Counting Sheep

Bedtime has become quite comical in our house. Never in our lives has sleep been SO important and yet SO impossible to obtain. Eric went back to work on Monday and I was a bit nervous about being on my own without him or either of our mothers to help out. Surprisingly, I survived and actually enjoyed some quality one-on-one time, just Javi and me. The only real challenge is figuring out how all of us can get to bed and still get some quality sleep time. Since I'm not working right now, it's not quite as important. After all, I can take power naps during the day if needed. Eric, on the other hand, has to function as a human being when he's in the office and that's easier said than done with you have a baby that decides that the buffet line should be open all night long!

Last night, we were pretty proud of ourselves...well, to begin with. Eric got home around 4pm and we managed to eat dinner around 5pm. I had Javi fed, burped, changed, and together we gave him a bath shortly after that. He got a short nap, another feeding, burping and changing, and then at 8pm we headed for bed. Now to be honest, I can't recall the last time I went to bed and the sun was still up. I was probably about 6 years old at the time. But rest assured, we were both so wiped out, it didn't even matter. Javi was in his bassinett and sound asleep, hopefully not to wake for another three hours. We gave each other a quick high five and then hit the sack.

But why, oh why, should it be that easy?

Evidently our neighborhood is quite the happening place on a Monday night. Our nextdoor neighbor got the burning itch to start mowing his lawn. Our other nextdoor neighbor's kids thought it would be fun to start skateboarding on their mini halfpipe in the backyard. The dog across the street started barking. Then our dog started barking. Then the neighborhood hillbillys decided it would be fun to tear up some asphalt on their motorcycles.

Dear GOD! Can't anyone get a wink of sleep around here?

Well, life is just that unfair because not five seconds later, Javi started wailing (believe me, I wanted to do the same) and there went our wonderful plan. Poor Eric. I knew he had to get up at 5am for work but just wasn't going to catch a break. At least he came up with the great idea to put the DVD player in the bedroom so we could catch up on a few episodes of Frasier on DVD while feeding him. We may have been tired, but we got a few laughs in before hitting the pillow again. After the second feeding around 1am though, Eric had less of a sense of humor. I told him to go ahead and take the guest room so he could get a few hours of sleep in before his alarm went off and he promptly obeyed with no arguing.

It's funny...the closer it gets to daylight, the more soundly Javi seems to sleep. We've been trying to flip-flop his sleep schedule but it's harder than we thought. Oh well, at least we made it through another night.

Now we get to do it all over again in a few hours!