The Big 3-0

Tomorrow I turn thirty.

Now, normally birthdays don't bother me, but for some reason, this one just refuses to slip by peacefully. It's irritating me, like a popcorn kernel that's stuck between my teeth that I can't seem to work out with my tongue. Thirty years. THIRTY YEARS, PEOPLE! How did I get so old all of a sudden? I swear it was just yesterday that I turned twenty-one, and now I'm freakin' thirty! It's hard to get my head around it...

I've noticed that as this day has been approaching, I've become very nostalgic for the "old days". Everything seems to trigger a memory. Like today, for instance, I heard James Taylor on the radio and I was instantly taken back to high school, driving with my windows down and smokin' cigarettes in my old Pontiac Sunbird. And yesterday, a woman came in smelling like Noxema, and I was suddenly a little girl again, with my Grandma rubbing the cold cream on my sunburned shoulders. I've even been dreaming at night about the houses I lived in as a child in Michigan, reliving every tiny detail, right down to the color of the carpets and the pictures on the walls.

Is this normal? To start living in the past as the future creeps up on you? It's a very strange feeling, this turning thirty stuff. Yes, indeed.

Well, goodbye twenties, it's been nice. Here's to the next decade...

Sleep Baby, Sleep

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, we have been struggling with Rory's sleep habits (or lack thereof) for quite some time now. He barely naps during the day for more than 30 minutes at a stretch, and even though there's no logical reason for it, he still wakes up several times a night. I've read a handful of books on the subject and heard advice from like a gazillion people, and everyone keeps telling me the same thing - I have to let him cry it out.

I really never liked the idea of letting Rory cry for long periods of time without consoling him - after all, I AM his MOTHER and mothers are supposed to comfort their crying children. THAT'S WHAT MOTHERS DO. However, lately I've begun to realize that my son has become hip to the game that children play with their parents, and he has learned how to manipulate his crying to get what he wants. Yes, amazingly, it really DOES start this young. And what he wants right now is to stay awake as much as possible so he doesn't miss anything, even if it means that he's so tired that his head starts to spin around and he starts whining in that ultra annoying way of his for hours on end that makes me want to shove hot forks in my eyeballs.

And so, after discussing it with his pediatrician and getting the final okay from her, Hoby and I decided it was time to let Rory cry it out. We were going to turn off the baby monitor, shut his door and not go in and get him until morning. It sounds cruel even as I type the words, but I know that it's what we had to do to teach Rory how to fall asleep on his own. Nothing else had worked and the poor child was EXHAUSTED.

I spent the entire day yesteday dreading Rory's bedtime, expecting that it was going to be a long, long night of him crying and me trying to restrain myself from going in to comfort him. He went down to sleep pretty easily around 8pm and had a short burst of crying at 11pm, but then all was quiet. So quiet in fact, that I kept wanting to go in and make sure that he was still breathing (but I didn't). I don't know if we just didn't hear him during the night or what, but when I heard him crying this morning and looked at the clock, it was 7am and I couldn't believe it! My son had just officially slept through the night! The WHOLE NIGHT, from 8pm to 7am - that's ELEVEN FREAKIN' HOURS, people!

I'm trying not to get my hopes up for tonight - I mean, it may have been a fluke or something - but it's possible that this could be the start of something great. Because when Rory sleeps, that means that I get to sleep, and sleep, my friends, is a wonderful thing.

Cross your fingers for me...

Vegas, Baby

Hoby and I were lucky enough to escape to Vegas at the beginning of this week to celebrate our anniversary sans baby. It was the first time we left Rory alone for more than a night and it was both scary and exhilarating. I had been looking foward to this little vacation away from parenthood for weeks - and I have to admit that I was actually far more excited about getting two full nights of sleep than I was about hitting the Strip.

We stayed at the Stratosphere and although it wasn't as luxorious as some of the other hotels, the room was clean and the price was right. On our first night there, we played the nickel slots, tried our hand at Blackjack and drank a bunch of 75 cent beer. But as much as I was loving the "free" life without Rory, I definitely wasn't a party girl anymore. I was done by about 9:30pm and ready to hit the sack. We headed up to the room and I gleefully got ready for my first night of quiet, uninterrupted sleep.

Fast forward to 3am. Suddenly, loud sirens were blaring, and Hoby and I were jolted awake. It was the fire alarm and we could hear people running down the halls. All I could think was, you have GOT to be kidding me! We quickly threw on some clothes over our pajamas and ran to the stairs. It hit me then that we were on the 21st floor and it was a long way down. By the time we got to the ground floor and found out it was a false alarm, I was boiling with rage. How DARE they wake me up! This was MY NIGHT! My long awaited night of UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP! But instead I was standing in the middle of a cheesy casino in my nightgown. And to top it all off, the elevator wasn't working because of the fire alarm, and I sure as hell wasn't going to walk up 21 flights of stairs after breathing in all this second hand smoke. Man, was I pissed. By the time we got back to our room, I was so worked up that it took me at least an hour to calm down and get back to my precious night of sleep.

