Sleep (again)

I made a big uh-oh in terms of Jimi's sleep habits. Around 5 or 6 months old we got Jimi trained to put himself to sleep (previously he would fall asleep drinking a bottle or by being rocked). It took about a week of him crying for 5-15minutes but he finally got to a point where we could just lay him down and he would talk himself to sleep. At the same time this was going on Jimi would only take naps on either James or I. At about 8 months old I finally got tired of getting nothing done around the house during the day and being stuck to the couch during nap time, so I started laying him down in his crib. He seemed generally OK with it but refused to fall asleep unless I stood over his crib until he was fully asleep. That is, unless I wanted to listen to non-stop crying. So I caved, and have been standing over his crib during nap time until he falls asleep (anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes).

This is where the problem began. Now when it is time to go to sleep for the night Jimi refuses to fall asleep unless (you guessed it) we're standing over his crib. We don't even have to rub his back, or sshh him. We can just stand there. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal except at night (for some reason) it takes anywhere from 5-40 minutes to get him to fall asleep. And then once he wakes up in the middle of the night instead of putting himself back to sleep, like he had been doing, he now expects us to stand over him once again until he can fall asleep.

So here we are again at the painful process of retraining him to fall asleep on his own once again. I'm really hoping it only takes a couple of days this time around. Otherwise Jimi's sleep is still on a pretty usual pattern. He'll sleep from 8pm-6am, eat, fall back asleep in bed with us until 7 or 8 and then be up for the day. About every two weeks, however, he'll have very interrupted sleep and be up several times during the night.

'What are these things?'

In other news: Mark you calendars! Jimi's baptism will be October 2nd, most likely the 9am service at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Everett and his 1st birthday party will be later that afternoon (not sure on the location yet though).

9 month check up

Jimi had his 9 month check up with his pediatrician today. He is now weighing in a 20lb 4oz (40.7 percentile) and is 29 inches long (70th percentile). Jimi only had to get one shot today and he took it like a champ. He only made a whimpering face for about 30 seconds, ate some snacks and was ready to go.

When we got to the doctors office they had me fill out a survey on Jimi's language development, problem solving skills, social development and fine and gross motor skills. Each area had a few different situations listed and I had to rank whether Jimi did the scenario frequently, sometimes or never. The doctor said he 'passed with flying colors'. She also said that he was where he should be developmentally and that he looked great.

Cruisin' along some benches at one of James' shows

In other Jimi news, he is now waving 'hi' (he hasn't really figured out 'bye' yet) to select people, took one try to figure out climbing stairs, plays 'fetch' with Penny, and most recently started clapping his hands. He also turns the page while reading a book. As my Dad pointed out, apparently we don't read as fast as him, as he flips through them pretty fast. It's already a struggle to get him to eat normal solid foods but the doctor said there is no rush. I think he's not a fan of most textures, except crunchy ones. He would eat puffs all day if I let him.

For some crazy reason I let my dad sign me up for the 'Yankee Doodle Dash' 5k in Everett on the Fourth of July. I've only been working out fairly consistently for about two months and most of that has been in the house using workout dvds, so I was a little weary of what to expect. My time was definitely not where it used to be but I did better than I excepted. I fully anticipated on utilizing the 'walk' option of this run/walk but I toughed it out and didn't embarrass myself too much. Now that I've run my first race since high school, I definitely want to start doing more of them. I've even got James convinced to sign up for one in the fall with me.

Jimi giving me a pep talk before the race