Nicole Tasker Woods

Since starting the baby oatmeal, the Big A slept through the night for 4 nights in a row. But then out of the blue on the 5th night, he woke up at 3:30am. I was shocked because it was going so well. But after he chugged down 7 ounces and was still wide awake, I put him in his crib, covered him up with his blankets and kissed him good night. He looked at me with wide open eyes and I was convinced he would be calling my name by way of shouts within minutes of me closing his bedroom door. But I laid awake for 30 minutes waiting to hear something–anything–but he was able to drift off to sleep on his own. I was so proud.

He has continued to do that every night since the baby oatmeal; if he doesn’t sleep all the way through the night, when he does wake up, he is not fussy nor does he cry when he is put back in his crib wide-awake. Definitely makes my life 1,000 times easier!

Aidan has graduated to baby oatmeal because he is such a BIG BOY now! Although it wasn’t a lot of food, he ate about a dozen baby bites of the oatmeal mixed with breast milk and pureed pears. He seemed to enjoy it, but it has only been two days, so we will see if he continues to enjoy it over the rest of this week. If he does, then I see some prune juice in his future. The poor little guy has such a hard time pooping and is going 7 days without a booty squirt and that just isn’t right!

Ryan has been out of town on business since Tuesday and he missed this milestone of feeding Aidan his first bite of solid food. But I know there will be many milestones ahead and I look forward to both of us being a part of them.

Aidan slept through the night last night, yay!

He had teased us about a month ago by sleeping through the night for 7 days in a row–it was pure bliss! Then on the eighth day, he woke up twice in the night, we were so shocked. We didn’t know what happened to our sleeping boy.

Since that day, he has woken up once in the night, usually between 3:00 – 5:00am. On really bad nights, he wakes up at 1:00am and then again at 4:00am. We were so concerned that he wasn’t getting the right kind of sleep if he kept waking up so often when for a week’s time, he was sleeping for 10-12 hours straight! I understand if he was waking up hungry, but we could tell that sometimes he had just woken up because something startled him.

After thinking about it, we came to the conclusion that he was probably cold and was waking up because he was uncomfortable. The evening temps have dropped drastically since the summer ended so it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the reason.

Last night we decided to attempt to increase his comfort level by lying him on the afghan that my Grammie Allen made him. It is the biggest & thickest afghan I received at my NH baby shower and it made his sleeping space so warm. After his bath & bedtime bottle, it doesn’t take long to rock him to sleep. Sometimes he dozes with the bottle in his mouth. Once he’s out for about 5 minutes, we swaddle him up really tight so he looks like a delicious baby burrito and then continue to rock or sway with him for another 10 minutes. Then we set him in his crib and swaddle him one more time with another one of his afghans.

It seems like a lot, but I tell ya what, being able to sleep straight through the night because Aidan never woke up was awesome. Getting a solid 6 1/2 hours was incredible and I felt so refreshed. And I’m sure Aidan feels better too!

Variety is the Children’s Charity of Southern California. I have participated in this charity over the past 7 years in one way or another since it has heavy emphasis in the film industry and I work for a movie studio.

December 4th is the 2nd annual Santa Walk, which will consist of walking laps around the Westfield Topanga Mall. All of the film studios encourage their staff and their families to participate in the event and I heard that last year’s event was not only fun, but a huge success in raising funds for Variety.

This year I have decided to create a team–lovingly called ‘Aidan’s Elves’–and I am collecting donations so that when Aidan & I dress up like Santas with the rest of the masses, we can raise money for a good cause. In case you don’t know what Variety is or does, it is a charity that provides lifesaving support for physically-challenged, abused, and disadvantaged children in Southern California.

If you would like to donate, please click Aidan’s Elves and you will be directed to a secure website to make a donation–any amount is going to help, even if you can only donate $1.

If you are in the Los Angeles area and would like to be one of Aidan’s Elves, please email me (nicki.woods44@yahoo.com) and I will send you simple instructions for how to become a member of the team.

