ALL AT ONCE

Once he started crawling, all the switches got thrown to GO! He's started waving hello and goodbye, and clapping. He's still taking off his socks and shoes the minute he has access to them. Today, his grandma showed him how his socks became puppets, which he immediately tried doing and succeeded, much to his shrieking delight. Yes, shrieks of joy are new, and accompanied by tensing up his entire little body and balling up his fists.

He started what is known as "cruising" today, which is walking while holding on to furniture, or me, or a combination of the two. I started singing "Cruising, it's not Sunday afternoon..."

He's a noble little guy. Shares his food without fail and knows the rules, like don't go in the kitchen, don't play with the stereo, don't crawl off the edge of the bed. When faced with any of those temptations, he'll do a little dance on his belly, pumping his fists and his legs, then shake his head. Do the dance, then shake his head. I generally intervene and praise his virtue at that point. And then there's his looking out for the little guy. In this case, his eight week old cousin, JJ, whom we visited today. His feet were chilly so we put socks on him. Alexander immediately zoomed forth to liberate his cousin from the oppression of socks. Twice.

Meanwhile we started sleep training yesterday, and his dad has sent me out of the house both evenings, for which I'm ever greatful. So far, so good. After protesting for about 45 min last night, he slept most of the night without waking up--from 8.30 to 3.45! Of course at that point I was DYING to nurse him, and he happily obliged. Tonight, he only protested for 20 min. Let's hope tomorrow's easier too. He was so ready for this. We all were so ready for this, in spite of my inital resistance to any approach that involved crying. But, I guess after hearing him cry in the car all the way to Pasadena, I found I could survive the crying. Still, I feel a kind of loss at not cuddling my baby to sleep anymore.

"I for one welcome our new baby overlord"

Today I realized that I hadn't flossed in nearly a week. Yikes, I know. I'm pretty sure that the insomnia that plagued me during the pregancy was like strength training for the first few weeks of the feeding every other hour and sometimes every hour that is life with a newborn.

Still, I can't believe how not jangly, and mostly fuzzy and happy, with only occasional crying jags I am. Can't wait til we have eye contact, and a waking, directed smile. Right now he smiles after he eats, in his sleep. So, it's related to being happy and content and comfortable. But I want one for me. I told Sandy, and she said "Right, so you're like: just smile at me and we can be friends: that whole 30 hours of labor ending with a C-section--forgotten." And I said, "Yeah. Pretty much."