Mr. Sandman, I love you

Oscar after his 3-hour nap, bringing Mama a giant cookie at work. Right after this shot, he bit right through the plastic into that chunk of sweet goodness. Photo by Jillian Daley.

Many, many of you have listened to our family's woes about lack of sleep. Every night. Every day. Ugh.

The beloved Sandman paid us a nice visit yesterday (3 hour nap for Oscar) and last night. Oscar was up 3 or 4 times by 10:30 p.m., so we gave him some baby pain killer for the excruciatingly huge molars that are cutting through his sweet, soft baby gums. We've done that before, so it's likely unrelated, but he slept—like a baby—until 6:15 a.m.

Adam got to bed after we dosed Oscar, and he didn't have any insomnia. Yea!

I was up for a work project until midnight, but I got a solid 5 hours in, until I started worrying that we hadn't heard Oscar yet. I slept fitfully for the next hour or so until he woke us up.

I'm not foolish enough to hope that this will continue. But I am grateful that my family got a good night's sleep. We needed it.

Broken alarm clock

We haven't had to use an alarm clock since Oscar joined our family. He gets us up around 5 a.m. every day and ordinarily he sleeps very fitfully in the mornings, thrashing about and making noise.

This morning I had the scare of my life. Oscar went to sleep at 9 p.m. A little early for him, so I figured I might be getting up twice during the night to feed him. Sure enough, he was up at 2 a.m., about an hour earlier than usual. I expected to be up again at 4:30 or 5 a.m. So my heart stopped when I woke up in a light bedroom, looked at the clock and saw 6:48 a.m. I leaped out of bed and looked at Oscar. As I mentioned, he usually thrashes about and makes a lot of noise in the mornings. But there he was, lying in his bassinet, one arm out of his swaddle. I had to put my hand on his chest to make sure he was still breathing! And then about one minute later, I had to do it all over again.

Later, Adam and I will laugh at ourselves about how awfully frightening it is to get more than three hours of uninterrupted sleep.

For now, Oscar's up checking email with his Papa. Good morning!

Boozin' and snoozin'

Oscar's been hitting the bottle pretty hard this week. Here are a couple milestones: He took more than 1 oz. of milk from me (while stuck in I-205 traffic for 2.5 hours on July 3). Yea! Prior to this, Adam's always given him the bottle and I've left the house/area so Oscar couldn't sense me and reject the bottle in favor of the real thing. Because of some bank robber/high speed chase/police activity on the freeway, we were forced to consider other options while Adam was stuck behind the wheel and I was in the back seat trying to comfort Oscar in his car seat. On Saturday, Oscar took 3 oz. in one feeding from Adam. Yea! Prior to this, he'd only take an ounce or two and then play with the nipple and spit out mouthfuls of milk. Good job, boys!

Oscar's also been hitting the hay pretty hard this week. Friday and Saturday nights, he got up only once to eat! I can't remember the last time I slept more than 3.5 hours in a row. It was fantastic. I can't believe it happened two nights in a row. Last night, Adam and I were so thrilled with our well-rested selves, we watched half a movie (“The Usual Suspects”) before turning in for the night. We're not disillusioned, however. We realize it's probably not a pattern, just a pleasant surprise, and we're taking it for what it is.