Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Mr. Sandman, Bring Me New Parents ...

Well I have been somewhat remiss in posting lately. It seems being a toddler's mom and doing my job have caught up with me. I never seem to have time to just sit down and write. My apologies to the grandparents, aunts, uncles and possibly two to three other people who actually visit this blog. I will try to post some cute pics later — there haven't been enough of those lately, I realize — but, in the meantime, here are some updates on general happenings and milestones in Wilder's lives and ours:

Our goals as of a month ago were to:
A. Get Wilder off the middle-of-the-night bottle to which he'd become all too accustomed
B. Get some sleep
C. Get the kid away from bottles and over to sippy cups
D. Switch from formula to milk

Well, for starters, I'm happy — nay, ec-freakin'-static — to report that we are again sleeping through the night. Anyone who's had a more-than-two-minute conversation with me in the past few months knows that I had gotten rather cranky from sleep deprivation. Wilder was waking up three nights out of four screaming for a bottle, and, after granting him said request, I would then usually be up for at least one additional hour — usually more like two — worrying and fretting over work issues, life issues and, sometimes, more consequential issues such as who would get voted off on the next episode of Survivor.

Through all this, I learned that sleep deprivation is a very nasty little worm that burrows into your brain and changes your demeanor completely, rendering you a useless and endlessly bumbling and grumpy idiot. Just ask my husband — he can confirm the personality change. It also magically transforms your appearance into a wild-eyed, severely haggard and hideous version of your former self.

Anyway, fast forward because this post is already entirely too long: All I can say is man, is our kid a trooper. With very little of the crying and screaming and kicking that our pediatrician assured us we would experience, Wilder just let go of that bottle. And, since, goals C and D have happened, too. They say your kid will let you know when he's ready for these changes, which seem miniscule to us but can be HUGE to them. Anyway, I thought that sounded like a lot of hooey, but it's true. One day Wilder just stopped showing interest in his bottle. A couple days later, cold milk suddenly didn't seem so bad.

Phew.

Of course, there are always other challenges. We're all sick again. Wilder's almost over it, Jerry's somewhere near the end of it and I'm just getting started with it. Meaning I'll be spreading germs to my fellow plane riders on our way to Florida Thursday while Jer and Wilder will more than likely be picking up some new form of the crud. Oh well, at least we can bask in our sickliness near the ocean. We are SO looking forward to getting away. We need it. In fact, I'm hoping by the end of it that I'll look like my former 34-year-old reasonably happy self again.

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