Tiny Copilot.

So Nathan still faces backwards in his carseat past his first birthday (My friend Christa wrote up some great reasons why).



He doesn't really mind either way, but the entertaining part is how he interacts with us. Say, if we order fast food. It doesn't happen a lot, but somehow when it does, HE KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON. After we've been handed our chicken nuggets and fries, his tiny hand shoots up over the back of his seat, begging for handouts. He literally does the "gimme" hand gesture which I swear we have never taught him. He could've been in a deep slumber, and all of a sudden he's HEY GUYS I SMELL FOOD MIND IF I EAT HALF OF IT? It's like he's been taking notes from the dog.

Mike also says that when he's travelling with Nathan (this happens a lot when he's bike hunting, so that Nathan will nap and I can get some alone time), he'll point to the dome light and gesticulate wildly until it is turned on or off for him. Apparently dome lights are a thrill a minute, who knew.

He's taken his demotion to backwards-facing quite well, and really doesn't make too much of a peep back there. I'm glad I did it, even though he keeps eating all my dang chicken nuggets.

Did I Mention We Got New Floors?

I'll use any excuse to redecorate.

So as most of you now know, I'm 3 months pregnant with our second child. I'm due on Christmas day.

This means Nathan and Thing 2 will be just about 2 years apart. We won't know the sex for at least another month.

So I'm starting to gather stuff for Nathan's new, little-boy room. Just based on space issues alone, it seems like they'll be in separate rooms. The new baby will be taking his crib, and he'll be moving to a big-kid bed that my brother and my dad once had. Months ago, my mom bought about a dozen yards of great heavy blue fabric with vintage cowboys and covered wagons on it.Hopefully we can turn it into curtains and pillows, and find him a matching comforter.

Today on etsy I picked these up:





There are so many more items I've got favorited, and we'll be hitting up yard sales all summer.

Pacific Northwest!

So last week we took a trip to Portland, OR with the baby. We had a lot of fun and the food was awesome.



Our first day, we went to the Multnomah County Fair. Nathan got into the petting zoo a little, but was a bit wary of the bigger, more horned animals



But omg, the piglets. Did he ever love the piglets.



WHAT ARE THESE I WANT THEM.

We also went to the Portland Children's museum, which he really had a blast at.



He was a great ER receptionist, except for all those dying people he put on hold and never got to.



There was also a little spot with a house "under construction" with plexiglass "holes" in the floor. It was really hard for Mike to get this picture because Nathan would try to hide every time he saw Mike with the camera.

So basically, all we did was take pictures of Nathan on our vacation. We took a walking tour of Portland's seedy underbelly, ate some excellent food, and had a bunch of fun. That'll be it for big vacations for awhile, flying with the baby was really not much fun.

Cruel to be Kind.

It's no secret that Nathan's had a terrible time sleeping for the past month or so. We struggled to get him to sleep in his crib every night, and more often than not he'd wake up between 12 and 3, and refuse to go back to sleep until he passed out on my chest hours later. We were all pretty miserable, and the lack of sleep was making us all very, very cranky. He wouldn't even nap in his crib.

We had originally tried a number of sleep methods at around 10 months old. Some older, more experienced parents all told us that even though crying it out sucked and sounded horrible, it was the only thing that truly helped their kids sleep through the night and sleep well. By the time we resorted to it, we were in dire straits - but it truly did work. It took over a week, but only the first two or three nights were awful. And he slept like a dream for months and months.

So we finally got to the point where we knew we'd have to do it again. The night before we left on vacation last week, he was so exhausted and it was 5:30 and we had to get up at 7... so we stuck him in his crib. And eventually, he did go to sleep. Last night after our flight got in, we did the same. Within 15 minutes, he was out. Naptime today, he was out in 10. Tonight, he was out before I could even unload the washing machine.

Are we out of the woods yet? No, but god, the sleep has been nice, and during the day he is a lot happier. The lack of sleep was hurting him, too. I know there's a lot of parents who think crying it out is terrible, and cruel, but a miserable kid who isn't sleeping is bad news for the kid, too. We make our choices. I have to be the parent and make the decisions for him. It's not always easy. And on that note, I'm going to sleep...