I *heart* sleep...

It's been an early Valentine's Day morning here at Knight Manor. Jackson and his Daddy surprised me with my favorite donut from Dunkin' Donuts and my favorite coffee from Starbucks. Sweets from my Sweethearts. Jackson loved the cards he received this week and I let him play with them until they started to become snack food. Despite having some stomach bug Thursday and Friday, I took his teachers a little bouquet of flowers to thank them for their loving care. Robbie was also gifted with the stomach bug AND (lucky him) an emergency root canal and well, I am honestly, just wishing for a nice nap and laundry to magically clean itself today.

Jackson Danger is starting to test us. I recently read this was about the age parents had to start setting boundaries and I pushed the information aside like a plate of broccoli, figuring it was similar: all stinky and wrong. I mean, look at that face. How can something so sweet and still relatively so small test me in anyway with any amount of ornery behavior?

Our child goes to bed without a fight Every. Single. Night. Period. Rarely, if he isn't feeling well, he will fuss for about 5 minutes. We had one night he fought sleep for a good hour, but this was after two rounds of projectile vomiting and the chaos that typically floods a home after a couple of decent projectile vomiting incidences. But still - this has only happened once. In the last couple of months Jackson has been sleeping well through the night, sometimes sleeping solidly for 12 hours. Occasionally he will wake, but with little intervention goes back to sleep until morning. There have been plenty of times we've had to wake the kid up so we could all make it to work and school on time. I suppose it was all bound to change eventually.

In the last week or so, Jackson has decided 2 or 3 am is a great time to wake up and cry like he's being attacked by his Diaper Genie. When Robbie or I go in to check on him he starts to flail his arms and body and get all excited to see us and that's when we know we have a fight on our hands. Usually I just give him his binky, say I love you and walk out. Within a millisecond the baby cursing begins. I have tried to let him soothe himself back to sleep, but at 3 in the morning all reason and logic escapes me. I make a bottle, I rock him, I put him in our bed and Robbie does the same song and dance. But here's the thing....Jackson knows we will cave and he is playing us like a fiddle, like a cat plays with a mouse, like a baby playing his parents for the fools they are. Apparently, this is the classic beginning of learning Parental Boundaries. God help me.

So, now we are contemplating Ferber and another Ferberesque method that isn't so rigid with binkies. Robbie and I have been spoiled and now our panties are in a proverbial wad. We are tired and value our sleep about as much as we value the brakes on our car. Jackson is in for a rude awakening...errr...I mean...a-sleepining. Oh, who am I kidding. No one is witty when they are tired. Is it naptime yet?