Awake

Here I am, at the computer at 5:45 am. I have to work in an hour and 15 minutes and I have been up since 3:15. I don't know what to do or where to go with this Donovan sleeping thing. I am not asking for him to sleep through the night: no, at this point all I want is for him to not wake up every 2 hours and need to be settled back to sleep with the help of Tom and I and a good chunk of time. Here is how last night went- Ate at 8pm, mat time, bath time and rocking to sleep via dad. 10 pm (after being asleep for 15 min) awake, crying. I comfort him at the bedside (crib) for 30 min to no avail. 10:30 eating. 11 pm sleeping in my arms, try to get him to crib, he wakes and cries. More comforting, rocking, singing, finally asleep in crib at 11:15. He sleeps until 3 am (Hallelujah!!!!!!). Tom tries to get him to sleep, works for 5 min. I try, works for 5 min. Feeds at 3:15. (PS as I type this Donovan is fussing, waking him self up. He has been asleep for 25 minutes. Bring on the waterworks (mine not his)). Asleep after feeding on one side at 3:30. Try to arouse him with a diaper change and gentle prodding. Didn't work. Asleep in crib. Wakes at 3:40, dad goes in and calms him back to sleep at 3:45. 3:50 awake and crying. I let him cry until 4:10. Go into the room, pick him up, rock him and he is back to sleep after 15 min. Lay him in his crib. Awakes promptly, screams. At this point I can't take it anymore. I let him cry for 5 min while I read about sleep problems in my books. Go in to comfort him, let him cry 10 min. He screams. Comfort him in crib again, let him cry for 15 min, more screaming. Repeat pattern until 5:10 when I try feeding him again, this time me crying the whole time. Guess what...he falls asleep after 5 min of feeding. I lay him down after about 15 min in my arms. It works, he sleeps, until I start writing this blog. It is now 6 and Tom just woke up and went in there to comfort him. I can't do it. I don't know where to turn. I just need some help and everything I read is conflicting. I am not writing this for advice, I have already had too much of that and all it does is upset me. I just need to vent and cry. One website I read says let them cry it out, another says "parent" them to sleep. How do I know which is right when nothing seems to work? He wants to be held to sleep ALL THE TIME or he just sleeps for 20 min. We can't live like that. Tonight between 11:15 and 3 is the longest stretch of consecutive sleep I have had for probably a month now. How am I supposed to live/function/work/parent on that? I know this is nothing new to many people, but it is to me. I know that I am lucky to even have a child to be upset about but that is no consolation right now. I just need a break. Not from Donovan, but from the lack of sleep. I love him so much but I need to find out how to do what is best for this family. I pray tomorrow is better but I fear it won't be. I just don't know how many more of these nights I can take. He is 15 weeks, when is this going to get better?

New one

So Donovan decided to start off the morning by peeing in someone's face during a diaper change. I am going to let you guess who's face it was but I will give you a few hints to help you guess.
1. It was not his own
2. Donovan, Petey and I were the only ones here
3. Petey is dry

Baptism

This past Sunday Donovan was baptised and it was such an awesome day! It was at our church down the street, which also happens to be the church where I had my first communion and confirmation (and also where Tom and I were supposed to get married but that is another story). It was the most perfect day! The baptisms are held after the noon mass and up to 5 babies are baptised at a time. This day however, Donovan was the only baby being baptised so everyone at the baptism was our family or friends. The Deacon who performed the ceremony was awesome, he did a fabulous job and really seemed to love that he gets to help bring people into the faith. I was most nervous about Donovan behaving during the ceremony, and behave he did! He was alert and happy throughout the whole thing, and only started to whine afterwards during pictures. I could not have asked for the whole event to have gone any better. It was just so special to have Donovan happy, and have our family and friends in a circle around the baptismal fountain in such an intimate ceremony. Afterwards, we had everyone over to our house to continue the celebration. Here are some pictures from Donovan's special day.

Tom, Donovan, myself and Deacon Charlie.

I love how Donovan looks like he is paying attention to what Deacon Charlie is saying.

Not minding the water a bit.

The whole crew standing in front of the baptismal fountain.

Donovan with his Godmother Jenna, and Godfather Nick.

Donovan spent the first hour of his party like this. Still buckled in the carseat, still wearing his baptism gown, in a deep sleep. He was in the middle of everyone and didn't seem to mind it at all. Being baptised is hard.

Donovan's cake.

Present time!

And last but certainly not least, getting his first baseball glove as a present from his Godmother. This may very well have been the highlight of Tom's day.

Seersucker smile

Handsome and chubby

Can you guess which one is which?


PS How bout them cheeks in the first pic?

Scratch

Monday, while taking a nap at Grammie Q's house Donovan scratched himself on his nose. Tom told me about it when I called home that night from work to see how Donovan was doing. I asked him how big the scratch was and Tom said, and I quote,"About the size of three pennies stacked on top of each other." Seriously? Must be a new unit of measurement, that penny width.

Almost fits

This is the "Newborn" hat that Donovan was wearing in one of our pictures of him from his first full day of life. Back then it was way to big for him, now it is just a little too big. A couple more months and the "newborn" size should fit just right.

Nudie

Nothing to see here, just a naked boy in a bouncer. (well, he did have a diaper on)

Silly Pun-kin

We leave Donovan alone with Auntie Jenna for a few hours and this is what we come home to find on the camera. Apparently someone was amusing herself.

Pun-kin head

For christmas I got a bunch of baby stuff from my cousin Joshua (actually I think it was more his mom but technically it was from him). One of the things that we got was this pumpkin hat that we could not wait to put on him when October came along. Well I ran across it the other day and realized there is no way that hat is going to fit Donovan's fat head in October. So we put it on, almost ripped the seams and took some pictures while we had the chance. It's really freaking cute, so hopefully we will get to use it more for our next baby.