Sighhhhh.

If this isn't irony, I don't what is.

Water, Water Everywhere...

I thought you would all enjoy knowing that my son has officially drooled ALL THE DROOL IN THE UNIVERSE, so your babies should be be completely drool-less for now on.

You can thank me later.

7 Months

Dear Rory -

Yesterday you turned 7 months old and I've decided that you must have been born with the special ability to speed up time. It feels like you were only a helpless infant for a second or two, and now you're this little firecracker who manages to do something new every day. It never fails to amaze me.

Right now, you are in the beginning stages of learning to crawl, and I don't know whether to be excited that you're about to become mobile or scared to death. Yesterday, while I was busy on my computer and you were playing happily on the other side of the room, I suddenly looked up to find you at my feet, giggling. Right about then, the reality of motherhood hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm never going to be able to take my eyes off you again.



I shouldn't be surprised, though. You've ALWAYS been a baby in motion. Those little legs of yours barely ever stop moving, even in your sleep. For about a month now you've been rubbing your feet together in a way that looks like you're trying to start a small fire, and you do it so much that I have to keep socks on you constantly now so that you don't rub your feet raw. And whenever we put you on your changing table or in your crib, you immediately start a kicking frenzy that's exhausting just to watch (and it makes changing your diapers that much more interesting!)



Speaking of EXHAUSTING, let's talk about your lack of sleep. Getting you to nap is almost impossible and you insist on getting up a million times a night. I realize that the world is all fresh and new for you, but I promise that if you close your eyes for a little while, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO MISS A THING. And if you think that Mommy and Daddy are fun to play with now, just imagine how much MORE fun we'd be if we actually got some sleep.

But since you're not sleeping at the moment, we have plenty of time for other activities. Here's a list of your favorite things to do:

- Watching us stack up your blocks so that you can knock them down.
- Blowing raspberries (accompanied by a mouthful of drool, of course)
- Pulling Mommy's hair (or earrings, or necklace - you get the idea)
- Grabbing everything and anything and sticking it in your mouth
- Babbling loudly and repeating the same sound over and over (this week's it's "PSSSFFT")
- Sucking on people's blue jeans (Don't ask!)
- Smiling at strangers
- Banging your toys together to make the most noise possible
- Playing Peekaboo (the BEST GAME EVER)
- Slamming down your bottles in record time like you're a frat boy with a beer bong
- Eating your fingers



Rory, you are the busiest little baby in the universe. You keep me on my toes 24/7 - and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy 7 months, big guy.

Love,
Mama

Ready For His Close Up

We finally had some professional pictures taken of Rory (he's almost SEVEN MONTHS OLD so it's about time!) and they are absolutely adorable. How can you not want to pinch those little pumpkin cheeks?!

Keepin' the Home Fires Burnin'

Last Wednesday morning, my cell phone rang at 5:30am. My first thought when I heard the phone was, it had better not be the Mother of All Coffee Houses calling to try and get me to come in early. I put the pillow over my head and said to myself, nope, I'm not gonna answer it. Those pricks wil just have to find someone else to come in at the crack of dawn and schlep coffee.

But then, as I tried to go back to sleep, I started thinking, what if it wasn't work calling? What if there is some sort of family emergency? So I grabbed my phone and looked at the number, and sure enough, the words "Mom's Cell" were there. Oh crap. I quickly dialed her number, and when my mom answered she said, "Sorry to call you so early, but we're on our way to your house. We've been evacuated." Evacuated? What do you mean EVACUATED? Apparently I have been watching too much Tivo lately and not enough news because I had no idea that there were several large wildfires burning in Southern California, one of them being in Calabasas practically right in my parent's backyard!

So my parents arrived at our house around 6:15am with their two cats and a box of important papers. I put on a pot of coffee and we all immediately became glued to the television trying to find out all the information we could about the fire and how close it was to their home. We kept seeing areas that were on fire right around the corner from their house, so it was definitely a little scary there for awhile.

But in the end, the fire fighters did an excellent job and none of the houses in their neighborhood were harmed. My parents stayed with us for one night and were able to get back into their house the next day to start cleaning up all the soot and ash that had blown over. But that's a small price to pay considering how bad it COULD have been, right?

Never a dull moment in this family. Nope. Never.