This is a very sleepy boy.
After a month of waking up at 5:00 am to an alternately angry/chatty Zephyr, we have reluctantly decided to wean him down to one nap. We're hoping that if he sleeps less during the day that he'll go back to sleeping longer at night (or later into the morning). We started on Saturday, moving his 9:00 am nap to 10:00. Then yesterday, we bumped it another 30 minutes. Today, due to a spur-of-the-moment brunch date, he went down for his afternoon nap at 11:30. The books say to move the nap in 15 minute increments over the course of a week, but I trust Zephyr's ability to adapt quickly, and other than acting sleepy in the morning (yawns and eye rubs at his old nap time), he seems to be doing just fine.
My goal is to get him to a noon-3:00 pm nap so that we can schedule morning classes and activities to give our days some order, and I'll still have a little time for working and writing every day without having to cut into my evenings too much. Then in the afternoons we can run errands and fix dinner together. He's been very into playing in the kitchen lately, and I want to start letting him "help" soon. Also, with my afternoons shifting to being with Zephyr instead of working while he naps, I can get dinner ready earlier so we can all start eating together instead of just throwing something together for Zephyr, and Scott and I waiting to eat dinner until after Zephyr goes to bed.
The new nap schedule, while excruciating on the first two days (being up at 5:00 and out of ideas by 7:30), is already starting to show some results. Yesterday instead of wailing at 5:00 he just cried half-heartedly and then stayed quiet for a half hour. Today, he woke briefly at 3:30 am, but then went back to sleep until around 6:15 am. And that may have only been because he pooped. We'll see what tonight holds, but I'm already feeling better about things with the prospect of once again getting a full night's sleep on the horizon.
Other than sleep drama, everything is pretty much normal. Walking is going well, though he tends to prefer doing it from the comfort and security of home. When I take him to the park, he just crawls around, grinding sawdust and mud into his knees. Evidently he walks just fine when he's at the park with Scott, so I'm not sure what's going on.
He's really into coloring right now, which is great, because crayons are relatively light and small enough to fit into my purse. He doesn't even need to taste them anymore. He is always entertained now.
He's also started finally breaking his molars. His bottom left second incisor is still showing no signs of coming, or that it even exists. I guess there's a chance that he is missing one of his teeth? Wonderful. In addition to serious orthodontia, he'll need an implant. Hopefully this is just a baby tooth issue.
Talking, too, is coming along slowly. He verbalizes constantly, it's just usually not any words that I can understand. And it's not because I'm not paying attention, it's because he literally says "bzbzbzbzbz. dis. dis, bzbzbzbz." He also makes this cooing sing-song sound like an owl where he starts high and then drops and octave, going progressively lower and lower, "hoo-OOH, hoo-OOH." He can say "all done" when he's finished eating (which he does, while presenting either his empty plate or the plate full of food that he's not interested in eating). When I ask him if we wants to nurse, he nods and says "dub."
He calls Scott "Daddoo" which is adorable. He never calls me Mama, though, or requests me verbally at all, as far as I can tell. Maybe it's because I'm ubiquitous. I hope it's because he just knows that I'm always there.
