Monday, August 24, 2009

Another Missed Opportunity

Today, I passed on a possibly priceless video opportunity in favor of good parenting. Some parents have America's Funniest Home Videos in the forefront of their minds at all times, and these parents would likely have grabbed the camera right off the bat. I, on the other hand, have a thin layer of "sense" covering my basic instinct to capture funny things on video (it is, admittedly, a rather thin layer, as I have, more than once, silently hoped that Gabe would do something truly memorable that would allow me to submit to AFV--so far, there just hasn't been anything THAT funny yet), and today that sense forced me to intervene.

Gabe has been pushing his latest set of molars all this week. Three Year Molars, we were told by the dentist last week. As such, he's not been all that fond of sleeping. He's been waking up at 2:00 in the morning pretty regularly, and then waking up for good at 5:00 again (a habit we thought we'd broken by moving his bedtime back to 8:00--which has us deeply saddened as we think he'll go back to waking up at 5:00 again even when he doesn't have teething to use as an excuse). And his naps have been regularly interrupted after only an hour or so, and that was the case today.

Usually, when he wakes up early from a nap, there isn't much chance of getting him back to sleep. I've tried several times to lie down with him in our bed, but I'm a terrible person to fall asleep next to as I move around a lot, so Gabe has never had any luck getting back to sleep. So, today, I just brought him downstairs and put him on the couch. I laid him down on a pillow and covered him up with Poof--his favorite feather comforter. And, lo and behold, he actually fell back to sleep in about five minutes.

I moved to the office so the noise of me doing whatever it is I do all day wouldn't wake him up, but I still went in and checked on him every five or ten minutes (he moves around A LOT when he sleeps, which stinks because we really want to transition him out of his crib and into a bunk bed, but know that he will just end up on the floor every night). He did fine for about thirty minutes, but the last time I went in there to check on him, he was hanging head first off the couch. He wasn't QUITE to the tipping point, yet, but one mid-strength kick would have sent him tumbling head-first off the couch.

I weighed my options--either I get the camera, have a seat on the floor, and wait for the fun to start, or I try to scoop him up without waking him and rearrange him back on the couch. I opted for the second. In retrospect, I SHOULD have at least gotten a picture, but I wasn't thinking. Actually, I WAS thinking. I was thinking, "If he falls off the couch, he'll be awake, and he'll probably fall off the couch in the next few minutes. On the other hand, if I can right him without waking him up, he might still sleep for another hour and I can do whatever it is I do all day in peace for just a bit longer."

Unfortunately, he wasn't sleeping deeply enough to not wake up when I put him back up on the couch. So, all was for not.

Also unfortunately, since he's been fighting a toothache while Libby has been home all this past week, he's not been much of a firecracker, either, which means we haven't been able to get any good video to post on here. It's all very sad and I've lamented more than once that all this extra opportunity for me to blog has been going by the wayside as I've suffered from a lack of good material.

Sigh. I don't really have anything new to post on here except a video of him eating ice cream and cherry pie that we took about two weeks ago (Libby has the camera with her in Wichita, and there MIGHT be something on there, so I'll post it later if I find something). It's only mildly amusing, at best, but it's all I have to offer. I promise we'll try harder in the future.


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