Sleep, or lack therof.

I've written about being tired, but the topic needs to be revisited now that Marek has arrived.

Ryan and I are both so exhausted some days that hilarity ensues.  For example, last night, Ryan was reading his book while I fed the baby.  We were talking, and he just suddenly stopped responding.  He had fallen asleep, with his light on, and his head in the book.  I considered being offended, but since I can't remember what we were talking about, I guess it wasn't that important anyway.

Marek doesn't have a sleep pattern yet.  Some nights he's asleep at 7pm, some nights it's 9pm.  Some nights he's awake twice for food, some nights it's just once, and some nights he's just up once but it's for three or four hours!  Mostly I pick him up from the cradle, feed him and if he's fussy after eating, I keep him in bed with me.  The other morning I woke up in a total panic, tossing blankets everywhere, horrified that I might have fallen asleep with Marek eating and smothered him.  I couldn't find him, and the seconds ticked by as I tore apart the bed and pillows looking for him.  Then I looked in the cradle, where he was sleeping peacefully, totally oblivious to my sleep-deprived flip out. 

Clink.  Clinkety-clink.  Scuffle scuffle.  Clink.  What is that noise?  It's the sound of my nearly two year old scaring me into an early grave.  I awoke to a strange clinking sound one night last week, and in a panic, sent Ryan out to the kitchen to find the source.  Ryan found Chester, standing on the chair he had pushed over to the counter, and chopping a pear with my butcher's knife.  I used to think I'd hear anything these guys did in the night, but now I'm not so sure.  So we're back to baby-gating them out of the kitchen and living room, and in addition, we've added alarms to the exterior doors and added locks at the top of the stairs.  We used to have baby-proof door knobs for the doors, but my kids can outsmart those silly door knob covers so we've moved to more secure pre-schooler proofing. 

Speaking of Chester trying to scare me into an early grave, he tripped over his own two feet in the living room this week, and put his bottom teeth through his lip.  At this point, I've given up (see previous blogs of Chester's injuries) and after we stopped the bleeding, I determined that it wasn't worth stitches as the cut on the outside was small, and the local ER here doesn't stitch inside the mouth.  (Is that a policy across the country, or just the ER here?)  He looks fabulous with a huge fat lip and a bruise on his forehead.  I'm still taking his pictures this weekend for his second birthday.  It's nearly healed now, and even if he still had a swollen lip, I think it's important to document these things to embarrass him in front of his future girlfriends.