sleep

the lack of it. we were so naive to think the monster wouldn't have any sleep problems and that things were going to stay the way they were. it was so great for the first 4 months. he was just waking once a night to feed so we were getting blocks of 3-5 hours of sleep each night, but now he's been waking up much more frequently, about 2-3 times more often. so i've borrowed just about every book on the topic of sleep from the BPL. i know i was walking a very fine line with sleep associations, especially the one they claim is the most powerful one of all: nursing to sleep. it happens more often at night than in the day but he isn't the best at naps either so i definately have my work cut out for me. i am, however, able to catch his morning nap. when i spot his first yawn i'll plop him down into his crib. that's probably the only piece of advice i've read from book that has actually worked. i was skeptical at first because he just didn't seem like he was tired but sure enough, he'd doze off all by himself, sans soothing. i thought i was on top of the world, sigh.

our bedtime routine, tonight it's "hop on pop"

we also thought that he wasn't getting enough from breastfeeding, for monster babies need lots of food to grow, so we started him on rice cereal. we weren't sure how he'd do with spoonfeeding but he did just fine, but i'm not all that surprised since he's been quite fixated with our food as we ate it at dinnertime. he's had a couple of rice cereal meals now and it hasn't helped with the sleep sitch.

but otherwise, he's my perfect little monster. so what if i'm a little bit tired? i just need to remind myself that these times are fleeting and i'll never have them again.

we just very recently put up the jolly jumper. monster just loves it but he just didn't know what to make of it when i first put him in it but he got the hang of it pretty quickly. i can't believe it's taken us so long to put it up. little fraser's been in his for several weeks now thanks to his daddy's handy dandy blanket rig. it was this brilliant contraption that kept a wee little horchie out of toruble on family camping trips. i can't wait to use it up at grizzley cause he'll probably be in a world of trouble by the summertime.

fraser and his specially rigged up jumper

some of you might know that chinese people wear jade because it's supposed to improve your health or some kind of mumble jumble like that so the one that conrad's sporting here is one that my sister, brother as well as myself wore when we were babies. it was given to us from our maternal grandmother. i thought that's pretty neat.

conrad's been rolling around in his crib and one day i found him sleeping on his front, guess i can't do much about that.

**to all our far away friends, we've signed up with skype so give us a ring-a-ling when you have free time!