The Sale is Off!

Yesterday I was just about ready to sell Wyatt to the Indians. (Yes, I know this sounds racist but it's a family saying that probably goes back many generations--so do I get a pass? Not sure how it started. Can't imagine there are a lot of Indians, American OR Asian, in the baby buying market anyway.) He'd been quite fussy on Wednesday, causing Mom and Dad do do a lot of bouncing and "sh sh sh"ing and making Mom panic that she's going to find herself with a full blown colicky baby. Then Thurs. night he slept his usual--through to 1:00 in his crib--but he was up just about every hour after that and would not be put back down to sleep, and Dad had to leave at 5:45 a.m. to catch a plane to Seattle (his first business trip since the baby--aack!) so when Mom did sleep, it was all crinked up on the couch, patting Wyatt's gassy little bum and humming desperate lullabies. As I was getting the three older kids out the door to catch the bus, Wyatt was screaming in his swing since I needed my hands free to zip zippers and whatnot and Ethan said, "Mom, it seems kind of miserable to be stuck here all alone all day with that baby." Ha.

So yesterday morning I was grumpy. Quite.

But things steadily improved as the day went on. Wyatt decided to NOT scream all day and instead invested some energy in napping and lying on his blanket on the floor looking at sunbeams, which made me inclined to forgive him. He relapsed a little when I had to take the boys to karate and decdided to take Wyatt and Elise to the grocery store during lessons. Wyatt is not a big fan of riding in the car (dang!), and although I've taken him to Target with few problems, he has also decided that he's not a big fan of Harmon's, either. I was irritated to find that his car seat didn't fit in the top part of the cart (what's up with that?) so I tried putting him and his car seat in the shopping basket, leaving precious little space for actual groceries. But he wouldn't stop crying, so I picked him up and had Elise push the cart around and fill up his car seat with bananas and Caffeine Free Diet Coke and hot dogs. Older kids are helpful in such situations.

In order to help remedy Wyatt's gassy problem, I've had to start eliminating things from my diet (hence the Caffeine Free). I think it's a sick joke and rather cruel that one of the things they say can cause a gassy baby is chocolate. A part of me believe that some sadistic pediatrican (probably male! or female and bitter!) made it up just to torture women a little bit more. But I haven't had chocolate or caffeine since Tuesday . . . and (dang it!) I think Wyatt's feeling better.

No fair! Although a non-gassy, happy baby is worth giving up chocolate for. But why couldn't it be, say, eggs that caused problems??? They also say that dairy can be an issue, but I'm not ready to go down that road yet. But last evening he was a pretty good boy--no more extended screaming sessions after the Harmon's debacle--and last night he SLEPT IN HIS CRIB!!! He did his regular 10-1 sleep, then I very gingerly, and with a prayer in my heart, put him back in the crib after his 1:00 feeding and he slept till 4!!! After that feeding he only slept in his crib until 5:45 and we ended up on the couch together until the kids woke up for school, but I'll take it. And this morning has been great. He sat in his bouncy seat and batted around at the toys during my whole shower and even let me get dressed and put on makeup with out crying to be picked up. So he gets a gold star. Right now he's taking a good nap, too, so I've decided to call of the sale. We'll keep Wyatt Dean.

Here's another good reason to keep him. Cuteness:



There's some spit up on his shirt, but he's still cute. Oh, and here's a hilarious picture of Grandma Sweat doing "hairdryer therapy" on Wyatt. When he's crying the hairdryer will always make him stop and go into a kind of stunned trance. It's Grandma's favorite trick.



In his little baby brain, Wyatt's thinking, "So this is what goes on on Earth? Huh!"

Oh, and I have to give a shout out to Grandma who came over Wednesday night and let Forrest and I go out to dinner. It was great. We also stopped by the Sports Authority and got the kids some gear for their ski lessons on Saturday. Jonas has a half-day class and Ethan and Elise have full day (9:30-3:30) classes for the next five weeks. So Mom and Wyatt will be home alone on Saturdays for the next little bit! I think Dad's excited, too, because he gets to snowboard while they ski for the next five weeks and doesn't have to feel guilty about it.

Here's the kids and their gear. We'll let you know how the lessons go!