Fog Blog

Ah yes, blog karma, also known as pride comes before a fall, or never say that things are finally ok with your little one(s) without knocking on wood. After yesterday's, "I've accepted that I have a wakeful baby," and "I like sleeping with him," last night was awful. Swee'pea woke up about 8 kazillion times. I thought the first part of the night was awful when he woke up like 4 or 5 times before midnight. But it got worse. It got so he would cry or whimper, fall asleep again, cry again about 30 seconds later, thrash around, go still, cry again about a minute later, etc.

I nearly lost it around 3 am when I woke up hoping it was morning so that we could give up on this crazy charade. I got up and went to the bathroom because I needed some space, then decided to come downstairs and check my stats, and get a drink of water. I went back to bed, where Swee'pea was somewhat peaceful and tried to squeeze myself onto the last 5 inches of bed without disturbing him. He woke up again, though, and decided to start practicing his latest favourite sounds: the lip smacking I taught him yesterday (boy am I sorry now), and various 'words' starting with b, alternately bellowed with great force (and volume) or whispered as a puff of air:

"BOUWAH, bois, bah bah, BWAAAY, bowah, bah, bois, pa pa..."

When I wasn't trying to comfort him, I was clinging to the edge of the bed, which is luckily just a mattress on the floor so we don't need to worry about Swee'pea rolling out. Now I realize it serves a more important purpose: I don't need to worry so much about me falling out either.

When I did manage to fall asleep, my dreams were troubled. In one, I was with my family, trying to retrieve all of my niece's and nephew's toys from an old house with basically no roof, very little floor, and a whole lot of mould, spiders, spiderwebs and even snakes, where my mom had cleverly stashed them for safe keeping while their house was renovated or something. My brother was frustrated and yelling; I was trying to avoid the creepy-crawlies; everyone else was rushing around trying not to fall through a hole. In another dream, Sugar Daddy was very upset to discover that he was losing his hair; he had the same amount of hair as Swee'pea does now and it was still falling out; tiny hairs covered his shirt. There was another troubled dream too but I can't remember it now; I think it was something to do with walking past a bunch of snakes, small pale quick ones and enormous sleeping constrictors.

So yeah, it was a long night, and I felt like I was a smurf on a hike to Gargamel's or Big Nose's or wherever they were going when all the young smurfs (smurves?) continually ask, "Are we there yet Papa Smurf?" How about now? "Are we there yet Papa Smurf?" "How much longer, Papa Smurf?" I have no idea why Swee'pea was waking up so much (maybe it's teeth?). But judging from the bluish shadows under his eyes, I don't think he enjoyed himself either. And although Sugar Daddy was acting like he slept right through all this, apparently he didn't, as he mostly just growled around the kitchen this morning until he left for work. When I said, "Hey Grumpy Gus, I didn't ask for last night. It's not my fault." He said, "I'm not doing this to punish you. It's just that last night was fuckin' awful and I feel like shit." And he left.

* * *

When we got up, we entered a new dimension: the Cheerios dimension, where our floors are littered with them; whole and dry, broken and soggy, ground to dust underfoot, crushed to mush and stuck to our shoes, socks or bare feet. Yes, we gave Swee'pea Cheerios for the first time this morning. He picked them up but I don't think he ever actually got any into his mouth. Mostly he picked them up in his fist and dropped them into his lap where they rolled onto the floor. Occasionally, I took pity and put one in his mouth for him. Then he would looked faintly perplexed, brow furrowed and nostrils flared as he tentatively mouthed it until it dissolved and he swallowed it. Through my sleep-deprived fog, I could see that it was actually quite cute. When he 'chewed' the Cheerio, his mouth made soft little smacking sounds like I would imagine a fish would make if fish could survive in air and we could hear their mouths opening and closing.