The coolest part about participating in this event (where all you have to do is walk, seriously, it’s not brain surgery!) is you will receive a Santa costume upon registering so you can blend in with the sea of Santas…

My little man slept from 8:30pm – 7:00am the past three nights, I’m so proud! He’s getting so big! I remember fumbling in the dark to warm a bottle while Ryan changed his diaper with one eye closed…and now we are no longer woken up by a baby’s cry, but the ding-dong of our alarm clocks. I love sleep.

My bosoms are billowy
Like pillows for your sleepy head

My mammaries are abundant
Giving warm food for your grumbly tummy

My knockers are aloft
Creating a tepid valley for your baby face

My funbags are squishy
Like balloons, cushioning your fall

My gazongas are engorged
Reminding me they are really yours

Copyright © 2011 N.E. Tasker

My lovely baby boy slept from 9pm until 5:30am–what a good boy!

And as another day goes by and Aidan grows bigger and bigger, we pass yet another milestone…

…he now has to lie lengthwise in his crib. We can no longer swaddle him width-wise because his head touches one side while his feet touch the other. What a big boy!

It is crazy how well you can function on little-to-no sleep.

Two weeks ago, Aidan was sleeping from 8:30pm until 4am and then back to sleep around 4:30am until 7:30am. This is a rock-star schedule because we can still get back to sleep and function at about 90% the following day at work.

But when I woke up Monday morning this week and sleepily counted the number of hours of sleep I got the night before, I came to a whopping 3. Yikes! I was really worried that I would not be able to function that day at work. With Mondays being our busiest day and my boss being out of the office the entire week, I was certain that I would hit the wall mid-morning and disaster would ensue. However, it wasn’t bad at all.

Then Tuesday morning came and I got about 5 hours of sleep. Better than the night before, but my body slowly started to shut down by 3pm that day. I rallied in the late afternoon, but anxiously laid my head on my pillow that night.

Wednesday was the worst! I got roughly 5 hours, maybe 6–which is more than I had gotten in the past two nights, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t totally gassed by 10am on Wednesday. I barely made it to lunchtime without nodding off for a split second at my desk. Then Ryan and I met up for lunch where we tried to eat in silence, but couldn’t stop complaining about how damn tired we were!

We got into the silly-tired-state-of-mind and started joking about selling our baby. Aidan had woken up the night before at midnight, then 4am, then 6am. It was no fun. No fun at all.

Last night, however, the little A man woke up at 1am and then proceeded to sleep soundly until 7am. I left the house at 6:45am so I was able to take Cali pee, pump, shower, dress & make-up myself all before he woke up. Which is the most ideal situation–if he HAS to wake up during the nighttime hours, then it might as well be only once–and in the middle of the night so we can still get ready for work in the morning. As a result, I felt refreshed for the first time in 3 days.

Hopefully this is the first of many nights like this. But with a little boy who will do as he pleases, I know I can’t hold my breath.

Aidan’s new thing is to shove his entire fist into his mouth. The first time we watched him do it while he was in his bath. Here we are, washing this filthy boy, removing dirt balls from the folds of his neck–and what is he doing? He has artfully put his entire hand – up to his writs – inside his mouth. Freak!

And whenever we pause halfway through a bottle feeding for a burp session, his hand moves to his mouth lightning fast–too fast to stop it before his fingers reach his lips–and lately, he’s been gagging himself until he spits up. Awesome.

I tried to talk to him about body image, explain that we love him just the way he is, and that he doesn’t have to worry what he looks like in swim trunks. But I fear this fell on deaf ears.

Now I am constantly blocking his hand from going into his mouth and shoving a bottle in there as quickly as possible. He did not like that tactic last night and was angrily screaming at me. He was VERY mad that I wouldn’t let him suck on his hand, but once he realized there was a bottle of milk in his mouth, he started to vigorously suck as if he was starving to death. Drama King.