9 months old is hard work!

apparently being 9 months old is HARD…hard on tman and hard on momma. he has been taking me back to those first few weeks of his life by waking up all week long at 3 am screaming. now i can handle some crying…but this isn’t just your average i’m awake and a little fussy cry. it’s an all out scream. and so far he has decided that he can do it for at least 2 hours. we tried e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. to get him back to sleep-not even feeding him was working. the only thing that got any of us any sleep was if he was laying on my chest, in his rocker in his room. and yes, my neck has not appreciated this sleeping position at all.

i’m starting to remembering that newborn stage exhaustion that i so really wanted to forget. and we’re back to the guessing game. i know he’s not cold (we solved that with adding layers)…so maybe it was his flu shot (at least one of those nights), maybe he’s getting teeth (lord please let it be ALL of them so that we’re done with this in one fell swoop!), maybe it's separation anxiety, maybe his brain is on overload because he’s mastered or almost mastered crawling, going from laying down to sitting up by himself…and then on to standing up by himself…all this week. that’s a lot of milestones at once!  and of course I was excited about him learning how to sit up and even stand up by himself…it was fun and exciting the first few times. now…not so much because of course he doesn’t know how to lay himself back down after these which is problematic for sure!

(don't worry-his leg is not broken and doesn't bend at a funky 90 degree angle. apparently he decided that since he was awake it was time to start taking off his pajamas by himself!)

and of course our naptime hasn't been much fun either. it had gotten so easy-he went straight down. i was spoiled! i just took him to his room, turned out the lights, thumb went into his mouth, sing jesus loves me, sound machine on and he was happy and content to put himself to sleep in his crib. not anymore! this week we’re back to crying…and then sitting up and crying…and then standing up and crying…and then me rocking him…and then singing to him…and then laying him down…only to rock and sing some more. some days it takes longer to put him down than he even ends up sleeping (gotta love working on nap time for an hour…just to get a 45 minute snooze).

my mom keeps reminding me that this too shall pass...and i know that...but in the moment sometimes it feels like it needs to pass NOW (i'm not a patient person!)!! or there's the fear of "oh gosh, what if he does this forever? i can't last like this for forever." yes irrational, i know...he won't get up at 3 am for forever...but in the moment it's hard not to think that!

i'm loving the snuggle time...i mean what is sweeter than your kiddo snuggled up on you sleeping. i know he won't do this for forever and one day the idea of snuggling with his mom will not be so cool. but man, it's hard to love the snuggle time when you are so exhausted you can't even think straight.

and yes, one day this week i wore my pajama pants wrong-side out all day. yup, all day. lance came home and asked me if that was the new style. it's not the new style...it's the i'm-too-tired-to-even-care style!