I'm Also a Jerk

Last night I was really smart and had Jess make us coffee at like 9:30 at night, because it sounded good. So after both kids were in bed, I was wide awake. I stayed up until about 2 am reading blogs, and then my bible. RIGHT when I decided to go to sleep Cason woke up crying in his room. He is a boy who's still never come close to sleeping through a single night. In fact, I think 4 hours is the most he's gone. But I really don't mind, I never did mind the whole getting up with a baby. In fact, with Paige I didn't feel tired at all for the first 5 months. I had some crazy adrenalin rush or something. Even when I do get tired, I would still have a baby around forever if I could. So in other words, I'm not complaining that he wakes up a few times a night still. But I'm starting to think it's in his best interest if I teach him to sleep without being fed and/or held.

So I figured since I was still pretty wide awake from my coffee, I'd start the process. I thought I'd just hold him until he dozed off, instead of feeding him to sleep like usual, and then put him back in his crib instead of letting him sleep with us. He fell asleep after a few minutes, so I started to try and lay him down. The second he felt his body go a little horizontal he started screaming. I tried one more time, and the same thing happened. I decided to try what I did with Paige. I put him down in the crib and he started screaming and crying, pretty angrily. But I just sat on the floor by the crib and put my hand through the slats to rub his back, and sang to him. Paige was happy with that, and I could eventually kiss her goodnight and leave. Cason WAS NOT HAVING IT. He was enraged. I sang for probably 40 minutes, and he wasn't really calming down. I eventually decided that that wasn't working for him. He would clearly do better with me out of sight. I don't AT ALL enjoy letting them "cry it out", and I WON'T do it until they're older and know that I won't abandon them. But he is coming up on a year old, so I figured it was time.

I went to our room, and Jess was wide awake watching on the video monitor, so I joined him. Cason went nutso when I walked out. Grabbing the bars and shaking them and screaming in fury. He would almost fall asleep standing up, and then would wake himself up with another round of anger. Between yells he would catch his breath, and we'd laugh because he wasn't even crying. If he'd been sad it would've been really painful for me to let him cry. But he was just mad that I would dare to make him stay there alone. He screamed for another 20 minutes, and then finally slumped down to the mattress and passed out. Then he slept a few more hours just fine. I only got about 5 and a half hours of sleep last night, but I didn't really notice that I was overly tired today.

Well, apparently I WAS tired, because I was a big grumpy jerk tonight. I had a softball game, and I was craving a Dr. Pepper like you wouldn't believe. Jess brought me a big beautiful cup of the nectar, and I took a quick sip and had to run onto the field. I came in from the first half inning so happy to get a drink, and it was spilled on the cement. I was devastated. Then no matter what I did I kept getting bad calls. The first baseman for the other team knows my dad, so she likes to talk to me, probably because she's in love with him. Haha. But tonight she wanted to talk about EVERY play, and how I JUST missed it because I screwed up in this way and that way. Then I very nearly threw a guy out at third, and we were laughing because the ball was stuck in my glove and it took me an extra second to get it out. She goes "Oh, you wouldn't have had him anyway, he's fast." And I would have easily. It got annoying after a while. After the game we were all high fiving and she goes "Yeah, when you went to tag up on that play, you were just off by THIS much!" (which I wasn't) So I got all snotty and said "INCORRECT." And now I'm consumed with guilt for being a jerk. And this is a stupid story for all of you who don't care, but since I didn't get to apologize I have to ramble.