Three Cheers!

First cheer for Graham, who rolled over for the first time this morning! We were all playing downstairs and decided it was tummy time. Jack loves to do tummy time, too, so he laid down on Graham's left side. Graham then turned with his whole body to look at Jack and was already halfway over, so Jack and I encouraged him to look even further up, and Graham rolled right over! It was amazing, as he had never shown any interest in rolling over before and isn't crazy about tummy time so hasn't done much of it. Immediately after the first time he rolled over, I tried to get Graham to do it again on video. Jack was too impatient to let Graham roll over himself, so the following video ensued. Rest assured it was not a fluke event, as Graham rolled over again later this morning while our friends Emily and Milo were over.

Second cheer for Jack, who did a fantastic job as ringbearer in my cousin Julie's wedding last weekend. They even had him carry *the real rings* (!) on the pillow, a prospect that really scared me when I first heard they were planning on it.

We rode the train to Nonna and Pops' house, which Jack loved. There was even a very nice conductor who came over to talk with us for about 10 minutes. Hilariously, Jack was so starstruck that he lost all ability to communicate. He started taking things out of our bag to show to the conductor and could only manage one-word descriptions.

Meanwhile, I was trying to demonstrate to Jack how he could ask questions of the conductor, who turned out to be excessively chatty with me. Thus for about 10 minutes our conversation went roughly like this:

Jack: (pulling out a book) Book!

Momma: So did you have to go to school for a long time to become a conductor?

Jack: Pretzels!

Conductor: Actually, yes. I went to Choo Choo U

Jack: Peanut butter!

Conductor: for about two months up in Wilmington

Jack: iPhone!

Conductor: Delaware. Out in Kansas, Johnson County Community

Jack: Sling!

Conductor: College has an associate's degree railroad science program

Jack: Breastfeeding cover!

Conductor: but I didn't want to go to school for that long, so I haven't done that.

Third cheer for both Jack and Graham who finally managed to take coordinated naps for the first time in a long time, allowing me to write this post. Graham's been resisting naps of late, and he's had a couple of two-wake nights recently, but he's still a fantastic sleeper. About two weeks ago he even managed to go from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m.! My baby can sleep through the night. I didn't think I'd be saying that until at least 6 months from now.

Graham at Julie's wedding

Jack playing the trumpet noisemaker favors that Dustin and Julie handed out at the wedding. I think everyone slightly regretted about 5 minutes after Jack got hold of it.

Is It Wrong? Yes, but...

The first question: Is it wrong that last night my 3 year old woke me up more often than my 2 month old?

Um, yes. But what can I do about it? Ugh. Last night both boys fell asleep around 9, though we tried to put them to sleep at around 8. Graham woke up at 3 for about half an hour. But Jack had already beaten him to two wake ups--at 1:30 and again at 2:30 Jack called out, "Daddy I need you!" Though he called for Daddy (everything's Daddy this and Daddy that right now for Jack), I went sleepwalking into his room to pull the covers up and give him a nuzzle-kiss, since Ben 1) rarely wakes up when Jack calls out, and 2) can't get up fast enough for my taste even if he does wake up. I, on the other hand, wake up so quickly that my first roommate freshman year of college was convinced that I only ever pretended to sleep; she swears that my alarm never made more than two beeps before I slammed it off. For the record, the second time I went into Jack's room last night, despite his obvious sleepiness, he accusatorily asked me, "Where's Daddy?" No credit at all for dragging myself out of bed.

I've been wondering how much Jack is waking up lately and we just aren't hearing it now because we're so sleep deprived. About a month ago I groggily awoke to hear Jack calling out in the most pitiful voice ever, "Daddy I need you! Daddy I need you! Hew-wo?" The hello was particularly heart-wrenching as I pulled myself out of bed to comfort my poor little boy. But my curiosity about his undetected night wakings deepened last week, while my mom was visiting. One night she accidentally locked herself out of our house after Ben and I had gone to sleep. After using the keypad to open the garage door, she found that even the door from the garage into the house was locked. She then tried knocking, but that didn't wake us, so, cringing, she decided she had to ring the doorbell. No response. After 20 minutes, 2 doorbell rings, and four garage door opening/closings, we finally woke up to her banging on the front window! Neither of us had heard a thing before that. So my guess is that Jack is waking up quite a bit more than we realize.

At any rate, I was extremely tired this morning and woke up with a too-little-sleep migraine. I've recently discovered that migraines seem to be my body's way of reminding me that mothers of two month old babies are not supposed to stay up to have any free time at all in the evenings. Even mothers with two month olds who could very fairly be labeled good sleepers should go to sleep by at least 9 p.m., according to my aching head. It's not a terribly frequent occurrence but is one that is particularly annoying, especially since breastfeeding prevents me from taking Excedrin, which normally will cure the problem in 15 minutes flat. No, to banish my migraines now I have to resort to caffeine, one of the main ingredients in Excedrin, but one that takes longer alone to work and has the side effect of keeping both Graham and me awake all...day...long. Not fun.

