Potty break.

Last night we had a first! Alex got up to pee instead of peeing in his Pull Up! (Yes, he still wears them at night...and he will until he's 19 for all I care. Daytime training was easy, yo. Nighttime training will just happen on its own.)

But he did it on his own, is my point. And the only reason we are aware of it is because the little stinker came in our room and used our bathroom....and left the bathroom light on and the door open a la 3 a.m. So, I guess in theory he could have been doing this for months and was just using the hall bathroom? (Because 9 out of 10 mornings his Pull Up is dry).

Either way, *happy dance* for more independence!

He comes by it naturally.

Getting into a morning routine in the new house has been interesting. You see, in our old house, everything was no more than 10 feet from anything else. When we were getting ready in our one bathroom in the mornings, Alex's room was three steps away. If he was up and watching cartoons, that was six steps away. If we wanted a glass of water from the kitchen, 15 steps. You get my point.

So, mornings in the new house have just taken some getting used to.

I'm not sure if it was the transition from crib to big boy bed, but this kid is NOT a morning person. (See also: gets it from his Momma.) Anyway, the new part of our morning routine (after 17 songs, turning on all the lights, opening his shades and finally just pulling him out of bed) is that he gets dressed and comes back into our bed to sleep some more.

I'd by lying if I said I wasn't tempted to join him.

For example, I give to you Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning of this week, in pictures:

I get it, kid. I toooooooootally get it.

Snuggling is my most favoritest.

I love sleeping in. I love snuggling. Mostly, I adore lazy Saturday mornings spent in bed doing absotootely nothing. We do this a lot at our house.

Lucky for me, Alex also has this gene. He's the best sleeper--in bed by 7:30 pm and we usually have to wake him around 7 am. Joey, sadly, does not have this gene. Man can't sleep in to save his soul. More on that later.


Anyway, I hit the jackpot in that Alex loves to snuggle. He'll often ask in the middle of the day to snuggle or have me wrap him up "like a baby burrito" and just hold him. It's like drugs for Moms, I tell you.

Through all this snuggling, he's never really gotten attached to any sort of stuffed animal, but has taken a recent and adorable shining to MY childhood teddy bear, Mr. Snuggles. This bear has seen the world--from Thailand to summer camps--and now is enjoying the view from a certain 3-year-old's crib. Yes, he's still in his crib. I'm holding on as long as possible. Don't judge.

In the next issue of "Why My Kid's Awesome And I'm Not Sure What I Did To Deserve It," we shall discuss how the little man has basically potty trained himself. Yep. You read that correctly.

For better or for worse, even sleep deprived.

So Joey has this...um...habit...of sleep screaming. Yes, you read that right. It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does, it's terrifying.

It used to happen with a recurring dream about spiders. The man is bat-shit terrified of spiders, y'all. He would be having some sort of REM-induced Charlotte's Web nightmare, only to jolt himself (and me!) out of a sound sleep by sitting straight up in bed and tearing at the air around him with vim and vigor to squash all the imaginary attack spiders. In our 4-and-some-change years of marriage, I have nearly crapped the bed and/or had a heart attack all dozen or so times this has happened.

The other night, he did it again for the first time in a long time. But instead of declaring war on imaginary spiders, he sat straight up and SCREAMED at the laundry basket next to our bed to "STAY RIGHT THERE!" Now, as I mentioned on Facebook, the laundry basket could have really been being an asshole for all I know. I was dead asleep. At least until he screamed me awake and my heart rate rose to a trillion BPM, causing me to not fall back asleep that evening and be very grumpalicious in the morning.

And then last night, the man I love more than anything on planet earth did. it. again. OMG. Two nights in a row with this. But apparently in last night's dream, our house was on fire. So he sat up straight in bed and started screaming "GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT RIGHT NOW!"

Now, in the event of an actual fire in my home, I would hope he would do just a tidge more to get me and Alex out to safety, but I'll give him a pass since he was, in fact, sleeping when he was trying to save me from an imaginary flaming inferno with little to no actual escape plan.

I can't help but think all this night screaming means something. My initial thoughts tell me it means he needs to sleep on the couch so I'm not woken up by screams that literally make my heart beat out of my chest and make it impossible to fall back asleep. My secondary thoughts pretty much tell me the same thing.

I suppose it could be worse. I know a guy who used to sleep drive. Yes, this is true. Even I have strange sleep habits--I was a horrible sleepwalker when I was a kid. I tried to pee in the sink once, and another time I was at summer camp and walked (sleeping!) like 100 yards behind my cabin in the middle of the night. Yeah, that was creepy. Imagine waking up in the middle of a forest. Alone.

So, anyway, back to my original point. How can we get the sleep screaming to stop? Perhaps no more ice cream before bed...

Disney hates my kid.

So I'm part of a "corporate entertainment" distribution list - basically they send out pre-sale and discounted offers to employees for local events in our area. We all know I am a sucker for a good deal and I love live events, so basically it's always a win-win.

Until Disney came along.

They are offering pre-sale seats AND a discount for Disney on Ice shows on Oct. 12 and 13. A Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. The show starts at SEVEN THIRTY PM. Are you kidding me? What non-parent genius planned that?

Because my kid? He's for sure in bed by 7:45/8:00 every night. And every other kid in the world? Should also be in bed by this time. It's good for their little brains and bodies to get good, solid rest.

No wonder the seats are discounted. Asshats.

No...seriously, Samuel. Please make yourself comfortable.

Like Mother, Like Son.

