Lights out.

With parenting it's nice that there's always a tomorrow considering today I was almost driven to drink an alcoholic beverage at 2p.m. (but waited until 5). When you're prone to over-thinking things, parenting decisions can be a real headache. Over the past few days we've been trying to get Calvin to take better naps because he won't nap, then he'll fall asleep while eating and wake up fussy because he's not well rested. This whole thing has led to countless hours of me analyzing the crap out of every sound, facial expression, twitch, and breath the poor kid takes. I could sit here for hours deliberating whether or not I made the right call on something so ridiculously unimportant in the grand scheme of things. While I know this, it doesn't change the fact that I worry incessantly about doing what's best for my baby. Isn't that only natural?

So, we were given this book called Babywise which helps you "train" your baby to fall asleep independently. This involves some crying in the beginning stages since the baby is probably used to being rocked, jiggled, or bounced to sleep. We decided to give it a whirl for the naptimes since before this we've just been kind of letting him fall asleep where ever, whenever and he isn't getting good rest during the day. If he was getting good rest, then I don't give a hoot where or when he sleeps, but he's not, so we decided to try some other methods. Anyway, the book warns you that the first few days will totally suck because you'll be listening to your poor child cry and won't be able to go rock, jiggle, or bounce him.

But, it doesn't just suck, it SUUUUUCCCCKKKKKSSSSS.

I sit on the edge of the sofa with the monitor in a death grip praying that my baby will fall asleep and not totally hate his mother when he wakes up. Finally, for his third nap today, he fell asleep after a short amount of time crying. Yes! Score! Then, the damn sleep sounds sheep went off and woke him out of his slumber into a frightful screaming session. Tangent here. Why the hell do they make the sleep sounds sheep with a timer that only lasts 45 minutes?! By the time he was done crying and fell asleep, he only got a 20 minute nap in before he was practically jolted out of his swaddle. At the very least the sleep sounds should taper off instead of shutting off abruptly. A pissed off Angus came up with the most brilliant idea EVER - tape the button down on the sheep so it never shuts off. HA! We showed you, sheep! Needless to say, taped button and all, Calvin never did fall back to sleep for that nap.

Yes, there's always a tomorrow. But tomorrow will I be able to listen to him cry again? Will I be able to hold back running to his rescue? I don't know. I do know that I could not possibly love this child any more than I already do. For his final nap of the day, he passed out in his favorite spot - on my shoulder right after eating. Babywise went down the tubes for today, I guess. Overall, I am sure that there will be so many more times that I question my decisions, but in the end, aren't we all just doing the best we can in any given moment? And Calvin is going to turn out fine...just fine, nap or no nap. Sometimes it just takes a pale ale at 5:00 and a little snuggling to realize that it will all be OK. ;)