Lazy Baby: Please, go to sleep

A RARE MOMENT WHEN LAZY BABY ACTUALLY TAKES A NAP.

Two words: SLEEP. TRAINING.

Ugh, this has been my private hell for the past…month? Two months? It’s honestly a big, tired, sleep-deprived blur.

I remember during months 3 and 4, my sweet Lazy Baby slept like a champ! She’d go down at 7 each evening and was up at 6-6:30 every morning. The occasional hiccup would occur, but she’s was a great sleeper.

The key word there: WAS.

Then teething happened and my great sleeper regressed. She’d go to sleep just fine, but then would wake up and wouldn’t fall back asleep. Instead, she’d scream until you held her. Then she’d fall back asleep for a couple of hours. Wake. Scream. Hold. Sleep. Repeat.

I scoured the internet for a solution. First, I thought it was because I would give her a bottle after her dinner and let her fall asleep drinking eat. BIG NO NO! So I cut that shit out of the routine and started brushing her little tooth, changing her into her big girl jimmies and reading a book to her; you know, “establishing a night-time routine” like all the books/internet say to do.

Wake. Scream. Hold. Sleep. Repeat.

Now, I know it’s because I’ve been holding her until she dozes off. HUGE MISTAKE! I must no longer get this sweet, precious cuddle time with my darling baby. Instead, I must put her down while she’s still awake.

Yeah, Lazy Baby is having none of that shit.

Enter “crying it out” – a tactic I was REALLY not wanting to do, but have been forced into enduring because of my own mistakes as a parent. And we aren’t consistent with this because it is THE HARDEST THING I’VE EVER HAD TO DO.

Is there any of you who have gone through this hell? Is there light at the end of tunnel?

Culture Creature - Book Clubs and Comic Books

This week, I'm just burning the candle at both ends. I'm trying to keep up here (since I dropped the ball last week!), do a couple of freelance jobs, not to mention my full-time job, plus, you know, being a mom to a 6 month old and a good wife to Mr. LL...so I'm not consuming a lot of culture these days. Here are couple of things, though:

The Wicked + The Divine

I'm late to the party with this series, but I've finally started reading The Wicked + The Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie . I'm not very far into it yet, but I really like the art style and the concept really intrigues me. If you don't know about this series here's the synopsis: "Every ninety years, twelve gods incarnate as humans. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are dead. The team behind critical tongue-attractors like Young Avengers and PHONOGRAM reunite to create a world where gods are the ultimate pop stars and pop stars are the ultimate gods. But remember: just because you’re immortal, doesn’t mean you’re going to live forever."

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Vaginal Fantasy: October 2017

I follow along with Felicia Day's romance bookclub, Vaginal Fantasy, and really enjoy watching their meet-ups on YouTube. I rarely catch one live, but it's nice to have something to put on when I have a stretch of time to just relax (very rare these days!) I sometimes read along with them, but not usually. Still, I love the dynamic between the four ladies in the group and appreciate their wit and humor.

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Speaking of book clubs…

My book club, Books, Booze + Bajingos is getting together tonight to discuss our last book, The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo. This book was my pick and I really enjoyed it. I definitely had a Spirited Away vibe to it with the descriptions of the spirit world and I found it to be a quick read. If you want to keep up with what we are reading next, join our GoodReads group!

Real Talk: Just one day a week

To preface this post, my mother watches Lazy Baby while Mr. LL and I are at our day jobs. She comes around 8 every morning and leaves when Mr. LL gets home (he’s usually home anywhere between 4:30 and 5 in the evening). When I was pregnant, I didn’t want to assume or impose upon my mom, who was already dealing with her mother-in-law who has her own health issues that need to be dealt with, by asking her to take on this task. However, over last Thanksgiving, when I was talking about my hunt/research into daycares my mother stopped me right there and declared herself “daycare” and that was that.

Since coming back to work, things have been working out. My mom will need the occasional morning/long lunch/afternoon for doctor’s appointments and for the most part, I’m able to accommodate. However, the bigger Lazy Baby gets, the harder it is getting for my mom to handle the day to day of it all. We are at that awkward part where she ways a ton and isn’t mobile, so it puts a strain on even Mr. LL who carries 400 lb. water heaters on a regular basis.

So, last week, my mom asked if she could have one day off a week. A day where she could schedule appointments and to just, ya know, not carry a giant baby around I guess. I completely understand, and she is doing us such a HUGE service by taking the burden of childcare off our plates, that I want to be able to accommodate this request. I asked around for people who watch kids, contacted a couple (one was asking for WAY too much for us to be able to afford and the other is pretty busy), and I even called a couple of daycares (only to discover that all state accredited daycares have to assign a crib to a baby and no other baby can sleep in it – in other words, they weren’t going to do a one-day a week deal with me). I thought about asking my work if I could four days a week for 10 hours a day, even though the thought of not seeing my baby at all those four days breaks my heart (she’d be in bed, more than likely, by the time I would get home).

It kept me up a couple of nights. Mr. LL had a suggestion for someone close to our family but I don’t feel like this person would treat Lazy Baby the way I want her to be raised (not that this person would hurt her in anyway or anything like that, she just has a very different personality and is very strong willed). Him stressing the fact that we really can’t afford outside care and suggesting that this person was “our only option” didn’t help my anxiety.

I did come up with a temporary solution; I spoke to my boss about it, and we marked out a 2-5 days each month so my mom could pick one day a month to have off (aside from the usual holidays and etc.) and I would just use a vacation day that day. I’ve been at my current job for just over 10 years now, so I have a lot of vacation time and Mr. LL doesn’t have as much so I usually have random days I have to take here and there anyway. I know this is just a bandage on the situation, but maybe it will buy us some time to figure out a solution to this problem.

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