I love sleeping. It is far and away my favorite pasttime, and it's something I do rather well if I do say so myself.

So it should come as no surprise that my spawn is also a gold medalist in sleeping. 2 points for the current event reference. Here are some recent shots of him doing what he does best:

Cashed out in Daddy's chair with his favorite fishie.

Al bundy pose courtesy of Joe, who was certain

it was the funniest thing, ever.

Zonked on the floor. Rear in the air = favorite pose.

Sleeping peacefully in his crib. Yes, he sleeps with blankets AND there is a bumper in his crib. *gasp* If you look carefully you will also see Mr. WIPpo and his glow worm. Don't judge.

Seriously. This is how Joe found him on Saturday morning.

It doesn't look comfortable, but to each his own, right?

And finally, resting peacfully with Poppi during the Super Bowl.

The One Where I Really Embarrass My Husband.

Joey was diagnosed with sleep apnea a few eeons before he met me, and was prescribed one of those breathing machine thing-a-ma-doodles (technical name, yes) to help him sleep better and keep from snoring/choking himself awake every 10 minutes.

Image source. No, this is not actually Joe. I would not marry a man that sleeps in manjamas.

Yes. That's seriously what they look like - and to make the visual more appealing, Joey actually has the one that plugs right into his notrils. He tells me it's the "cooler" design...as if. You'd think with all the advances in modern medicine that they could make these things a little more, um, attractive. For crying out loud, REGIS uses one! And we wonder why I was Joey's first serious girlfriend after this machine?

Anyway, the CPAP (Continous Positive Airway Pressure) machine (yes, I Googled it) got packed away quite awhile ago. He seemed to be cured of the dreaded snoring...and the nights where it was bad, a simple Breathe Right strip would do the trick.

However...about 3 weeks ago he started choke-snorting me awake every 20 minutes. Being the ever-so-charming and loving wife that I am, I would thwop him in the side, which would work for a hot minute until he began waking the neigborhood with his snores again. The more he would do it, the more irritated I became. The more irritated I became, the harder it was to fall back asleep. You can see where this is going?

Last week, as a matter of life or death, the machine came out of retirement. I've never slept sounder in all my life. Joe is also sleeping much better and is so much more energetic throughout the day. Win. Win.

Our nightly routine now consists of me laughing hysterically at him for at least 5 minutes while he puts on his Darth Vader mask. The "Kristi, I am your husband" jokes never get old, and I'm quite sure I've made more than twelve "Night At The Museum 2" references.

"There's just too much going on here. You're evil. You're asthmatic. You're a robot. And why the cape? Are we going to the opera?"

Love it.

Joe, Alex and I had ourselves a nice little Sunday: church, breakfast, nap. Then we got a strange burst of energy (courtesy of our friend, SF Red Bull) and decided to pawn Alex off on our faboo neighbor, Sue...who also happens to be a Grandma-in-training. Joe and I all but squealed the tires on the Jeep to head out shopping for everything necessary to do our summer planting.

And presto! changeo! our yard looks AWESOME. Also, since Alex was being rocked on Sue's front porch, that means he was o.u.t.s.i.d.e. all day.

Time to open a bottle of wine, kick back and let him sleep for hours on end.

Glorious!

Bad Mom?

Last weekend we went to my cousin's graduation party. Thusly, Alex was outside for pretty much most of the day. They say that fresh air is good for babies and helps them to sleep longer, so I was curious to put it to the test that night.

There was a Wings game on, so Joe had him asleep at about 7 pm. (Those not in the know, my husband is a wee bit [read: ridiculously] superstitious, and since Alex was sleeping when the Wings won the previous game, he must also be sleeping in order for them to win subsequent games. This also holds true for all food/beverages consumed during a winning game. Or activities. Or things said. Or clothes worn. Whatever.)

Anyway, he slept from about 7-10 pm. We fed him, changed him, and hypnotized him back to sleep at about 10:45...AND HE DIDN'T WAKE UP AGAIN UNTIL 5:15 am!

Imagine my delight when I woke up and glanced at the clock. Well, I really didn't 'glance' since I am nearly blind as a bat. I more or less stumbled around in a seemingly drunken stupor until I found my glasses...but then it was still really dark so I had to pretty much Helen Keller the clock on the wall until I saw/felt 5:15. At which point I thought the clock was surely wrong/innacurate/out of batteries and searched for my cell phone which never tells a time lie, thanks to GPS or whatever government top secret entity keeps time. Do you see how nothing is ever easy in my life? Not even telling the freakin' time.

Anyway, my cell phone confirmed it was, in fact, 5:15 am and I was absolutely elated over his long length of slumber. I was so excited that I am guilty of pretty much proclaiming it to anyone with ears. But strangely, the first thing out of people's mouths was always, "Were you scared?" Honestly, at least 15 women have had that response.

Peoplepeoplepeople...why the h-e-double-hockey-sticks would I be scared? I was delighted! Overjoyed! Dancin' on the ceiling with Lionel Ritchie, in fact!

Apparently, most first time moms should be "scared" the first time their baby sleeps a long stretch like that. Because it's been too long since he ate? Because he could have ran away? Seriously! He's SLEEPING...which means IIIIIIII am sleeping!!!!!! <--AWESOMENESS

Since that day, I've made it my mission to get Alex outside for at least one hour every day. Right now, he's in his swing by the front screen door, breathing in that beautiful, glorious, sleep-inducing air. Do they can this stuff? Where can I buy it?

Bad mom? I think not. Great kid? Absolutely.