My least favorite questions.

1)  What are you going to call him?

This question is always asked immediately after telling people his name.  Really folks?  I just told you I gave him my father's name.  The strongest most meaningful name in the world, and you ask me what I'm going to call him?  I'm going to call him by his name.  Hardin.  I'm sure along the way he will pick up a nick name or two, but I find it a little silly that some people assume we will not call him Hardin. 

2)  Is he a good sleeper?

I've been dreading the day this one comes back to bite me.  He's been sleeping like a dream since 7 weeks.  I've talked in depth with my girl friends about our kids sleep, but have hesitated to tell too many strangers this (although I always get asked at closings, the obsessive amount of baby pictures are hard to ignore and spark many questions).  I'm not an overly superstitious person, but I've often thought that as soon as I go around telling folks what a great sleeper he is, it would change.  Well, I seldom talk about his sleep, shrug off the question with a "pretty good" all the time...  and it still changed.  Turns out he's still a baby after all.

We've been on a roller-coaster of sorts since last Monday.  That was the day I thought his teeth were bothering him.  That was followed by one day of normal sleep, then we had shots Wednesday.  That led to a much earlier bedtime Wednesday, but a middle of the night wakening.  Okay, I thought, it's normal after shots.  Then the same thing happened Thursday and Friday.  I tossed Saturday because of our spend the night.  Sunday he slept like a dream, and I thought we were back on track.  Well, Monday and Tuesday proved otherwise.  Same thing, he's been ready for a much earlier bedtime, but no longer makes it through the night.  He was going down between 8-9, and sleeping until 8-9.  Now he's ready for bed between 6:30-7.  He's just not ready to make it all the way to the morning going to bed that early.

A few people have suggested I wake him up to feed him before I go to bed, because it worked so well for them.  I am hesitant to do that, because I know he's perfectly capable of sleeping 12 hours because he's been doing it for 6 weeks.  I don't want to wake him up to feed him if he's not hungry.  And when he wakes up, he's only been hungry once.  The rest of the time I've just rocked him to calm him and he's gone back down.  It has taken as long as an hour and a half to get him back down (once), but he wanted nothing to do with a bottle so I quit trying, and normally it's more like 20 minutes.  So for now, we'll let him wake up when he wants to.  I'm praying he'll be back to his old ways soon.  I don't want to encourage a night waking habit by midnight rockings, but so far we've been able to avoid any major crying and I'd really like to keep it that way if we can. 

As with absolutely everything so far, I'll say a prayer for what I think is best, be grateful he's as wonderful as he is, and then subside to the fact that it is completely out of my hands and the Good Lord and my sweet baby Hardin will guide me to the next step.

My friend Julie's comment reminded me to add what he does during that late night rock session.  Remember the bubbles from yesterday?  That.  That is exactly what he does.  He used to sing all the time, now it's the bubbles 1/2 the time.  It completely cracks me up, and although I try my hardest not to laugh, sometimes I just do.  That startles him, and we start from the top of our rocking to sleep!  I'm sure before I know it, I'll be waiting up for him to get home at midnight, in tears wishing I was rocking him and listening to the sweetest little sounds in the world again. 

We are getting close to a roll, but no completely unassisted roll yet.

To me, he looks so much like me it's scary in this one!