I'd like to share something with you. This is a pie chart (yeah, I'm a nerd, shut up) of Blake's night on Friday.

Notice anything...unusual???

(crickets)

Ok, I'll just tell you. He woke up three times on Friday night. Last night too. Four of those six times he nursed to sleep immediately. One waking each night required the Boy to walk him for a half-hour and cuddle him to sleep. He's spending half the night in our beds, half the night in his crib, and it's all at exactly the right times. I don't lie awake at night, trying to fall asleep without disturbing him. I don't worry about consigning him to the "prison" of his crib, since we're always right across the room when he needs us. And all of us have been sleeping in three-hour stretches!!!!!

The first time I logged his night, he got up 8 times. Compared to that, he's practically in a coma. It's finally working! It's finally working!

So tell me why I want to screw it all up & go to Chicago next month? With this kind of victory I think it might be best to stay home forever.

(Weird post-script: although sleep is going better than ever, for the last few days Blake has been clingy, whiny & prone to bursting into sudden tears if anyone flails their arms around him. More on this tomorrow, I think.)

Excellent day yesterday. Once again I was reluctant to shake off my social lethargy, so I tried to get together with my lazy friend instead. That didn't quite happen, but we were able to eat lunch at my beloved Bread & Roses (fruit salad! broccoli & cheddar quiche! cucumber soup with fresh dill, I sing of thee!) and drop a whole lot more cash at Diaper-eez. This time we bought another bale of pre-fold cloth diapers, 6 snazzy white wraps & extra mesh bags for the awesomeness that is the Baby Safe Feeder. Oh, and we bought a Trekker.

It was kind of a big deal, this Trekker. Before Blake was born, the Boy's step-mom gave us three carriers she'd rescued from Goodwill oblivion and we loved them all. That is, until we tried to put Blake in them. Then we realized why they'd been 'sent on,' as it were. First of all, they were hard to put on. Second of all, they weren't very secure; Blake slid around like a greased-up otter (which in all honesty he kind of resembled at that stage.) Third of all, they could only be worn in one position, which was an awkward & inconvenient one.

And last of all, there was the pain. The back pain, to be precise, although there was also neck pain sometimes. And the back pain of the world's crappiest carrier combined with the back pain of co-sleeping and the back pain of labour healing and became something that I very much did not want to invite into my life. The Boy found exactly one carrier that he could use, and since he was somehow immune to back pain (or because he didn't have the other two sources of pain jabbing him in the spine), he got some use out of this lone carrier.

We borrowed a sling and it was the same deal: the Boy could use it but I hated it. I didn't want to hate the sling; I was reading a lot of Dr. Sears' work at the time and I thought that it was my duty to love the sling. But I secretly hated the sling and hated that it was making me into something of an AP martyr. So I gave up on the sling.

We'd been talking vaguely about getting a new ergonomic carrier for some time, in the aimless way we talk about eating more raw fruits & vegetables or spending a year in England. For some reason I decided that yesterday was the day. There are lots of good reasons to get a decent carrier, but the best reason is that I can now wear my son without hurting. His sudden need for me can be satisfied without turning me into a martyred hunchbacked crone. And if that isn't cause for celebration, I don't know what is.

ye olde craptastic carrier & the snazzy new one. feel the love.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 8/29/2004 07:16:00 p.m.