Last Night

Whew. We made it.

Last night the "fussy time" that Isaac has been having almost nightly between 8 and 9pm turned into a THREE HOUR nightmare. It started at 7:00, probably because I had just put him down and said to Zach, "Maybe he'll sleep through his fussy time tonight." Doh.

Just when we thought it was over at 9:30, he slept for 40 minutes (just in time for me to finish a beer and thus render me unable to nurse him) and woke up screaming again. He refused a bottle and wouldn't go back to sleep until mommy walked him around the condo--a trick against which all his attempts to stay awake are useless! When he was in a deep sleep (I can always tell how deeply he's sleeping by how heavy he gets), I laid him down and very....cautiously....crept....out....of....the....room.... He woke up. But thank God this time he only cried for a few minutes before drifting off for the night.

If you recall from previous posts, last night was to be the night that Zach took over, armed with a well-stocked fridge of expressed breastmilk, while I got a full night's sleep. After such a terrible evening, here's how my "first full night's sleep" turned out:

10:30--Spike is finally asleep for the night.
10:45--Zach and I get in bed and stare at the ceiling for 10 minutes with belly aches from hearing our poor baby cry so much.
10:55--We try to think of a way to clear our minds of the horrible nightmare we've just experienced. After vetoing popsicles in bed, running around the block naked, or watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we settle on thumb wrestling.
11:00--Zach kicks my butt in thumb wrestling. I challenge him to a rematch and he kicks my butt again. I challenge him to an arm wrestle and he kicks my butt again.
11:05--We stare at the ceiling again.
11:15--Just when Zach's about to fall asleep, I ask him a very important question. "How many days in a row do you think you could eat pizza for dinner before you'd get sick of it?"
He sighs. "Four."
I start cracking up.
"What's so funny?" he asks.
"I can't believe you answered me."
"It's the only way to move on with you."
I'm still cracking up, and so does he. "I love you, honey."
11:34--I say, "It's 11:34, time to go to sleep. Two o'clock, right?" Two o'clock is the time we agreed upon--if Isaac wakes up before two, it's sleep training for him; after two, Zach will give him a bottle.

2:00--Isaac wakes up. I swear he knows our plans! I wake Zach up. He goes to the bathroom while I listen to the baby cry. I lie awake as I hear Zach get the bottle and the baby and settle in to my nursing chair. I continue to lie awake as I hear "wah, wah, wah!!" and "Shh, Shh, Shh" over and over again. My boobs are responding to Isaac's cry anyway, so....
2:10--I get up and go to the bathroom. I go into Isaac's room and say, "I'll just feed him, hon."

So much for sleeping all night.

6:30--Izey wakes up again. Not bad! Only woke up twice! I feed him and then we both go back to sleep.

He normally wakes up between 7:30 and 8:30, which would have given us plenty of time to get ready for church. Apparently his crying jag really wore him out last night because when we woke up at 9:55am!!!!! he was STILL ASLEEP! He woke up a few minutes later. Needless to say, we missed church this morning. Say hi to God for us.