A Collection of Fairy tales

This is the norm every night around here. Lane gets a bath after dinner and then we go upstairs to unwind. Yes sometimes unwinding means doing this, but most nights it's calm, we read, and soak in the last minutes of the day before bedtime. It varies on who gets to read. Sometimes it's Mommy sometimes it's Daddy. Tonight just happened to be Daddy, so Mommy took out her camera.





When I look at these two...

sometimes I feel like our story could be added to the collection.

It's not an exciting story, but it's our story that we created and we think it's special.

When I look back 20 years from now...these are the moments I want to remember...spirited,

sweet

simple


A fairytale in our book.

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'ide?' 'ide?'

Translates into hide.
When my mom and dad visited, (yes this post is from about a month ago) my mom started Lane on a hiding kick. She would hide and he would run to find her and then he would leave the room and when he came back she would be in a different spot, but he always went to the old spot she was in. It was really cute to watch and now he loves playing 'ide.' So every night when I say let's go upstairs and read some books he runs to the stairs and starts his climb.

Matt usually comes up too and we all take turns hiding and then jumping out when we are found. It's not a very quiet or soothing before-bed activity, but he loves it and we get some laughs out of it too!

What a cheese face. I think he was anticipating the flash?

Loving' on his Harley.

Running

from

room to room!

'ide?' 'ide?' Can you see his little mouth saying that?

Then it was Daddy's turn to hide...(this progression cracks me up!)

Lane looking for Daddy...

                  

Daddy jumps out and scares Lane...(check out that face...this man doesn't mess around when he's scaring people, even if they are 1)

Lane laughing and screaming and running away...Daddy cracking up. Matt comes by this honest folks...from his Dad! Trust me, I've heard stories!

                  

And he always comes back for more....

After riling him up, we try to calm down with about 16 books (per his request) and then it's off to bed. And bedtime seems to be getting later and later with this weather and time change. We are outside just about every night so by the time we come in and eat dinner and do bath time, it's near 9 o'clock when we are going up to put him to bed. But I don't mind too much because later bedtime=later morning. The child sleeps in like a teenager! I can get a lot done around here bright and early on the morning, but it is an inconvenience when we have somewhere to be in the morning and he's still sleeping.

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Updates

The Gym
So taking him to the baby room at the gym, has been going well. Sometimes I come back to a snotty nose baby, which means he probably has been crying...but not when I get there, so that's good. Other times I come back to a very serious, inquisitive baby taking in all his surroundings or a very talkative baby who is laughing and playing in his seat. But you can bet most days I pick him up, he is in the arms of one of the ladies just watching all the kids from a safe distance....gee he's not my kid, is he now!?!?! My parents can attest, I was a cautious child and remain a cautious adult! ;-)
He sits up very well and seems to be able to hold his own, but he's one of the younger ones there that's able to play on the floor, so I think if there are too many older kids at that time, they don't want to put him down. But all in all, it's going well and I am able to fully complete a workout without having to worry too much!


STTN
So I don't want to jinx myself, but he has been doing great at night. All books I read say to establish a bedtime routine, which we have, since 3 weeks of age. I guess it's taken 6 months to see the benefits! He usually goes down between 7:30 and 8 pm and wakes to eat between 5:30 and 6 am. I dreamfeed him at 10:30 and it has been very successful....running to knock on wood...It seems to hold him through the night and when he wakes in the morning, Matt can hear his stomach growling the whole way down the stairs! He's sooooo hungry at that time, that he can barely hold-off through a diaper change. Matt brings him to our bed and I feed him...laying down...he eats for a long time and then we can sleep until 7 or 8. It's great!
If he happens to wake up through any part of the night, I usually don't fully wake up in time to realize he is fussing before he goes back to sleep....so we are seeing some self-soothing techniques....it's about time!

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Bed time routine

Lane's FAVORITE time of the day is bathtime. It happens *almost* every night before bed. Our night time routine goes like this:

*5:30-6 pm Matt comes home and plays with Lane and then gives him some cereal and veggies.
*This is the time I usually start dinner.
* After cereal/veggies, they either play, if its not too late, or start bathtime.
* If Lane is getting cranky (after 6 pm is sometimes the witching hour) he immediately is calm when taken into the bathroom...I think its the water running. He knows what's about to come.
*Then its time for bath! He has loved it ever since he was a newborn.
*They laugh and talk and splash and have a good old time. It lasts until about the time Lane starts rubbing his eyes.
*Matt puts his lotion on him, gets him in his PJ's, and usually reads Goodnight Moon. We've done that since he was 3 weeks old.
*Then we go up to his room and if the eye rubbing hasn't started too much, we read some more books. Sometimes we read his John Deere Books from Mr. and Mrs. Full or The Hungry Caterpillar from Jackson.
*He usually sits really well when we read to him and if he doesn't we know its time for bed!
*Then we say our prayers and kiss him goodnight and he's ready for dreamland.

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