Long Night

Last night Jack started whimpering around 3:30.  I went in after a little while and sang to him and patted his back, then Chris went in for a while and rocked him.  Still whimpering.  I went in again rocked him and eventually decided to change his diaper, which was not the problem it turned out, and just made him more upset.  I got him settled again but he was still whimpering, and around 5:15 I finally decided we should give him some Tylenol.  After that I settled him into his crib and sat on the floor next to him and held his hand and sang “Hush Little Baby” 50 trillion times and he finally drifted off a little before 6.

No idea what that was about!  He does wake up occasionally these days, but usually he puts himself back to sleep, or it only takes a few minutes of soothing from one of us.   We have never given him medicine for teething before.. who knows if that was the problem.  Maybe his stomach hurt?  Maybe he was just upset?  Poor little guy.

Yawn.. tired today!

Unfit

I was feeling very frustrated today about my weight and fitness.  Jack was born 14 months ago, and I’m still carrying around 8 extra pounds.. and it hasn’t changed since January.  I’ve been trying to do more exercise, but that is frustrating me as well.  I have been swimming laps once a week, which I enjoy.  I want to get back to running, and that hasn’t been going so well.

A few months after Jack was born I started up running again for two weeks, but quit when my knees started to hurt.  I decided to try again, and have been doing everything “right”:  running on a flat surface, stretching, and building up to with intervals of running/walking.  Well, once again, at the end of two weeks, my right knee is hurting.  It’s so frustrating.  I guess I will have to go see a doctor, who will hopefully prescribe physical therapy for me.  When I tore my calf muscle a few years ago, PT got my calf back into good enough condition to run again.

But maybe I’m just too old to run any more.  I want to do something high impact, and running is the easiest.. all you need is a good pair of shoes, and you can go running anywhere.  Anyway I’m not giving up yet!

Is it time for tantrums already?

Jack has definitely got a mind of his own these days.  For example, if I say “Time for a diaper change!” and reach down to pick him up to take him upstairs, he’ll go limp so it’s harder to pick him up.  If I take him away from something he was enjoying, such a trying to get in the cat bed to sit on Jemba’s head, or putting toys into the diaper pail, he will sometimes start up with angry crying until I get him interested in something else.

Today I was playing with him in the family room (which we have gated off) and I got up to go to the kitchen to put dinner in the oven.  As I was leaving he fell to his knees and let out an ear-piercing, sustained shriek, as if the world had ended.   He kept it up til I’d put it in the oven and returned, then hugged me a long time.  I could tell he was a little fragile before that; he was trying to pet Jemba, who was on the couch, but could not quite reach him.  He was getting quite frustrated, and finally started crying, and turned to walk towards me, his arms open for a hug.  Unfortunately for him, there were many toys on the floor in the way, and it turned into a bit of a pathetic comedy:  “Watch out for the bus!” *crash*  He got up, resumed his sobbing staggering.. “Watch out for that cup!”  *crash* etc.  Poor guy.

I don’t know if these things count as tantrums or not.  What’s the difference between just being really upset about something, and deliberately acting upset to get the result you want?

Cloth Diapers Update

Nearly 14 months in, we’re still using cloth diapers.  We do use disposables, however, when we go out of town.  When we were in England Jack was wearing disposables, and I said to Chris, “He looks so skinny!” before I realized it was because he didn’t have his usual cloth diaper butt.

I’m still happy with them, and happy with our diaper service.  I don’t know if I’d do cloth if I had to wash them on my own.  I’ve had to buy some new diaper covers (we own those) because they seem to lose their waterproofness over time.

We upgraded to the “super absorbent” ones because we were having some issues with leaking, and now we only need to use one at night.

The biggest disadvantage to using cloth:  finding pants that fit.  Jack is pretty short and the length of most 1-year pants is either fine or too long, but most 1-year pants don’t fit over his cloth diaper.  Even some of the 18-month pants (that have zippers) don’t fit.  The 18-month elastic waist seem to be best, and we have to roll up the pants.  I just bought some 18-month shorts though and those are great.. they’re long on him, but that’s fine.

At the moment we”re planning staying with cloth until he’s potty trained.