by. But I will be there, loving him, no matter what.

Because he'll always be my little snuggle bug.

Sing, Sing a Song

I've always been surrounded by music. I could sing as soon as I could talk, maybe sooner. I have in my head a repertoire of music ranging from high opera (believe me, you don't want to hear me sing that) to the lowest of doggerel (come to think of it, you probably don't want to hear me sing that, either). I have so much of it in my head that I don't even know what's in there. Every now and then I break into some random ditty and then think, hm, didn't know I knew that song. And over the past few months since Ryan's been on the scene, my brain has dredged up more silly children's songs than I ever knew that I knew.

There are, of course, the classic lullabies: Hushabye Baby, All the Pretty Little Horses, Hush Little Baby (although I'm still not sure whether the looking glass is "brass" or "crass", not that either one makes an awful lot of sense). There are a few less well-known lullabies that require me to make up a few missing lyrics, like All Through the Night: "Sleep my child and peace attend thee, all through the night. Guardian angels God shall send thee, all through the night. Something something something something, God to earth is now descending. Childhood's dreams are never-ending, all through the night." I know the first two lines are right, I haven't the faintest idea what the middle part is, and I made up the last line just so it rhymes at the end. So far, Ryan hasn't seemed to mind my edits.

A much more fun category is all those repeated, building verse-on-verse songs, like There's a Hole in My Bucket, There's a Hole at the Bottom of the Sea, There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Spider (Ryan's favorite, mostly because of the "that wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her" part), and One Elephant Went Out to Play. The latter is especially useful because there's no limit to the number of verses you can sing. It's like 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, only in reverse and somewhat less annoying. As long as you can count, you can keep adding elephants. My record so far is about twenty, but I can picture going up to at least 50 in the future.

Then we have the plain old silly songs, like Hickory Dickory Dock, Chim-Chiminny, and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The nice thing about most of those is they're so nonsensical that no-one even notices if you make up some words because you can't remember the real ones, or create a few extra verses on the fly. Seriously, if someone doesn't balk at the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, are they really going to question your lyrics?

All the songs I've mentioned so far are songs that I learned and loved as a child. But I have a confession: I have another whole stash of children's songs that I picked up in my adulthood, not by babysitting, but by the guilty pleasure of having listened to a children's radio program called the Playground for the past few years. It features wonderful songs like I Am a Pizza, What Kind of Cat Are You?, and the Day the Moose Got Loose. (And less wonderful ones like the Hamster Dance and the incredibly annoying Pokemon theme song, but we'll ignore those for now.) Kids today have the benefit of not only classic children's performers like Raffi, Wayne from Maine, Laurie Berkner, the Wiggles, and Lois, Bram and Sharon, but many performers who don't sing specifically for little ones but whose music is endlessly entertaining for them anyway, like Weird Al Yankovic and his classic song, The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota. And endless a cappella groups with unforgettable hits like Liposuction and My Underwear Kept Ridin' Up My Rear (I don't plan on introducing that one to Ryan any time soon, but I'm sure he'll discover it somehow anyway). If you're creative and keep your ears open, there are endless songs all around that are a delight to sing to a child.

And speaking of singing to a child, I'd better wrap this up. There's a certain young man upstairs who's looking forward to hearing about a little duck with a feather on his back.

That's Not Silence, It's the Sound of Angels Singing

Last night my Little Man was so pooped that we put him to bed early - he was out cold by 10:30 (he usually goes down closer to midnight). We stayed up taking down the Christmas tree (I think I could have made another whole tree from the needles I swept up afterwards) and as I plopped into bed a little after midnight, I wondered if I might as well just stay up, since I was sure he'd be waking me up in a matter of minutes. And sure enough, at about 12:45 I heard a few seconds of fussing. I laid in bed waiting for the fussing to turn into a full-fledged wail, but he quieted himself down and I drifted off to sleep again. When I woke up again, it was still quiet, so I rolled over to see what time it was: 5:45!! I thought to myself, good heavens, I must have been so exhausted that I slept through his cries and Daddy got up and fed him. But then I started having typical new mom (read: insane and panicky) thoughts and considered getting up to check on him. I convinced myself that they were just that, insane thoughts, and he was fine - I convinced myself for about 15 minutes, that is. At 6 I couldn't stand it any more and I tiptoed in to listen to him breathing. And I noticed that he was sleeping on his tummy, which is how Daddy had put him down at 10:30. Before I get a spate of angry e-mails quoting the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the "Back to Sleep" campaign, let me say that we generally do put him down on his back. But there are times when he just won't go to sleep on his back, and since he's strong as an ox and can lift himself up and turn his head when he's on his tummy, every once in a while we do put him down that way. But I don't think we've ever put him on his tummy for two sleep sessions in a row, which is how I knew that he had, in fact, been sleeping for an uninterrupted stretch of nearly 8 hours! Alleluia!

I am not so naive as to assume that this is a new habit and not a fluky one-time occurrence that won't happen again until kindergarten. But the fact that it happened once means it is possible, and therefore it WILL happen again at some point, even if it isn't tonight. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

But now comes a new dilemma: when Daddy got up at 8 and realized he hadn't gotten his usual early morning bonding time, he gave me the saddest puppy-dog face I'd ever seen on him. So when Ryan is consistently sleeping through the night, will we start racing each other for the early-morning snuggle time? I suppose that's better than the stereotypical midnight "It's your turn to feed him" "No, it's YOUR turn to feed him" argument. (Which we've never had, by the way, although there have been a few "I'll get him" "No, I'll get him" debates, which Daddy generally wins, mainly because he has the side of the bed closest to the door. But I digress.) And I guess it's only fair that Daddy wins that one most of the time, since I get to have him all day long while Daddy is off to work. In fact, going 8 hours last night without snuggling him, even though I was sleeping for most of that time, made me realize how much Daddy must miss him during the day!

Hm, sleep vs. baby snuggling. I guess I'll have to think of that as a win-win situation.