a little brag...

I have to share - I'm so proud!

For the past couple of weeks, I haven't been able to nurse John to sleep. He'll nurse to groggy, then lie awake, usually quietly singing or babbling in my arms. No amount of rocking or shushing has been able to lull him to sleep. So I started just putting him in his crib and leaving - there was nothing else I could do. Of course, he would wail piteously. We'd wind up each night with him standing in his crib, clutching me, while I tried to calm him down. But eventually, I'd say good-night, give him a kiss and go to sit on the steps to listen to him cry himself to sleep.

It took about 10 minutes the first night. But every night, there's been less and less fuss. A few nights ago, it became aparant the wails were just for show - he fell silent the second the door closed behind me.

Well, last night, he made a breakthrough! I did the whole little ritual, just like normal. I sang him his favourite song while I nursed him. Then we cuddled for a few minutes. Then I put him in his crib. He clung to me, while I rubbed his back. Then, I bent down, kissed his check and said good-night. THEN, instead of crying and stomping, like he has been, he turned his head and kissed my hand - a first. Then, clutching his pink security blanket, he laid down in his crib and shut his eyes!!! I gave his head a stroke and left the room - not a peep! How amazing is that!?

I hope it's the beginnings of something!

Update

An older photo - just after John's Birthday. It's my new favourite - it's my desktop at work right now.

Ok - it's been a while. I can't even remember everything that's happened with John since the last update.

John got my flu after all. We were sick together, though he had it much worse than me. He apparently had an allergic reaction to the virus, which caused him to break out into hives from head to toe. It started out as just a little redness on his cheeks. I thought nothing of it, because he was drooling, and his nose was running, so I thought it was just from that. But then he got chills, and started shaking and turning splotchy and blue, so I ran him a really warm bath. It did the trick - he was fine. But that's whe I noticed the rashes all over his body. After a couple of hours, the rash had developed into blistery things all over his face, and his eyes were swelling shut, so I called the doc. The nurse said it was chicken pox, hands down, no question. When I asked if he could have caught it from the chicken pox shot, which he had just gotten, she said better bring him in, and it turned out to be hives. A few days on Baby Benedryl, and he was as good as new, but he had a bad cough for some time.

He's learned a new word from daycare "uh-oh!" He went for weeks saying it all the time. he'd drop stuff from his high chair just so he COULD say it. It's toned down a little, but it's a pretty permenant part of his little vocabulary.

Mike has been trying to teach him to call me Megan, which has been pretty annoying. I was home with John one day, and went upstairs for something. John stood at the bottom of the stairs, and clear as a bell called "Me-gan!" I've been working to counter it, and I am now "Mommy", which is close enough to Megan that he's switched over pretty easily. Sometimes he'll still call me Mama, but usually only when he's upset.

Cat Man has struck again, leaving a dozen or so cats in our basement. I have to take John down there now and then to get something from th freezer or switch the laundry, and he almost always points and says "kitty!" Or more like "kahtee." It's a huge relief, because i just interviewed the parents of an autistic boy, and he does all the same things as John, in terms of how he plays (putting stuff into buckets, sorting, stacking, etc) and he also didn't have many words by this age, which John doesn't either. I've been assured by Alice that he's normal, but it's nice to hear a consistent word from him.

John had a really fun time with me out on assignment the other week. we went to get pictures of school kids out raking leaves in the school yard. John got right into it. He flung his little body onto the pile of leaves, picked up a huge arm-ful, and then put them into the yard waste bags. It was so cute! He had such a look of pride on his face, like "I'm making a difference!" All the parents thought it was cute. Until we had to go, that is. He would have happily stayed and helped, but I had other, less exciting assignments to go to, so I had to pick him up and leave, which made him howl. The next assignment was a church bazaar, which wasn't early as much fun, followed by a halloween party, which was only made fun by the pumpkins, which he kept trying to steal. (That was after he recovered from all the scary costumes, and let go of my leg.)

Of course! Halloween! I'll need to download my fall photos. John was a tiger!!! I found a great costume at Value Village, which was miles too big for him, but it just made him look cuter - he was a big ball of fake fur.

