Awake!

Today Reed stayed awake and alert for the longest amount of time ever - almost 3 hours. He had had a pretty good night sleep (nursing x2) and a short nap in the morning (8:30 -9 ish). Around 10, we figured he must be tired because he has never lasted much past 30 minutes awake time so we put him in the swinging car seat chair and waited for him to doze off. Instead, he stayed awake - calm and alert without complaining or falling asleep, just chilling out. After an hour or so of that he finally started fussing -- we thought, he finally must be ready to sleep right? Nope, it was just a blow-out poopy diaper. I changed him and noticed he was still not asking for a nap, so I took him outside for some naked time. Here he stayed pleased as can be for another hour and a half - a total of 2.5 hours awake! Finally I noticed he was looking sleepy and got him swaddled and rocked him for 2-3 minutes and he conked out. What a day so far!

[Happy naked times on the porch]

[Intent on controlling his head]

So many things have changed in our lives. But for today I am most aware of the fact that we no longer have a schedule to count on. This is both exhilarating and challenging for me (kris)- an eternal scheduler. Before having him, we'd heard from several seasoned parents that your life is completely rocked upsidedown for the first few months and will never be the same, but you don't really believe it until you live it. Each day is totally different from the next which means we are learning to go-with-the-flow more now than ever before and are following Reed's lead most of the time. I find that letting go of my expectations of getting anything done in a day is helpful at this point. Going grocery shopping, walking Samba, cleaning the house, are all bonuses but not absolutes. We are both reading a lot more than ever though as we push his hammock bed, so that's nice.

[This is when you can tell he is in his deep sleep]

[Brilliant solution to holding the pacifier in for nap time]