c's 55th week

I can't believe that it is already mid-January! The month just seems to be zipping by and I am left without a moment to catch my breathe.  Things are pretty busy with work, finishing (which might be some wishful thinking on my part) up our house, parties galore, and of course just life in general.  

This week I have been working on balancing my time better.  I have been trying to keep my work at work so that my home life belongs to my family.  I have worked hard this week to keep all prepping, grading, and anything pertinent to my job done during the school day.  I've only had to do a couple of things during the week after C's gone to bed, but this weekend was a success with no school work done at home! I'm hoping to continue this trend as it was really nice to just enjoy the weekend without thinking of my long to-do-list for school.

Balancing my time has also involved not jumping right onto the computer the moment I get home.  I'm working on being more present with C and really interacting and playing with him during the afternoons when I get home from work.  This has meant trying to do my blogging, facebook, e-mails in the evening once C goes to bed.  It's working okay, although poor Matt is getting the short end of things.  So I think I'll have to work on setting time aside for just the two of us without the computers on each of our laps.  We'll see what sort of progress I make in this coming week as I work to find more balance in my life.

January 14 - 20


In his brand new front facing car seat!

Reading a bedtime story....oh so serious! 

C loves his books and likes to choose a few to read at random times throughout the day.

Playing with people on the other side of the glass.  

We were at breakfast and C would not stop flirting with everyone around us.  Silly boy!

...All About C...

Not to jinx us or anything, but C has been sleeping so much better these days! Matt is amazing and one day just put C into his crib and powered through the tears, stayed encouraging, and remained consistent until C went to sleep on his own.  He told C that he wasn't alone and to go to sleep.  He also used beach sounds from a white noise app on the ipad to help soothe C.  That first night took about 30 minutes, but  since then, the time it's taken C to fall asleep on his own is down to a matter of minutes! It is so wonderful! 

Since C's been sleeping in the crib, we've all been sleeping a lot better.  He now wakes up about once a night to nurse for a little while.  This has been a life changing thing for me as recently C's been up anywhere from 3 - 5 times a night to nurse.  Now though, C wakes to nurse and then goes back into the crib until morning when he nurses once more and remains asleep in our bed till about 7am.  YEAH! I know there are bound to be bad days, but right now I'm enjoying this change in C's sleep habits.  We are so thankful that he's taken to sleeping in the crib and learning how to fall asleep on his own, because seriously...I may have had doubts that he would ever learn this! HA!

Some funny things that have come from this is how C falls to sleep.  He starts by crying loudly for a minute or two.  Then he sits down and falls asleep sitting.  He'll kind of fall over and wake himself up only to try to stay seated for a while longer.  A couple minutes later, he gives in to sleep and simply lays himself down onto his belly and goes to bed.  This process has gotten much better and the other night he went from shrieking for a minute to dropping flat asleep onto his belly.  It was hilarious!

So C has some interesting habits while asleep.  One of them is to move all over the crib throughout the night, which will occasionally wake him up as he'll bump himself on the head a fair bit.  Thankfully he's learned to just roll over and fall back to sleep on his own.  Something else he does in his sleep is to talk in his sleep.  He mumbles all sorts of things, and of course shouts out "ball, ball" every so often too.  Occasionally he'll cry out and look so sad while asleep, which may or may not cause him to wake up.  The best thing though is when he smiles and laughs while sleeping.  I could honestly watch him all night during those times and so want to know what he is dreaming about.

(Linking up with Our World Tuesday, P52 Sweet Shot Tuesday, Wednesdays Around The World, Little Things Thursday, 

Photo Story Friday, Favorite Photo Friday, Che and Fidel, Simple Things Sunday, and Sunday Snapshot.)