Weekend with the Grandparents & Great Grandparent

Yes, I'm still catching up on blogs!  That means I'm going to keep the entries short & sweet until I'm back on track.  

The weekend of April 12 TE's grandparents & great grandma came to visit for the weekend.  You can tell it was a very stressful time for him.


Yes....very stressful.  
All of this love and attention can really get a guy down.  

O'pa/grandpa tries to take a picture with TE and O'ma/gramma both looking at the camera.  This is a challenging task.  My suggestion is to just keep snapping pictures until you get the one you want.  That's the beauty of digital, I say!

We're not quite sure who benefits more from having grandparents in town...TE or Thomas & me.  We even got to go out for a few baby-free ours while TE stayed at home.  It was his first time with a babysitter - or should we say sitters.  They did a good job because TE slept like a log that night.  We'll definitely be calling them again.

O'ma, Mom, TE and I went on an adventure to the store.  I'll give you three guesses where we went shopping.

Yep, baby Mecca.  The place I used to dread going to is now one of my favorite stops.  I'll have to admit that shopping for TE is something I really enjoy, and we have the credit card bills to prove it.  Hey, I'm doing it for the children, ok?!

All of that spoiling can really wear out a little guy.  

There's someone in my head, but it's not me..

This is why you don't accept candy from strangers - especially at a Pink Floyd concert.  Although, we may now have an explanation for Hell Week (see post below)...and the constant drooling.

Uncle Josh, thanks for making me the hippest kid in daycare:)  

Hell Week

Sweet picture, huh?  When was it taken, you ask.  Well, I'm not 100% sure but I can guarantee is wasn't taken between March 31 and April 4.  That was the week TE decided that he wasn't really interested in sleeping from 11pm-6am.  That's right, an entire week of all nighters.  

I can't recall all of the details, but I vaguely remember driving up and down Mopac one night at 1am.  Driving worked like a charm - TE fell asleep after a few minutes in the back seat.  We drove another 30 minutes before heading home to make sure he was really in a deep sleep.  As soon as we pulled into the driveway his eyes shot wide open.  It was time to be awake...AGAIN!

The thing is, TE wasn't incredibly fussy or crying.  He just wanted to up and he wanted one of us to entertain him.  

By Wednesday night TR was drunk with sleep deprivation.  I was a zombie and we were both pretty close to the end of our ropes.

By Thursday we were ready to put the smack down: we decided to let him cry it out a little bit.  It was horrible.  Neither Thomas nor I could stand to hear his pathetic crying, so we gave up on that pretty quickly.  So much for tough love.

I eventually developed a routine: put him on the play mat on the floor, which allowed for 20 minutes of sleep, then it was downstairs on the couch, then in the swing, then upstairs in front of the computer watching the colorful screen saver, then downstairs to the stroller and laps around the house, then back upstairs to the play mat (and hopefully 20 minutes of sleep).  There may have been a couple of times where he slept a bit in his car seat, but who can really remember.  All I know is that if you repeat those things above about 50-100 times, you would eventually get to 6am.

And 6am was the magic hour.  TE would eat and then fall into a deep sleep...just in time for TR and I to get ready for work.  

What a considerate child.

I believe we have mostly recovered from Hell Week.  TE still has horrible sleeping habits, and there have been a couple of all nighters since then, but we haven't been through five consecutive nights without sleep.  If TE decides pulls that stunt again, he's going out in the yard in the Pack-n-Play.  

You think I'm joking.