Cleaning vs. Napping

Weston's been asleep for nearly three-and-a-half hours.  And I'm kicking myself right now for not napping myself.  Instead, I chose to clean the house while he napped.  Nate and I did the second floor yesterday, and today was the first floor--dusting, vacuuming, and washing acres and acres of wood floors.  I always have this debate as soon as he goes down for a nap--should I hop in bed, too, and get some much-needed sleep?  Or should I be my very own cleaning lady (because she isn't showing up on my doorstep any time soon)?

I'll be honest; we vacuum the kitchen about 3-4 times a week and the rest of the first floor maybe gets it twice a week.  But washing the floors??  I'm lucky if that happens more than once a month.  Everyday, I just take mental notes; "There's a smashed pea.  That oatmeal is going to cement itself to the floor.  That looks like yogurt."  I feel like Dudley from The Royal Tenenbaums.  "That cab has a dent in it.  Another dent here, and another dent here."











When I put him down this afternoon, I couldn't put off washing the floors any longer.  We finished about an hour ago, and he's still sleeping.  Nate even had time to create this for Weston to destroy as soon as he comes downstairs:

Clean floors waiting to be dirtied...

I've had time to catch up on some work email, write another blog post, and think about how I wish I were sleeping.  I've been running on very little sleep these past few weeks as we still try to figure out what time works for bedtime with his schedule at child care.  He's been waking up between 4:45 and 5:30 am this past week, and it's been pretty brutal.  Last week, I tried putting him to bed earlier, thinking that maybe he was overtired, and last night I started to try staying up later.  That seems to be working because he woke up at 6:10 this morning.  Quite a relief.  Oh yeah, and he's had a cold these past few days.  Did I mention that he's been biting, too?  Bit two kids at day care, and I've lost count of how many times I've been bitten (but I can still see some red marks).  Needless to say, it's been a rough week.

I suppose that lamenting about lost sleep is ridiculous.  Sure, a three-hour nap this afternoon would have been absolutely amazing.  But, the house is clean.  And there's always next weekend to nap, because I can assure you that I won't be washing any floors.

A little bit of shotgun bed head

Looking for a tortilla to make a "dee-ya"

Link up: 

Visitors From the Sunshine State

 Yay!  Mark and O'Dota have arrived!!  They blew in from Florida yesterday afternoon and now Weston can check off "grandpa" and "great grandma" off his relatives-to-meet list.  So exciting!

Weston woke his great grandma up this morning with a little rendition of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."  Totally adorable.  As soon as I can get the video uploaded, I'll post it.

Wake up, wake up!

Enjoying some waffles with Grandpa Mark Mark

Three generations of crazy hair and great laughs

Throwdown with Weston

If I ever invest in another refrigerator, I will absolutely not go without a lock on the water dispenser. Much to my dismay and that of our wooden floors, our fridge doesn't have one, and that little fountain of eternal joy is no longer out of reach for Weston.  His arms and legs have grown just enough recently to take baby-proofing the house to the next level.  There are tables that were once okay to put things on, but we're quickly running out of space to put coffee mugs, the iPad, pens, and the computer mouse.

After I picked Weston up from day care this afternoon, he did his usual routine of pulling all the pots and pans out of the cabinet to play Cooking.  His latest ingredient is water.  From the fridge.  In a sippy cup.  Tippy toes. Make contact with the lever.  Spray water everywhere.  Get some into the cup.  Walk over to the pots.  Dump it into the pot.  Return to fridge.  Tippy toes.  Ad infinitum...

I decided that I didn't want to deal with that today, so I set up an outdoor kitchen for Cooking, complete with a continuous supply of water, and this is what he did for the next thirty minutes:

Don't you love how he tastes his food??  I love watching him do grown up things!  I actually love watching how he imitates Nate.  My hubby does most of the cooking, and we actively let Weston participate in the kitchen as much as we can.

After I was done shooting this video, we had to go inside and eat "real" dinner.

He screamed when I took him away from his kitchen...

And So It Begins

This past week has been traumatic for me.  Weston started going to child care on Monday, which is stressful enough as it is, but almost immediately following his first day there, he's developed MAJOR sleeping issues at night.  Major as in: crying for about 45 minutes before falling asleep (before he would just lay his head down on the pillow and go to sleep); waking up multiple times throughout the night crying hysterically; Friday he woke up at 2am and would not go back to sleep until 5am (and Friday was picture day at work for me and I looked like a crazy woman); and then for his most recent act of craziness...

HE CLIMBED OUT (or tumbled out) OF HIS CRIB LAST NIGHT.

He will be 16 months old in about 4 days.

Yes, his mattress is as low as it will go.

No, there isn't anything in the crib that he could get a leg up on.

Here's how it happened...He woke up sometime again around 2am last night, (after waking up at midnight) and I went in after letting him cry for about 10 minutes.  He clamored to be picked up, but I laid down on the floor and told him that it was time to sleep.  That didn't work as well as I was hoping, but he did calm down a bit.  As I got up to leave the room, he got really upset, but I left anyway, and walked back to our room to the sounds of him screaming.  I laid down on our bed, and no sooner than I started to tell Nate what went on above the intensifying screams of Weston, did I hear his little hands jiggling the door knob to his room.  Oh my God, he got out of the crib!  Leaping up out of bed, I went flying down the hallway, opened the door, and scooped him up.  He immediately stopped crying and showed no signs of any injury.

I have no idea how he got out--did he fall or did he climb down?  I didn't hear any thump.

Crib tents have been recalled, so perhaps it's time to switch to a toddler bed.  But he's so young!  I don't know how a bed is going to make this situation any easier.  At least if he wants to get out, the mattress is 10 inches from the floor instead of four feet.

Thankfully, I am married to a fine designer who happens to work for a company called BaserMatter.  Nate spent this afternoon designing a toddler bed for Weston (complete with his name laser cut on it!) and is now at the studio cutting it out on the CNC mill.  Hopefully, Weston will have a custom-made toddler bed to sleep in by tonight.

I'm not entirely sure what to do here.  I think perhaps pushing his bedtime earlier will help him sleep more soundly through the night.  He currently goes to bed between 6:30 and 7, but with all the changes that are going on, I think he's getting really tired.  He's napping while at child care, but I don't think it's been long enough.

Anyone else have experience with kids climbing out of their cribs or changes in sleep patterns after starting child care?

As promised...BaserMatter delivers before bedtime!!