A mother's muse (more like rambling, but oh well!)

Luke turned 6 months old yesterday and it has been such a fun adventure! Jeremy and I have watched him grow and change and have loved every minute of it. He is eating rice and oatmeal now, sitting up on his own (most of the time), getting up on his hands a knees and rocking, and truly one of the happiest babies in the world. Now let me elaborate on the last comment on the list. I bet a lot of mother's would say this about their little one's, but we have had other people, ever perfect strangers comment on his personality, so that has some validity, doesn't it? He is the most smiley baby in the world and SO laid back (he must have gotten that part from Jeremy :) Whatever we have him do he is like "great, what next? ---you want to cut my nails, great; you want to go to the store, great; it's time for a bath, great"---OK, you the picture. Well, there has been a little part of parenting that Jeremy knew we needed to remedy for our own sanity, not Luke's. Now before any of you gasp in horror, let me just say that in our defense this is something that I said I would NEVER DO if I have children. But, as the old saying goes, Never, Say Never! Since Luke was about 2-3weeks old, he has been sleeping in the bed with us. It is not as scary as it sounds and I know that as brand spanking new parents all we knew was that it was the only way we could get him to sleep and not to mention that it was so much easier for me to nurse him if he was just right there next to me in bed, especially during those first few months when he ate every two hours. Well, we have known that for about three months now that it was time to break the habit, but there has never seemed to have been the right time. We are travel happy and we were gone for a month over the summer and Luke has already had two plane rides and had many visitors and side trips here and there. We did try to let him "cry it out" one night (about three weeks ago) and after one hour of back and forth my nerves were shot and I was almost in tears. So we went back to co-sleeping with hopes of trying it again someday.... well.....I am happy to report that after a few days of getting him to nap during the day in his crib, we decided to try him in the crib after his last feeding last night.......and............he has been asleep for over eight hours and counting!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he went to sleep with NO crying. Don't get me wrong, I am still tired today, because I was up a few times checking on him, but all is well. I know that tonight may be a struggle to get him to sleep, but at least for this moment it feels like a HUGE accomplishment. So, for those of you who read all the way to the end, thank you for listening to me ramble.