A Battle of Wills

It's been five nights of my cry-thru-the-night plan, and it's not going very well! Most of the experts out there reassure parents that it'll be a rough couple of nights, but it shouldn't take more than three and then you'll have relatively peaceful sleeps. What a joke! I'm learning as I get to know Cody that he is nothing like Nathan, and that is constantly keeping me on my toes. He cried twice for about a half hour the first few nights, for which I was pleasantly surprised. I figured that was it - I had done it! I had sleep-trained my kid with ease. Then night #4 came, and that's when I felt the wrath of Cody. Man that kid can scream when he's mad. I finally gave in around 4:30am, when just getting a few hours of sleep became top priority. But I felt so defeated and like I had lost the control. As a mother I don't like losing control; it makes me mad! So these last few days have not been pretty. But I know from experience that within a few weeks I'll be sleeping just fine again and will have forgotten all about this ugly phase.

I suppose Cody has a right to be miserable right now... He's cutting two more teeth, making four teeth total on the bottom (and none on the top). For a brief moment I panicked and thought, what if my kid has some kind of dental problem that makes it only possible to grow teeth on the bottom? I just can't remember what order Nate's teeth came in. Anyways, Cody's growing like a weed, now in 12-month clothes and eating solids three times a day. I'm gradually introducing him to vegetables, as I have time to cook and puree them. He's rolled over both ways and is starting to sit really well on his own, although he still needs support since he topples over whenever he tries to reach for something. He's a very 'grabby' baby... wants to hold everything in sight and has a fetish for remote controls. He likes the buttons. Nate can now sing the entire alphabet (with the exception of a few misplaced letters) and enjoys singing to a wide variety of songs, his favourite being the VeggieTales album. He is also growing like crazy, becoming very long and lanky. It's now so hard to imagine that he used to be even chubbier than Cody when he was 6 months. We're now two sleeps away from his third birthday, and sometimes I'm overwhelmed at how fast he's growing up. He's extremely curious, with endless questions including tricky ones like "what's in a banana?" or "what do you mean, you're driving?" It's very difficult to explain how to drive to a preschooler, especially with a crying baby in the midst.