Seriously?

Oh, holy cow. May 30th? I really haven't posted since May 30th? Sigh.

So, yesterday was the anniversary of Sarah's due date. Her birthday's not till a week from Saturday, but the big due date has me thinking about what last summer was like. That and the fact that I'm finally doing things like getting the maternity clothes out of my dresser.

I think we're finally starting to get our feet back under us. This has been one intense year!

The latest news is that Nicholas is OBSESSED with horses. Seriously. We live in a weird area that is a mix of single-family subdivisions, apartments, and horse properties, so, fortunately, he has many opportunities to see horses. Unfortunately, that also means that every time we get in the car he says "Neigh! Neigh!" It's adorable when he's all excited, but can drive a person crazy once it's been half an hour and it's become a plaintive wail. And seeing horses doesn't seem to diminish his need to see horses. As soon as we drive past some horses, he will immediately say "More! More! Neigh! Neigh!" Mostly, though, it's very cute.

And Sarah, it turns out, is not so much sleeping. She's been cosleeping with us for most of the last year, and for most of that time, she would just wake up, nurse, and fall back asleep. Now, she moves. And she cries. So Mr. X and I both wake up. Since she's almost a year old, we thought we'd start trying the N.o-C.r.y S.leep So.lu.tion. To start with, you keep a log of the baby's nap(s) (just one nap in our case), pre-bedtime routine, and night wakings. The night we did it, she fell asleep at 8:20, woke up for the day at 7:30, and woke up TEN TIMES in between. I really had no idea she was waking up that often. I'd just try to get her settled as quickly as I could so that both of us could go back to sleep, so I really wasn't keeping track. So, we took one side off her crib and attached it to our bed (to give her more room so that my movements at night won't wake her up). And Mr. X has started putting her to bed--she nurses until she's sleepy, and then he walks her around and sings to her. The first night, it took him 15 minutes to put her to sleep, and she only woke up 4 or 5 times. Unfortunately, the last couple of nights, she's started rolling and crawling in her sleep a lot more. She'll nurse, fall mostly asleep, pull off, roll over, stay there for a minute, then roll again till she's in the middle of her crib. Then she'll sleep for a few minutes. Then she'll roll over, push up on her hands, start to crawl back to the bed, and crash for another minute or two. I woke up last night at one point to find that she had turned around in the crib, crawled back to me, and was sleeping with her feet in the crib and her head on my shin. So, there are still some details to work out.

To deal with the sleep disturbance, we (that is, Mr. X and I) have been napping more than usual. I tried this afternoon, but just couldn't fall asleep. So, right now, everyone but me is napping. Still. It's getting awfully close to dinner time. So, much as I hate to wake sleeping children, I fear a bedtime fiasco if everyone doesn't get up soon!