What makes me Smile :)

A few days ago Rhys & I made the trek out to my school, Western Theological Seminary for our annual Christmas luncheon.  It was so much fun to see all my old peeps from last year when I got the wonderful opportunity to spend a whole academic year focused fully on getting my M.Div.  Shouts out to: Bethy, Marla, Sharon, Jill, Jes, Nate, Patricia, Chad, Sandra, Evonne & more.  I love my school!  Marla got a great smiling picture of Rhys on her iphone who -by the way- was a perfect little angel while he was passed from gushing woman to gushing woman.  What a heart breaker he’s gonna be, ma’ boy!

The day made me smile.

Last weekend we spent an evening with Ran’s Godparents, Ryan & Joy playing Settlers of Catan with the Barbarian add-ons.  Even though they beat the junk out of Dave & I, it was a hoot.  Because they decided to play as a team they spoke in Spanish while making their plans so Dave & I wouldn’t be able to hear their strategy.  After 3 semesters of Spanish in high school & 3 years in undergrad the only things I could understand were “it’s possible,” & “what’s that called.”  Thank you Wayne State University for preparing me for a bright future!

The night made me smile.

Yesterday, we went to the local health food store to pick up some probiotics for Rhys’ digestive system.  (As recommended by his Doc due to his gassy issues).  It happened to be the day they had an open house & were offering free food all over the store.  It was the only time in our marriage that Dave & I have went some where shopping together where I wasn’t consistently trying to hurry him up.

On the contrary, while Dave was busy reading every label, examining all the contents & asking questions for over an hour, Ransom, Rhys & I were going from one station to the next enjoying the most hoity-toighty snacks I’d never even consider spending that kind of money on: gluten-free cookies, lemon-poppy seed muffins, gluten-free soup & ice-cream, gluten-free bean dip with chips & brownies & pumkin-pie, rice & soy egg nog.  It was great.  By the time we left we were exhausted.  Ransom & I were drugged into an overstuffed gluten-free stupor.

The food made me smile.

In the parking lot there was a horse pulling a giant Santa sleigh with a big, fat white man in full Santa garb where I’m sure for highway robbery a small price you could get a ride.  When we pointed it out to Ransom he replied with sincere awe & delight, “look, Mama there really is a Santa.  There really is!” And then again under his breath to himself, “wow, there is a Santa.”  We are not quite sure who made him doubt it but he won’t doubt it again for quite some time.

Ransom makes me smile.

Today I stepped on the scale and saw that I hit pre-preggo weight! Somebody say, hollah!  Also, as we were leaving for Church this morning when I saw a woman running by on her morning jog, honest-to-blog I thought, “man, today looks like a great day for a run.  I wish I were going out for a nice peaceful quiet run in this chilly yet sunny day.”  And then I thought, “what?!?!”

My scale & odd motivation to run made me smile.

As you may have read from yesterday’s blog, it was our first day to officially put Rhys on the Babywise sleep system.  With about 30 hours behind us I can tell you he’s making good progress!

First off, we decided to make a few adjustments: crying time before going into comfort was moved from 15 minutes to just four.  There’s only so much this Mama can take!  Also, we decided to start off all sleeping sessions without a pacifier & only offer if he really got himself all worked up.

For three nap sessions, it took three sets of going in every 4 minutes to comfort without picking him up.  We could tell his cry was the “exhausted” cry and knew he could calm himself down.  And that he did.  It felt miraculous.  Wow he put himself to sleep without nursing, being rocked or a pacifier –Go Rhys!

Putting him to bed was a different story.  He wailed and wailed.  After the fourth set of going in every 4 minutes to comfort I picked him up to calm him down.  He started falling asleep immediately so I laid him back down.  After another 4 minutes I gave him his pacifier & zonk: he was out like a light.

The middle of the night wasn’t bad either.  He woke only to eat at midnight & 3am.  When he awoke at 5am I vowed not to feed him.  Let him cry it out for 10 minutes and when he got all riled up I offered the pacifier which he took and zonk: out like a light.  He ate again at 6:30am.  This was a VAST improvement!

Today has been great.  It took only two sessions of going in every 4 minutes to comfort to take two naps & for this last one I just set him down in his crib and zonk: out like a light.  No crying, no fussing, no wailing, no rocking, no nursing! 🙂  I do, however, believe this time is an anamoly due to his exhaustion at all these transitions.  Point is, we are well on our way to a self soothing, night sleeping baby…

and that, folks is what gives me the biggest smile of all! 🙂