Prenuptial reflections

Big Poppa here, in a very empty, rather quiet apartment. Ash and Ezra have embarked on a scouting mission in Santa Fe, and I will reinforce them tomorrow. The last couple of weeks have been a blur of wedding planning. As a family, we are not the most organized bunch. We have trouble keeping our home fit for habitation, let alone finessing the complex choreography of a largeish wedding weekend. But things have begun falling into place -- we'll be busy over the next week, but it's starting to seem doable.

The sleep progress has been tremendous. We have more-or-less consolidated our gains from last week -- very little crying, and one feeding in the course of the night. And then, on Thursday night, out of no where the kid slept through the night. I mean really through the night -- no wakings from about 7pm to about 6am! Holy crap! Then, just to drive it home, he repeated this tremendous feat the next night! We are in shock. It just does not compute with our now-mangled circadian rhythms any more, so naturally we, well, mostly Ash, have been waking up in the middle of the night on our own, wondering if he is still alive. Happily, the answer is yes.

Of course, all this happens JUST in time to completely blow up our finely-honed routine by schlepping the family across the country to Santa Fe. Early word is slightly troubling -- I guess last couple of nights' sleep was less than satisfactory. We have witnessed how quickly the training can unravel, and fully suspect that all will be undone shortly. But we have also witnessed how quickly we can get back on the straight and narrow, if we're brave. So we hope we can build on our earlier successes once we're back in Chi. And then we'll muck it all up a month later when we go to Alaska ... and the circle of life turns on and on. I characterize this as two steps forward, two steps back. (cue Paula Abdul)

In other news, Ezra's bottom two teeth are gradually revealing themselves. He's handled teething pretty well so far. And his meal repertoire is slowly expanding. I'm told he had his first multicourse Mexican meal the other night: pinto beans, guacamole, quesadilla. And saltines.

Soon Ezra will have two legally married parents, and we'll be able to post pictures of Ezra from our wedding! I head out first thing tomorrow morning. Terribly exciting stuff. Thanks to all for the well-wishes.

Much love,
Gabe, Ash and Ez

Mama Eats Crow

Okay, time to come clean on this one straightaway. For months, I (Ash) had been balking at going back to the Gitmo, fascist sleep training we've blogged about in the past. I truly thought letting him "cry it out" would traumatize him for life, setting him up for years of SSRIs and self-help books. But as Gabe alluded to before, things had deteriorated to the point where we had no choice but to do SOMETHING. Ezra was waking up every two hours (or less) - and could only fall back asleep after nursing. And could only fall asleep on the futon (a dangerous setup, requiring us to try to transfer him to the crib multiple times a night after he fell into a deeper sleep). Such was the hell we were living!

Well, we're still scared to come out and say we've had a breakthrough ... but shhhhh ... I think we've had a breakthrough. Four nights into "cry it out" sleep training, Ezra hardly even whimpers. He rolls over, hugs his stuffed animal and conks out for a good 6-7 hours, waking up once for a quick nursing and then sleeping another 5 hours or so. We're hopeful we'll be able to even eliminate that last feeding in the near future. Thank you, Dr. Ferber! 

In other news, the weather in Chicago is now approximating springtime. Yippee! We had a wonderful day in the park with our friends Liliana, Leigh and Chris. 

Liliana tried to show Ezra what's what when it comes to eating food. He was too busy playing with bags and containers and bits of grass and dirt to pay much attention. 

For those of you who don't know that Ezra was born out of wedlock... well, the truth is out now. But Gabe and I are going to rectify things in a couple of weeks. We're going to Santa Fe to get hitched - and we're really excited. Lots of friends and family are traveling from far and wide - in spite of the recession and swine flu and God knows what else. We feel blessed and lucky. 

Love,

Ash, Gabe and Ez