Silas, Unswaddled

Totally off-topic, but GO MUDCATS! My uncle Haig works for the team--I'm a big fan!

First things first: Silas had an AWESOME week at daycare and I had a pretty good week at work. Apparently, Silas loves the attention he gets from the different ladies that work at the daycare and has a blast observing all of the other kids and activity occurring all around him. He was happy and smiley and sweet and napped like a champ all week long. He especially loves one of the ladies who works at the daycare, Trina, and spent many hours snuggling with her and laughing and talking. I had thought I would be jealous of any child care provider that he appeared especially fond of, but instead (so far at least) I'm thrilled that someone else appears to think my kid is as awesome as I do!

Me and my daycare buddies (Miss Trina is in the center) and that's my buddy, Isaac, on the far right

Mama and her friend Jamie took Isaac and me out for a lunch date on Thursday.
(Thanks to Jamie for the pictures)

Work went pretty well for me too. It was pretty surreal to be back and to start in on some of the projects that have been waiting for me. Weirdly, except for the pictures of Silas in my office, I often felt like nothing, including me, had changed in the last eight months since I've been there. It felt like I had never left. Also weird was being away from Silas for such long periods of time and not really knowing what he was doing at any given moment. I think I hadn't really thought of us as separate people yet and it's just now starting to sink in. Given that I went down to nurse him three times each day and left between 5 and 5:30pm, I wasn't super productive this week (at least by DC lawfirm associate standards), but I think that easing myself into it and giving Silas and myself some time to adjust is probably best for everyone--I don't get totally overwhelmed and suddenly decide that this whole full-time working mom thing is impossible and Silas can transition from being with me all of the time, to seeing me at least three times during the day, to just seeing me in the morning and when I get home from work during the time that Matt stays home with him.

In other news, Silas successfully slept unswaddled all night long last night. And. It. Was. Glorious. Yes, we were the people still swaddling our almost-six month-old, but he seemed to really need it. Every once in a while, we would unswaddle one or both of his arms and he would wake up every hour on the hour or, worse, fail to fall asleep at all. However, for the last week or two, even while swaddled, he's been waking up a lot during the night, requiring us to get up and replace his paci and/or pick him and walk him around for a half-hour or so until he falls back asleep. We couldn't figure out what was going on and know better than to try to let him just cry it out (Silas is a big fan of the "nuclear option" response to our trying to get him to cry it out, which involves getting so hysterical that he throws up and takes at least an hour or so to calm down even after we've given in and and picked him up and/or attempted to nurse him back into sanity, etc.). Two nights ago, he woke us up SIX times during the night and Matt and I were nearing the ends of our sleep-deprived ropes.

Last night, as I was putting him down to sleep at 7:15, I noticed he was already kind of sweaty and decided to forgo the swaddle, at least until he woke us up for the first time. Except he didn't. He slept without a peep until his normal early morning feeding around 4:30. He didn't wake himself up with his flailing arms (and flail he did--we watched him on the video monitor, and, honestly, it's amazing he still has skin on his face) or if he did, he settled himself right back to sleep. Maybe he finally grew out of feeling comforted by the swaddle and instead was just generally ticked off by the straightjacket-ness of it every time he stirred in the night. Who knows? But I'm excited to see if this whole unswaddled situation works again tonight. I'll keep you updated.

This picture has nothing to do with sleeping or swaddling, but Look! I found my feet! Trust me, they are delicious!

Also, Silas has finally moved on from rice cereal to...applesauce, bananas and sweet potatoes. Although Silas loves his rice cereal, it has a tendency to...stop him up, if you know what I mean. Quite honestly, Boy Wonder was in serious need of some fiber. So, on the advice of my good friend and co-worker Jamie, I purchased this fabulous machine that steams and purees fruits and vegetables and spent the last few nights making batch after batch of pureed apples, pears, carrots and sweet potatoes. It's incredibly addictive, and Silas appears to really love the result. So far, he's partaken of the applesauce (verdict: scream-between-each-mouthful-because-it-is-just-so-tasty delicious) and the sweet potatoes (verdict: not quite as awesome as applesauce, but still pretty awesome). Pretty soon, he's going to be peeling his own oranges and eating sushi with chopsticks.

Silas's version of the "Horn Aplenty"

My compliments to the chef!