a little evening yoga session,
finish the laundry,
fix a light supper and
read before bed.
that was the quiet evening i'd planned and looked forward to...
...............................................
Kai has been sleeping horribly. Like, worse than ever. I've read that babies often have disrupted sleeping patterns when they are mastering a new skill (i.e. crawling) or when they are teething (check, double check).
he's not really waking up that OFTEN, it's just a constant battle to get him back to sleep once he wakes up. (sometimes over an hour...)
everyone that i've whined to has said the same thing..."you gotta let em' cry."
yeah, easier said than done.
people have told me, and i've read that i should shut both bedroom doors and turn my monitor off and just let him "cry it out," "learn to self-soothe," blah, blah, blah....
here's the thing. i'm going to hear him no matter what, which means that inevitably, i will not be sleeping.
so tonight, i decided to "grow a pair" and not buckle under my baby boy's cries for me once i've put him to bed.
we went through our nightly bedtime routine (dinner, play, bath, book, bottle, bed) and after discovering was out of the room, he cried.
i let him cry for a good 15 or so minutes and when i couldn't take it anymore i went in and repositoned him, covered him up and patted his little butt and sang to him...too much? maybe, i couldn't help it. i only did it for a few minutes, then i left.
he cried some more.
i waited 10-15 minutes and went in and soothed him again. it looked like he was asleep so i snuck away...
and he cried.
i decided that "enough was enough" and let him be.
i anxiously picked up around the house, did laundry and tried not to hear him. but i heard him, and i heard him, and i heard him.
i don't know exactly how long it was but it was definitely after the 20 minute mark that i decided i couldn't take it anymore and marched into his room to PICK HIM UP AND SNUGGLE HIM (yes, i said it, don't care what the dang experts say!) and knew right as i opened his door that something wasn't right.
it didn't smell like my sweet, clean, freshly bathed and lotioned babe.
i reached down to pick him up in the dark and found him and his bed/blankets/stuffed animals/crib bumpers covered in puke.
not spit-up, puke. there IS a difference. i'll spare you the explanation (you're welcome).
i picked him up and he immediately stopped crying but continued to projectile vomit all over me, the carpet, his crib, his toys, the walls.....
he was crying, i was crying, and we were both a slimy mess.
and to top it all off, he was poopy, that was probably WHY he had been crying all along. and i just ignored him. at that moment i HATED everyone who had given me the "cry it out" advice and i HATED myself for letting him cry for an hour in a poopy diaper--so hard that he completely emptied his little tummy (i honestly don't know HOW he had all of that inside of him).
i changed him (crying and apologizing), stripped his jammies off and took him to the bathroom to clean him up. i gave him a warm sponge bath and put fresh p.j.s on him (still crying) and then called my Mom.
"is that normal? can i feed him? i'm a bad mommy! can he sleep without crib bumpers? do you think he has food poisoning? i'm a bad mommy, what should use on the carpet? should he sleep with me? i'm a bad mommy!"
what i said went something like that, while in the back ground Kai was singing/babbling so loudly and jovially that my Mom apologetically laughed "well, he sounds pretty happy now."
me on the other hand, i'm covered in puke and have to figure out how to completely strip Kai's crib, scrub the carpet/walls/toys and balance my baby who is clinging to me like a spider monkey.
after more laundry, rigging make shift crib bumpers out of blankets, re-making Kai's bed and trying to distract him from crawling in the mess he made so I could scrub away and {finally} getting him tucked back into a clean crib and ensuring that he was comfortable and fast asleep, here i am:
dressed for yoga.
covered in puke splatters instead of glistening beads of sweat.
eating a plate full of nachos instead of a light healthy salad.
vowing to never let Kai "cry it out" for that long again.
waiting for MORE laundry to dry...
learning the hard lesson, yet again, that i can map out my days, weeks and months and prepare for my desired destination...
sometimes it faster, sometimes it's round-about. sometimes i end up in an unknown, unexpected place.
but you know what?
it always turns out
that i'm right where i need to be...
even if it means i'm up to my ears in laundry with nacho cheese on my face and puke in my hair.
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