Cry it out, my little friend.

My sweet little boy, at almost one year, refuses to sleep through the night.  I'm a bit out of my element, because Dani and Tori were sleeping all night at 12 and 16 weeks, respectively.  I never had to really try that hard to get them to sleep well--we let them cry, but 3 month old baby cries just aren't too hard to deal with.  But Tommy, he was the last baby.  And he has consistently gotten up one or two times per night all year.  And, I've been lazy and have taken the path of least resistance, which is getting up, giving him a quick bottle and putting him back down.  Half-hearted attempts on my part to let him cry it out have resulted in less sleep for me, so I've just given in.

No longer.  I drew the line in the sand on Monday.  He woke up at 11:30 (just as I was going to bed) and I gave him a bottle...hey, an excuse to watch a little of the Colbert Report, I told myself.  At 1:30 he was up again, standing in his crib and crying.  And I decided it was time.  I checked on him to be sure he wasn't wet or needing a change, gave him a hug, told him to go to sleep, and closed his door.  OH THE HUMANITY, the wailing.  Babies his age and size can really produce some volume...the neighbors may have heard him.  And he wailed, and wailed, for every bit of 30 minutes.  And then he slept.  On Tuesday night, he was up at 3am; hearing his cries, I went in, checked him, shut the door, and let him cry.  Five minutes of wailing.  Last night, it was 1:45am; same drill, but only about 3 minutes of wailing.  Perhaps one of the best features of this old house we live in are the solid oak doors, that really help muffle the sounds.  But it appears he's turned the corner!

It's hard to be too upset at such a cutie though:

And the rest of us are just enjoying summer, and farm stand veggies and fruit!

And post-dinner quiet time is always nice too.

It's been a crazy-busy roller coaster of things in our house.  It's hard to find time to sit and document it all.  But I need to.  I swear, I blinked and my babies turned into kids.  Kids!  How did that happen?  Last night, Dani told us we were all going to be in our own marching band and told us what instruments we would play in it.  She claimed the sousaphone.  Really?  The sousaphone?  (That's the marching band term for tuba.)  How the heck does she know that stuff?  Tori informed me that she would be playing the drums.  Daddy was assigned the guitar, Tommy the "zylee-phone" and then Dani said she wanted to play the cymbals too.  My little Dani, she's not afraid to play the sousaphone, but she's still afraid to poop on the potty?  Don't even get me started on that battle....that's a blog for another day!