Holy Hell

Jackson has been pulling himself up onto everything for about a month now. He reaches his arms so high, grips his tiny little fingers onto anything he can get a hold of and then using all of his power pops himself up onto two legs. We are so proud of him and you can see he is so proud of himself.

Lately this major milestone has become a major nightmare. Bedtime used to be something I enjoyed, it would be our time to snuggle while he nursed and I read to him. He would slowly get tired and I'd put him in his crib with a goodnight kiss. Sure, there were nights where he would fuss for 10min or so but he would eventually fall asleep.

This past week everything has changed. During our quiet time before bed he seems agitated, not really feeding, kicking, grunting, the whole deal. I eventually put him in his crib and he pops up right away and stands in his crib rubbing his eyes and crying. I leave the room and his crying only escalates into blood curdling screams. I leave him in there for a few minutes and when I go back I find him still standing, with tears and snot running down his face. I lay him down again, try patting his back, sushing, the whole deal but nothing seems to work. And God forbid I actually pick him up because then he really loses it, screaming and throwing himself backwards, pushing away from me. Bedtime has now extended into an hour and a half ordeal. So far it's ended with me nursing him again which gets him to settle down and become calmer. He'll do a full feeding and I can even put him back in his crib where he falls asleep.

Along with this, he's not sleeping well anymore, waking multiple times throughout the night. Amy and I are both exhausted and I'm at my wits end. I feel so bad for him and nothing I do offers him any comfort. I'm hoping that he's just teething and that this ends soon.

So please raise your hand if you're being an absolute terror at bedtime!

Hoarders

Have you ever watched that TV show Hoarders? The one where people let their stuff pile up and up and up to the point where they're nearly drowning in it and then are paralyzed to do anything about it. That's how I feel about this blog. There have been countless times where I've wanted to make an entry, then didn't and now I'm all full up in my head with posts. It's gotten so overwhelming that I did what I felt was the easiest thing to do...nothing. But as all hoarders know this is not the answer because things continue to build and eventually you become that person who's body is found under their mountain of junk. (True story: http://www.newser.com/story/99215/missing-woman-found-dead-buried-under-junk-in-home.html)

So I have decided to slowly declutter my brain and clean out my head of posts. I'll leave the downer posts until later because two crappy posts in a row would turn even the sunniest of personalities sour. So happy times it is and what has been bringing a smile to our face during all our upheaval? JACKSON!

We have finally found a daycare for Mr. Jackson. He's been going part time 3 days a week for a couple weeks now. It's given me the chance to get the house in order and to be able to focus 100% on my work. Finding daycare up here is so damn difficult. Because maternity leave is 52 weeks, I guess their isn't a huge need for infant care. Add to that we wanted to send him somewhere licensed and add to that a large percentage of facilities have to take a certain number of subsidy kids we were starting to freak out at the limited number of choices.

Thankfully a couple blog readers stepped up with recommendations and we couldn't be happier. Because he's 8 months old, he's the baby of the baby class with the rest of the kiddos being between 12-18 months. So, he gets extra cuddles from all the teachers. Needless to say we love the place, they love Jack AND they have WEBCAM!! WIN, WIN, WIN! So after writing this I think it only fair that I be honest and say that maybe not 100% of my focus is work when he's a daycare. How can you not obsessively look at this?

Before you ask. Yes there are teachers and other kids in the room :)I just didn't feel right about taking a picture of them without permission/approval. He's having a blast and bring home craft projects and new skills like pulling himself up on things (which will be a topic of a whole other post).

Whew! That was a bit of a long post. Thanks for baring with me on that one. I promise to post soon and to not let my head get so buried in thoughts again.