So on the way to playgroup, I drove through Starbucks to pick up my first nondecaf latte in a long, long time. Yes, Stacy, they amazingly have Starbucks drive throughs here in St. Louis. Sounds a little excessive when viewed from a city where everyone can walk nearly everywhere. I myself laughed aloud when we moved here and I realized that within a mile radius of our house we have not one but two Starbucks with drive through windows. Quite as amusing as the two Starbucks within view of Farringdon tube station. But when faced with endless stretches of five-lane roads and a distinct lack of good sidewalks that prevent walking almost anywhere, one is forced to use carseats instead of strollers. And when dealing with the hassle of carseats and the ensuing hassle of walking stroller-less with an infant and a preschooler, one quickly learns that a drive through anything is a true gift that should be given preference to a walkup version.

Well, generally drive throughs are a good thing. Today they were not. Due to Disney World-like magic, the line of waiting cars appeared about half its actual length. Had I known there were actually about 8 cars in front of me, I would have hauled the boys inside, carseat hassle or no. But I didn't realize how long it was until we were already trapped into the drive through line, at which point Graham immediately began wailing inconsolably. Simultaneously, the line came to a dead stop. The car at the window must have been paying in pennies, I swear. Five minutes later we haven't moved at all and can't move because of the concrete barriers beside us and cars behind and in front of us. Jack and I have exhausted our repertoire of lullabies, and none of them have calmed Graham in the least. So I jump out of the car and try to soothe Graham while leaving him in his car seat. Two or three minutes. Still no luck. Desperate, I unbuckle the seat and carry him to the front seat, where he remains with me until my venti nonfat iced cinnamon latte is lodged in my cupholder. We exited the drive through, pulled into the parking lot and I returned a very happy baby to his carseat with no problems.

Second question: Is it wrong to drive (even for just a few feet at less than 5 miles an hour) with a baby in your lap? Yes, but I have a lot more sympathy for Brittney Spears right now.

It's All In the Timing

Can I just say that I love, love, love our new daily routine? I mean, seriously, it's great. I never thought I would say that I adore getting up at 6 a.m., especially not while having a two month old baby, but I really do--I love waking up at 6 in the morning. Let me tell you why.

When Ben was working at a law firm, he usually didn't have to be at the office at any set time in the morning. So we never set an alarm, and he usually aimed for leaving our house somewhere around 8:30 or 9. We woke up when Jack did, had a leisurely breakfast together, then got ready for the day at our own pace. Of course, we were always slightly trying to hurry, so my "getting ready" usually consisted of just getting a shower. Ben usually needed to leave before I had time to dry my hair or get dressed, a process that currently involves about 10 costume changes since I have around that many outfits that fit me and I'm not satisfied with how I look in any of them. Jack was also still generally in his pajamas when Ben left for the day. And Graham? Well, for the two weeks of his life that Ben actually went to work at the firm, Graham's wardrobe didn't really consist of pajamas and non-pajamas so much as a general category of clothes that were hopefully not yet spit up upon since the last washing. There was no possibility of the three of us ever getting out of the house before 10.

But now we have a routine that I love firmly in place. We wake up at 6:15, if Graham hasn't already woken us. Graham, the awesome sleeper I deserve after having dealt with Jack's sleep problems for the past 3 years, has been fairly consistently waking up only once a night for the past two weeks! He goes to bed around 9, wakes between 2 and 3, and then goes back to sleep until 5:30 or 6. It's amazing. So we wake up, Ben gets showered and dressed, and I get showered and dressed, fix my hair, and occasionally even get makeup on (which is amazing since for the past six years I've put on nearly all makeup with the aid of a visor mirror) all by 7:30. Jack wakes up sometime around the time Ben's ready, so the two of them are generally done with breakfast by the time I'm ready. Even though the boys aren't dressed by the time Ben leaves around 7:30-7:45, we can still get out the door by 8:30 no problem. It's amazing. I know I just said that a few sentences ago, but it really is amazing.

By being ready so early, our morning is completely freed for us to do lots of fun activities. Just this week we've been to the park twice, the grocery store, Target, music class, and we made a valiant effort to go to the zoo (parking lot was full on a Wednesday? Seriously?). All in the morning. This makes for very sleepy boys, so we come home about noon, have lunch, read a book, and Jack is down for a nap by 1-1:30. He sleeps well and usually doesn't wake up until around 4. Graham generally eats during Jack's story, then pretends to go to sleep for a few minutes, then eats again and is down from 2-5. That leaves me with 2, that's TWO free hours in the middle of the day. Amazing.

But that's not even the best part. Ben gets to leave the office by 6 p.m. At the latest! And he's home by 6:15. At the LATEST! So my afternoon (post little boy wakeup) consists of playing with Jack for an hour, feeding Graham while reading to Jack or watching a video with him, then playing with the boys together. And then I get my husband back. I love my life.