Another Video for the Grandparents

Peter and the Woof from serenity johnson on Vimeo.
Joash reads me a naptime story.

Another Picture Post

This time with the addition of the belly baby's dad. See here our first use of candy as bribery in an effort to get Joash to sit and look at the camera.

Just Dancing from serenity johnson on Vimeo.
My mom is away on a trip right now, and I'm supposed to be stocking my dad up with snippets of his grandson. I'm doing a terrible job and forgot to post this video from last week! It really is only a video a grandparent is going to want to watch, as it's just 3 minutes of a kid dancing to a song, but it's a cute kid, and it's a Jackson Browne song.

Something Sweeter

All it took was two nights in the crib, and the poor kid's back to normal. Sometimes you don't realize you're rushing your baby out of babyhood until he tells you he's just not quite a big boy yet. And I'm pretty sure that's every mother's dream.

Anyhow, it's hot like fire outside these days, so, while we do our playground hour in the afternoon shade of the high rise apartments (seriously, we have to wait until 1:30 so the apartment adjacent to the park casts a long enough shadow to cool down all the slides), we also spend plenty of time sitting on the floor in front of a fan. I rarely leave the house with any intention of being looked at, but I had to meet Dan for lunch so we could apply for the Go Eun Mom Card. I still don't understand why, but Korea gives all mothers in the country a debit card with free money on it, even immigrant mothers, to offset the costs of pre-natal care and delivery. I make-upped my face for the occasion, and I decided to take advantage of it once we got home by taking some belly shots. Joash was really excited about the tripod and the "pickuhs, pickuhs," so he's in some too. 

This girl belly (here between 33 and 34 weeks) is so much bigger than my boy belly was, and I am amazed how differently they've behaved as fetal babies. Joash was like shoes tumbling in a dryer, but the girl is more like an inside-out massage chair. And she always seems to be awake! Every watch of the night, she's in there kicking around. Maybe it's cause Joash is so noisy. I think she's already getting used to rough housing because her brother is constantly climbing up onto my chest and sliding down my belly. He sure does love a baby, though. We were at a friend's house, and she was wearing her baby as she fell asleep, and Joash reached up and said, "share?," which is what he says when he wants to take a turn. He's about to have plenty of turns. I hope he's ready for it.

Doing it Wrong Since 2k11

Well, that was an interesting and horribly failed experiment. It is 3:16am on the millionth day of transitioning Joash from crib to bed, and no one's slept at night for months. We did everything Super Nanny told us, and I wasn't even surprised when it took Joash 2 hours and 100 tries instead of 1 and 10, because, with sleep, that's just how this kid is. And that first evening, Dan and I took turns walking him back, and we laughed and laughed because it was ludicrous, and I thought for sure all the getting up and down and the way it seized my belly was going to kick start this baby into labor.

So we tried door side vigilance. We tried tender understanding. We tried boot camp meanness. And Joash still stays awake for at least 2 hours in the middle of the night, 3 on nights like these. We have successfully traded real sleep for marathon naps. This has been the key to turning him into a good napper. Basic life ruining. 

You know how kids are supposed to get it if you stick with it? My kid does not have that synapse. We have done all the sleep transitions for months on end, with no getting it in sight. A solid month of cry it out, 2 hours every night. No getting it. This bed debacle for 6 weeks now. No semblance of getting it. I keep thinking we shouldn't give up because what if this is the night he starts getting it. No, stupid. There is no getting it. So back to the crib we'll go. And I don't mind him sleeping in a crib, and we should have just left him there in the first place. It seemed like a good idea, though. Moving him out for the new baby.

But how do you know your kid is really really not ready for such a thing. I am frustrated that we always seem to make the wrong parenting choices, but I guess that's what it is to be a new parent. Less than 2 years is not a long time to be doing a job, especially when the parameters are constantly changing. Still I am discouraged.

Anyhow if we can swing it this kid will be in a crib until he's 60. Hopefully the transition back tomorrow night will be even slightly less miserable than the transition forward.

Potty Talks Episode 2

Potty Talks Episode 2 - Alphabet and Animal Sounds from serenity johnson on Vimeo.

Yeah, Water

Yeah, Water from serenity johnson on Vimeo.
At the specific request of my mother, here is a video of Joash playing in the fountain.

Sleep No More

We're working on a week of disjointed sleep. Joash keeps deciding to wake up at 1:30am and hang out for several hours. Last night I woke up to him cuddled up in the crook of my legs. It was Dan's night to tackle the sleep struggle, so I went and hid in Joah's bed. I wrote the following during the previous night's midnight productivity boon.:

And, lo, how the sweet always turns sinister. We switched Joash to a real bed about a month ago in the midst of Dan's marathon month of travel. He had a rough first week but then settled into his normal sleep routine. And the sweetest development was that he would come in our room and tap on my back to wake me up for the day. Two weeks out from that, Dan's back home, and Joash now wakes every day at 5am, refuses bed until 10pm, and right now, at 3:12 in the morning, has been up and in and out of bed for 2 hours. I sat like a troll guarding his door for the first half of it, and then I locked myself in my room. He is pawing at the door like a lonely dog. Quick! Someone send me some self-congratulating mother of the year merchandise.

If there are any ticks Joah's marked with precision and fervor, they are the developmental sleep regressions. In this respect he is an overachiever. And he likes to revel in the fullness of them. If an 18 month regression is supposed to take a week but could last a month, give that kid his month of sleeplessness. His main strength has always been his persistent congeniality without sleep. He is like a high functioning wakefulness addict. Here in the throes of his 2 year regression, and I'm pretty sure it's going to take 2 years for him to come through.

I am convinced there are these procreational pockets in the space-time continuum. Brief pockets of sweetness coupled with relative ease that convince you you can start the process all over again. Without.these I am certain the human race would cease to exist. Our last such pocket clearly happened in October. I imagine it will be at least a year before we have another one. And so goes the circle of life.

Oddly enough, we're all doing really well on wonky sleep. Dan and I achieved a new level of solidarity taking turns walking Joash back to his bed those two hours early in the week. For some reason it all seems light-hearted and ridiculous for now. I mean, it's got to go back to normal sometime, right? Right? Just in time for a baby to be born, I suppose.