Big Boy = Big Changes

Where do I start...I'll start at the birthday party, no, make that Friday:
Brooks didn't really sleep well with all the people and excitement of the weekend. It actually started on Friday when he didn't really nap in the morning and didn't really nap in the afternoon. Poor guy was running on little sleep and 48 hours with no poop. He almost feel asleep during his last swim lesson on Friday night. He went to bed a tad late that night, but he feel right to sleep, only to wake up around 9:30 with a poopy diaper. So I had to get him up to change him, and then convince him to go back to sleep. No good naps on Saturday during the party, either. He was a tad grumpy, but we did our best to keep him happy. One of the things that he loved was eating the cake. We ended up taking it away after he gobbled half of it up. I was worried about him getting a tummy ache. I had every right to be worried. Come bedtime, he was wired and ready to go. He was actually cracking me up! He just laughed and laughed for no reason why I was trying to put him to bed. It was so cute. I went ahead and laid him down and knew that he would fall asleep eventually. He ended up falling asleep about an hour later (8:45pm). About 10:00pm I heard him cry out and then fall back asleep, and again about 11:00pm, and again around 11:30pm. I ended up going in at around 11:30pm to soothe him a bit. (Can you tell this is going to get worse?) And then he cried out again at around midnight. I tried rocking him, nursing him (which he wanted no part in), giving him his paci, giving him milk, taking his temp...NOTHING WAS WORKING!!! I was desperate, so I even tried laying down with him in bed. I have never done this at night, but like I said, I was desperate. Once he feel asleep in bed with me for a while, and then he woke up when I tried to lay him in his crib. Then I thought I was doing too much, so I put him down and let him cry it out for a bit. It was 1:10am, so I thought that surely he was so exhausted that he would cry himself to sleep. 1:35am rolled around and he was still crying. I went in there to find my baby sitting there with puffy red eyes and a tear soaked face. You'd think that that would make me feel sad for him, but I was way beyond that point. Remember that it had now been 2 straight hours of Brooks SCREAMING. Chad tried walking around with him outside to calm him down, and as soon as he came in he screamed. Finally I rocked him a bit and tried putting him down around 2:23am. I listened to him cry for 3 minutes, and then came silence. I thought I had gone deaf! I laid in the chair in the living room for a minute and covered myself with a towel (it's all there was) and slept for about 30 minutes. I thought it might be safe to go bed. My parents were staying with us, so I was sleeping in the bed in Brooks' room. I was absolutely terrified to go in there. I tiptoed in and lay in bed and didn't move until Brooks woke up screaming around 6:45am. NOT a fun night. I got up with him and went to nurse him, and he turned his head. He wanted nothing to do with my boob. So, I guess we are done with that. My mom was nice enough to take him so Chad and I could go back to bed. She said that he was real fussy during breakfast (surprise, surprise), but then he had a huge poop, which seemed to help. Brooks took a nice 2 1/2 hour nap, and probably could've slept all day, only I was worried that if I let him sleep all day then he wouldn't sleep at night again. It was a rough night, followed by a rough day. Here are some pictures of a baby with no sleep trying to make it through the day:



He was not a happy camper. That next night (Sunday night) he slept better; Woke up a couple of times, but went right back to sleep. And he ended up sleeping in until 8:00am. Still wouldn't nurse, so like I said, I guess we are done with that. Now, my sister-in-law, Jill, suggested that maybe one reason he isn't napping so well is because he is ready for one nap. "What the heck", I thought. Everything else is changing so I might as well change his nap schedule, too. My mom and I kept him up all day on Monday and then put him down around 1:00ish. He did pretty well, and he slept about 3 hours. I went to get Chad from work around 4:45 and asked him to take me to have sushi for my birthday dinner. What was I thinking?! Apparently, Brooks didn't know it was my birthday. Now, let me backtrack a minute. Brooks is always really well-behaved when we go out to eat. We feed him lots and lots of food, and he does pretty well 95% of the time. This happened to be the only time he has ever been so fussy that we ended up getting our food to go. It was awful! I was so embarrassed! As soon as we got home he was fine, of course, and he went to bed just fine. Here's the strange part about him going to bed...no paci. I put the paci in his mouth and he took it out and threw it on the ground. Instead, he put his silk blanket in his mouth and closed his eyes. I was nervous so I put the paci in his crib just in case. Now, this morning I was hopeful that this new one nap schedule would mean that B would sleep in a bit and then we'd have a marvelous day at the park and swimming in the lake. I didn't know that the work men were coming at 6:45am to start working on the lower level of the house we are renting. Are you kiddin' me? So, guess who was screaming at 6:45am? Not necessarily what I needed today. So, back to two naps today. We had to get out of the house for Brooks to nap this morning because it was so loud downstairs. It was an awful morning up until that point because he was so tired. I don't think he has caught up on sleep from the weekend, and the forces seem to be working against catching up on any sleep. He did sleep for about an hour as I sweat my tail off walking around the neighborhood. And now, Brooks is sleeping soundly in his crib...1 1/2 hours and counting. The work men left right as I put him down, so there is finally some peace and quiet around here.
To recap, Big Boy = Big Changes:
1. Louder screaming
2. Anything that hasn't happened before is totally possible with a one-year-old
3. No more breastfeeding
4. No more paci
5. One nap (maybe)