sleep and other fascinating things

i love this child.

my sweet desmundo.

 i was on my hands and knees picking tiny pieces of sticky pasta off the floor when he came barreling up to me and threw his arms around my neck.  i gave him a hug and he made a little whiny noise, so i asked him if he wanted to go to bed.

he quickly said, "Yesh!" so i threw his pajamas on him and less than a minute later he was relaxing in his crib.  what a little dear.

i didn't know children like him existed.  i thought all children had an inherent distaste for sleep (like my other favorite child, little tessles).  it's interesting to see the personality differences.  i worked hard to sleep train both boys from birth, but desmond has always shown more of a natural affinity for sleep, and in general has higher sleep needs than tesla.  he probably sleeps around 2 hours more per day than tesla did at this age.

that's not to say it was easy.  heavens no.  but tesla fought us a lot more.

did i ever tell you about that sweet little phase he (tesla) went through from around 6-10 or 11 months where he would get up at 3 am, EVERY SINGLE MORNING, regardless of how long his naps were or when he went to bed?  at first i was getting up with him, and then after a week or so without any change i said, "fine, child.  here are some toys.  you may get up whenever you want, but morning doesn't start until 6 and i will not be in here before that.  goodnight!"

we had a few rough nights (mornings?) but eventually he gave up and would just entertain himself until we went to get him up at normal people time.  he continued waking up like that for months.  no idea why.  we had to move his bedtime back.  i think the earliest was about 4:45 for several weeks.

it's not too easy to make plans with people when you have to be home by 4:30 to put your crazy baby to bed.

ANYWAY.

i'm really glad i had tesla first.  not that he's the worst sleeper in the world, but he forced me to do a lot of research and i learned a ton from him.  desmond still had several rough months (mostly when we were living with my inlaws--the trade-off is that he doesn't seem to be as adaptable as T) but if i'd had him first i wouldn't have been as prepared.

speaking of baby T...remember when i mentioned the texture soup activity a couple days ago?  i decided to try it with tesla.  i figured he'd enjoy it since he loves (LOVES) to help in the kitchen.  it went great.

(by the way, i was right about desmond.  he eats cotton balls.  he will not be doing this for a while.)

we used cotton balls, colored puff balls, beaded necklaces, dried pinto beans, and large pasta shells--basically, things i could clean up easily.  there was no way i was doing tiny rice or anything like that.

 you might have noticed that his lip is bleeding where he bit it.  this is separate from the time last week when he fell and bit through his lip from the inside and we almost took him to urgent care.  just pointing that out.  there's been a lot of mouth trauma around here lately.

and here's a real tesla face:

yeah.