We had him trained, after the first few kids, to put candy into everyone's bag. He got right into it. After a while, he'd see kids coming towards the house, and he'd grab a huge handful and run to the edge of the steps to wait for them.

We took him out towards the end of the evening. We got a little pail, and went to the neighbours. A shut-in lives across the street, so her daughter asked us to come in and show off John. She thanked us profusely, because it really lifted her mom's spirits to see how cute he was. Then it was off to the Jones' (not their real names - that's just what we call them) Mrs Jones always dresses up as a fairy, and decorates the house out of some magazine. They have a dog, which John loved (he has a dog, Nike, at daycare, which is bigger than me). He kept petting the dog, and then took chocolate out of his bucket and gave it to the dog. Next, were neighbours we don't know, but they were watching us at the Jones, so we thought it might be rude not to go, so we headed there. They had a 10-month-old baby girl, and John was smitten. Every time she'd babble, John would giggle and do his shy turn-away thing. After those three houses, he'd kind of had enough. He was getting crazy hyper - though maybe Dad feeding him Kitkats for dinner had something to do with that.

After that we went to show him off to our riding president and his wife - they're like surrogate parents to us. He always does halloween in a big way - he owns a DJ business, so he gets out the sound system on the lawn, and howls at kids as they walk past. People come from all over just to see his house. So Mike and Jim sat out in the sunroom and handed out candy, undoubtedly talking politics, and Joan and I played with John inside. She had a miscarriage when she was my age, so we had a talk about that, which kind of helped.

John has become quite the flirt. I took him to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and he flirted with the checkout girl. He does this thing with his eyebrows - he kind of wiggles them up and down, which looks like a come-on. Well, this girl leaned over to John and told him he was the cutest little boy she'd ever seen, and that sent the eyebrows a-wiggling. She laughed, which made him laugh, and then she'd look back, and he'd wiggle them again. They played that game the whole time I was in line.

That was a while ago, though. He's not much of a charmer these days - he's cutting molars, which has made him feel pretty miserable. I didn't even know until they had actually popped through. He grabbed my finger, jammed it in his mouth, and bit down hard - there they were. Two at the same time. It explained a lot. He had been having lots of trouble sleeping - he was up screaming every night. I didn't have any clue it was teething - we thought it was still because of the flu, because he slept in our bed through most of his flu, so we thought he was still feeling yicky. Who knew? So we've got him on a pain management strategy of finger-knawing and Tylenol, which seems ot be working out fine. He's sleeping though again, and is much, much less clingy and hyper-sensitive.

We're re-arranging our kitchen ot be John-friendly. We should have done it a long time ago. It's making a huge difference in everyone's quality of life. Now John isn't hearing No! everytime he reaches for something, and I'm free to cook, instead of watch him. We used to have shelves on one side, which he would just unpack onto the floor. And then we had a cupbourd filled with old bottles of cleaners, which he really wanted to explore, so I'd have to hold my foot over it the whole time I was in there, hoping he'd lose interest and go unpack the shelves instead. Either way, there were big messes, and many tears shed. Oh, and the cat food was still in the kitchen. He enjoys feeding the cats, by taking handfuls of cat food and putting them in the dish. But he'd also put handfulls in the garbage, the water dish, on the shelves, stuffed in corners...And then he'd take the catfood filled water and dump it all over his head. Needless to say, cooking was quite the experience in our little kitchen. Now, the catfood is upstairs, in a place he's not allowed into. The shelves are gone - the stuff has been moved to the pantry. The chemical cupboard had been scoured clean, and filled with tupperware. Where the shelves usedto be, we're working to find a chalkboard of some kind, so he can draw and play while I cook. He loves the chalkboard at daycare, so we thought he might like that. So far, it's working out great. He loves that he has access to "the forbidden cupboard" and he likes to play with all the plastic stuff in there. He's much happier and more relaxed. Just can't wait to find a chalkboard!

Anyway, I had better get going. I have a lot of cleaning to do, and we're going to Jer's for dinner in a few hours. I need more hours in each day. There's never enough time.