5:30am is not Good Morning

Curse you, 18-month sleep regression.

For the past several mornings, Carter has been up to his old waking-up-at-5:30am shenanigans. At the beginning of January, he magically started sleeping in til (insert harps and chorus of angels) 6:20am! Sweet fancy Moses, it was glorious.

This development happily coincided with two magical events: 1) I dropped the morning feed in our very, VERY (oh child, will you never stop?!) slow weaning process, and 2) (drumroll!) the Roo had SIX teeth come in in five weeks. Ages ago, I wrote about about Carter's general lack of interest in food, which I have since connected to teething - endless, awful teething - and the subsequent disdain for chewing anything except the remote control, our cell phones and the occasional cracker. But lo and behold - suddenly, my ever-teething, never-eating child had a mouth full of chompers, and better yet - an appetite! He actually wanted food for the first time in seemingly ages.

And food he had - as much as I could stuff into his little body. For several weeks, that boy ate, and I knew the glory that other parents with eating children (as I call them) must know every day. It was marvelous.

...and then two more teeth reared their little heads, and so it began, all over again. Now I'm waiting desperately for his top and bottom incisors to make their appearance and complete his set - at least until we have the two-year molars to contend with.

Back to the sleep - at first I was blaming the recent early morning wake-ups on the same scapegoat I use for every other issue with all things Carter - THOSE EVIL LITTLE DEVIL TEETH. But then I happened to pop over to Polka Dot Hippo the other day and was amazed to learn about the 18-month sleep regression.

Ah. So THIS is the kind of toddler trivia that eludes me in my pursuit of watching Parenthood (what? at least there's kids in it) on Tivo and falling asleep on the couch in a puddle of my own drool instead of, oh, reading parenting books. Hrmph.

So here we are again. 5:30am and - SHEBANG! "Mama....MaMa...MAAma...MAMA! MAAAAMAAAAA!!!!"

We are going on day four of this lovely development, so this morning I took a different approach - ignoring, in a desperate attempt at extinction (I think that's some kind of sleep-book terminology that I dredged from the innermost recesses of my musty brain).

After a few minutes of this, the Roo tried a new tactic: "Up. Up? UP! UPUPUPUPUPUUUUUUUUP!"

Stay strong. Resist the urge to make it stop - DEAR GOD MAKE IT STOP!

And then, the kicker: "Please. Pleeeeeeease? Please! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!" ...you get the idea.

I almost broke at this. My little charmer, with his fancy manners. But no - by damn, the Roo must understand that Mommy simply does not function prior to 6am.

And suddenly? SILENCE. Not sleep, for either of us - but for fifteen glorious minutes, I listened to my son babble quietly to himself in his crib: "Carter. Booger. TWO. Two boogers." (Yes, about a month ago my son discovered that there are two little holes on his face shaped perfectly for cramming small fingers into. Then he SOMEHOW learned the word "booger" - thank you, HUSBAND - and it's been a nose-pickin' party ever since...sigh).

Around 6:05 it started again - "MAMA!" I waited until this round stopped so that he (hopefully) knew he did not WIN, and in I went, to rescue the Roo from his crib prison and share a banana muffin (recipe to come!) with him while watching Abby Cadabby's broccoli song (his recent obsession) for the 87 zillionth time on You Tube.

Now the question is - did my (admittedly half-assed) Cry It Out do anything? What new wonders shall tomorrow morning bring?